The construction of collective and composite persons is one of the chief resources of the activity of dream condensation. There will soon be an occasion for treating of this in another connection.
The notion “dysentery” in the dream about the injection likewise has a manifold determination, on the one hand because of its paraphasic assonance with diphtheria, and on the other because of its reference to the patient, whom I have sent to the Orient, and whose hysteria has been wrongly recognised.
The mention of “propyls” in the dream also proves to be an interesting case of condensation. Not “propyls” but “amyls” were contained in the dream thoughts. One might think that here a simple displacement had occurred in the dream formation. And this is the case, but the displacement serves the purposes of condensation, as is shown by the following supplementary analysis. If I dwell for a moment upon the word “propyls,” its assonance to the word “propylæum” suggests itself to me. But the propylæum is to be found not only in Athens but also in Munich. In the latter city I visited a friend the year before who was seriously ill, and the reference to him becomes unmistakable on account of trimethylamin, which follows closely upon propyls.
I pass over the striking circumstance that here, as elsewhere in the analysis of dreams, associations of the most widely different values are employed for the establishment of thought connections as though they were equivalent, and I yield to the temptation to regard the process by which amyls in the dream thoughts are replaced by propyls, as though it were plastic in the dream content.
On the one hand is the chain of ideas about my friend Otto, who does not understand me, who thinks I am in the wrong, and who gives me the cordial that smells like amyls; on the other the chain of ideas—connected with the first by contrast—about my friend William, who understands me and who would always think I was in the right, and to whom I am indebted for so much valuable information about the chemistry of the sexual processes.
Those characteristics of the associations centering about Otto which ought particularly to attract my attention are determined by the recent occasions which are responsible for the dream; amyls belong to these elements so determined which are destined to get into the dream content. The group of associations “William” is distinctly vivified by the contrast to Otto, and the elements in it which correspond to those already excited in the “Otto” associations are thrown into relief. In this whole dream I am continually referring to a person who excites my displeasure and to another person whom I can oppose to him or her at will, and I conjure up the friend as against the enemy, feature for feature. Thus amyls in the Otto-group suggests recollections in the other group belonging to chemistry; trimethylamin, which receives support from several quarters, finds its way into the dream content. “Amyls,” too, might have got into the dream content without undergoing change, but it yields to the influence of the “William” group of associations, owing to the fact that an element which is capable of furnishing a double determination for amyls is sought out from the whole range of recollections which the name “William” covers. The association “propyls” lies in the neighbourhood of amyls; Munich with the propylæum comes to meet amyls from the series of associations belonging to “William.” Both groups are united in propyls—propylœum. As though by a compromise, this intermediary element gets into the dream content. Here a common mean which permits of a manifold determination has been created. It thus becomes perfectly obvious that manifold determination must facilitate penetration into the dream content. A displacement of attention from what is really intended to something lying near in the associations has thoughtlessly taken place, for the sake of this mean-formation.
The study of the injection dream has now enabled us to get some insight into the process of condensation which takes place in the formation of dreams. The selection of those elements which occur in the dream content more than once, the formation of new unities (collective persons, composite images), and the construction of the common mean, these we have been able to recognise as details of the condensing process. The purpose which is served by condensation and the means by which it is brought about will be investigated when we come to study the psychic processes in the formation of dreams as a whole. Let us be content for the present with establishing dream condensation as an important relation between the dream thoughts and the dream content.
The condensing activity of the dream becomes most tangible when it has selected words and names as its object. In general words are often treated as things by the dream, and thus undergo the same combinations, displacements, and substitutions, and therefore also condensations, as ideas of things. The results of such dreams are comical and bizarre word formations. Upon one occasion when a colleague had sent me one of his essays, in which he had, in my judgment, overestimated the value of a recent physiological discovery and had expressed himself in extravagant terms, I dreamed the following night a sentence which obviously referred to this treatise: “That is in true norekdal style.” The solution of this word formation at first gave me difficulties, although it was unquestionably formed as a parody after the pattern of the superlatives “colossal,” “pyramidal”; but to tell where it came from was not easy. At last the monster fell apart into the two names Nora and Ekdal from two well-known plays by Ibsen. I had previously read a newspaper essay on Ibsen by the same author, whose latest work I was thus criticising in the dream.
II.[[DN]] One of my female patients dreams that a man with a light beard and a peculiar glittering eye is pointing to a sign board attached to a tree which reads: uclamparia—wet.
Analysis. The man was rather authoritative looking, and his peculiar glittering eye at once recalled St. Paul’s Cathedral, near Rome, where she saw in mosaics the Popes that have so far ruled. One of the early Popes had a golden eye (this was really an optical illusion which the guides usually call attention to). Further associations showed that the general physiognomy corresponded to her own clergyman (Pope), and the shape of the light beard recalled her doctor (myself), while the stature of the man in the dream recalled her father. All these persons stand in the same relation to her; they are all guiding and directing her course of life. On further questioning, the golden eye recalled gold—money—the rather expensive psychoanalytic treatment which gives her a great deal of concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold cure for alcoholism—Mr. D., whom she would have married if it had not been for his clinging to the disgusting alcohol habit—she does not object to a person taking an occasional drink; she herself sometimes drinks beer and cordials—this again brings her back to her visit to St. Paul’s without the walls and its surroundings. She remembers that in the neighbouring monastery of the Three Fountains she drank a liquor made of eucalyptus by the Trappist monks who inhabit this monastery. She then relates how the monks transformed this malarial and swampy region into a dry and healthful neighbourhood by planting there many eucalyptus trees. The word “uclamparia” then resolves itself into eucalyptus and malaria, and the word “wet” refers to the former swampy nature of the place. Wet also suggests dry. Dry is actually the name of the man whom she would have married except for his over-indulgence in alcohol. The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic origin (drei = three) and hence alludes to the Abbey of the Three (drei) Fountains above mentioned. In talking about Mr. Dry’s habit she used the strong words, “He could drink a fountain.” Mr. Dry jocosely refers to his habit by saying, “You know I must drink because I am always dry” (referring to his name). The eucalyptus also refers to her neurosis, which was at first diagnosed as malaria. She went to Italy because her attacks of anxiety, which were accompanied by marked trembling and shivering, were thought to be of malarial origin. She bought some eucalyptus oil from the monks, and she maintains that it has done her much good.