The tests of this explanation which I was able to make in my own case and in that of others, although they were not sufficiently numerous, have been altogether successful. I failed, for example, in the examination for the doctor’s degree in legal medicine; never once have I been concerned about this matter in my dreams, while I have often enough been examined in botany, zoology, or chemistry, in which subjects I took the examinations with well-founded anxiety, but escaped punishment through the clemency of fortune or of the examiner. In my dreams of college examination, I am regularly examined in history, a subject which I passed brilliantly at the time, but only, I must admit, because my good-natured professor—my one-eyed benefactor in another dream (cf. p. 12)—did not overlook the fact that on the list of questions I had crossed out the second of three questions as an indication that he should not insist on it. One of my patients, who withdrew before the final college examinations and made them up later, but who failed in the officer’s examination and did not become an officer, tells me that he dreams about the former examination often enough, but never about the latter.
The above-mentioned colleague (Dr. Stekel of Vienna) calls attention to the double meaning of the word “Matura” (Matura—examination for college degree: mature, ripe), and claims that he has observed that examination dreams occur very frequently when a sexual test is set for the following day, in which, therefore, the disgrace which is feared might consist in the manifestation of slight potency. A German colleague takes exception to this, as it appears, justly, on the ground that this examination is denominated in Germany the Abiturium and hence lacks this double meaning.
On account of their similar affective impression dreams of missing a train deserve to be placed next to examination dreams. Their explanation also justifies this relationship. They are consolation dreams directed against another feeling of fear perceived in the dream, the fear of dying. “To depart” is one of the most frequent and one of the most easily reached symbols of death. The dream thus says consolingly: “Compose yourself, you are not going to die (to depart),” just as the examination dream calms us by saying “Fear not, nothing will happen to you even this time.” The difficulty in understanding both kinds of dreams is due to the fact that the feeling of anxiety is directly connected with the expression of consolation. Stekel treats fully the symbolisms of death in his recently published book Die Sprache des Traumes.
The meaning of the “dreams of dental irritation,” which I have had to analyse often enough with my patients, escaped me for a long time, because, much to my astonishment, resistances that were altogether too great obstructed their interpretation.
At last overwhelming evidence convinced me that, in the case of men, nothing else than cravings for masturbation from the time of puberty furnishes the motive power for these dreams. I shall analyse two such dreams, one of which is likewise “a dream of flight.” The two dreams are of the same person—a young man with a strong homosexuality, which, however, has been repressed in life.
He is witnessing a performance of Fidelio from the parquette of the opera house; he is sitting next to L., whose personality is congenial to him, and whose friendship he would like to have. He suddenly flies diagonally clear across the parquette; he then puts his hand in his mouth and draws out two of his teeth.
He himself describes the flight by saying it was as if he were “thrown” into the air. As it was a performance of Fidelio he recalls the poet’s words:
“He who a charming wife acquired——”
But even the acquisition of a charming wife is not among the wishes of the dreamer. Two other verses would be more appropriate:
“He who succeeds in the lucky (big) throw,