In view of the great number of ideas which analysis furnishes for each individual element of the dream content, the chief doubt with many readers will be whether it is permissible to count everything that subsequently comes to mind during analysis as a part of the dream thoughts—to assume, in other words, that all these thoughts have been active in the sleeping state and have taken part in the formation of the dream. Is it not more probable that thought connections are developed in the course of analysis which did not participate in the formation of the dream? I can meet this doubt only conditionally. It is true, of course, that particular thought connections first arise only during analysis; but one may always be sure that such new connections have been established only between thoughts which have already been connected in the dream thoughts by other means; the new connections are, so to speak, corollaries, short circuits, which are made possible by the existence of other more fundamental means of connection. It must be admitted that the huge number of trains of thought revealed by analysis have already been active in the formation of the dream, for if a chain of thoughts has been worked out, which seems to be without connection with the formation of the dream, a thought is suddenly encountered which, being represented in the dream, is indispensable to its interpretation—which nevertheless is inaccessible except through that chain of thoughts. The reader may here turn to the dream of the botanical monograph, which is obviously the result of an astonishing condensation activity, even though I have not given the analysis of it completely.
But how, then, is the psychic condition during sleep which precedes dreaming to be imagined? Do all the dream thoughts exist side by side, or do they occur one after another, or are many simultaneous trains of thought constructed from different centres, which meet later on? I am of the opinion that it is not yet necessary to form a plastic conception of the psychic condition of dream formation. Only let us not forget that we are concerned with unconscious thought, and that the process may easily be a different one from that which we perceive in ourselves in intentional contemplation accompanied by consciousness.
The fact, however, that dream formation is based on a process of condensation, stands indubitable. How, then, is this condensation brought about?
If it be considered that of those dream thoughts which are found only the smallest number are represented in the dream by means of one of its ideal elements, it might be concluded that condensation is accomplished by means of ellipsis, in that the dream is not an accurate translation or a projection point by point of the dream thoughts, but a very incomplete and defective reproduction of them. This view, as we shall soon find, is a very inadequate one. But let us take it as a starting point for the present, and ask ourselves: If only a few of the elements of the dream thoughts get into the dream content, what conditions determine their choice?
In order to gain enlightenment on this subject let us turn our attention to those elements of the dream content which must have fulfilled the conditions we are seeking. A dream to the formation of which an especially strong condensation has contributed will be the most suitable material for this investigation. I select the dream, cited on page 142, of the botanical monograph.
Dream content: I have written a monograph upon a (obscure) certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just turning over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound with every copy as though from a herbarium.
The most prominent element of this dream is the botanical monograph. This comes from the impressions received on the day of the dream; I had actually seen a monograph on the genus “cyclamen” in the show-window of a book-store. The mention of this genus is lacking in the dream content, in which only the monograph and its relation to botany have remained. The “botanical monograph” immediately shows its relation to the work on cocaine which I had once written; thought connections proceed from cocaine on the one hand to a “Festschrift,” and on the other to my friend, the eye specialist, Dr. Koenigstein, who has had a share in the utilisation of cocaine. Moreover, with the person of this Dr. Koenigstein is connected the recollection of the interrupted conversation which I had had with him on the previous evening and of the manifold thoughts about remuneration for medical services among colleagues. This conversation, then, is properly the actual stimulus of the dream; the monograph about cyclamen is likewise an actuality but of an indifferent nature; as I soon see, the “botanical monograph” of the dream turns out to be a common mean between the two experiences of the day, and to have been taken over unchanged from an indifferent impression and bound up with the psychologically significant experience by means of the most abundant associations.
Not only the combined idea, “botanical monograph,” however, but also each of the separate elements, “botanical” and “monograph,” penetrates deeper and deeper into the confused tangle of the dream thoughts. To “botanical” belong the recollections of the person of Professor Gartner (German: Gärtner = gardener), of his blooming wife, of my patient whose name is Flora, and of a lady about whom I told the story of the forgotten flowers. Gartner, again, is connected with the laboratory and the conversation with Koenigstein; the mention of the two female patients also belongs to the same conversation. A chain of thoughts, one end of which is formed by the title of the hastily seen monograph, leads off in the other direction from the lady with the flowers to the favourite flowers of my wife. Besides this, “botanical” recalls not only an episode at the Gymnasium, but an examination taken while I was at the university; and a new subject matter—my hobbies—which was broached in the conversation already mentioned, is connected by means of my humorously so-called favourite flower, the artichoke, with the chain of thoughts proceeding from the forgotten flowers; behind “artichoke” there is concealed on the one hand a recollection of Italy, and on the other a reminiscence of a childhood scene in which I first formed my connection with books which has since grown so intimate. “Botanical,” then, is a veritable nucleus, the centre for the dream of many trains of thought, which, I may assure the reader, were correctly and justly brought into relation to one another in the conversation referred to. Here we find ourselves in a thought factory, in which, as in the “Weaver’s Masterpiece”:
“One tread moves thousands of threads,
The little shuttles fly back and forth,