But for a long time I was unable to account for the “Non Vixit,” with which I execute sentence in the dream, until I remembered that these two words possessed such great distinctness in the dream, not because they were heard or spoken, but because they were seen. Then I knew at once where they came from. On the pedestal of the statue of Emperor Joseph in the Hofburg at Vienna, may be read the following beautiful words:
Saluti patriae vixit
non diu sed totus.
I had culled from this inscription something which suited the one inimical train of thought in the dream thoughts and which now intended to mean: “That fellow has nothing to say, he is not living at all.” And I now recalled that the dream was dreamed a few days after the unveiling of the memorial to Fleischl in the arcades of the university, upon which occasion I had again seen Bruecke’s statue and must have thought with regret (in the unconscious) how my highly gifted friend P. with his great devotion to science had forfeited his just claim to a statue in these halls by his premature death. So I set up this memorial to him in the dream; the first name of my friend P. is Joseph.[[EP]]
According to the rules of dream interpretation, I should still not be justified in replacing non vivit, which I need, by non vixit, which is placed at my disposal by the recollection of the Joseph monument. Something now calls my attention to the fact that in the dream scene, two trains of thought concerning my friend P. meet, one hostile, the other friendly—of which the former is superficial, the latter veiled, and both are given representation in the same words: non vixit. Because my friend P. has deserved well of science, I erect a statue to him; but because he has been guilty of an evil wish (which is expressed at the end of the dream) I destroy him. I have here constructed a sentence of peculiar resonance, and I must have been influenced by some model. But where can I find similar antithesis, such a parallel between two opposite attitudes towards the same person, both claiming to be entirely valid, and yet both trying not to encroach upon each other? Such a parallel is to be found in a single place, where, however, a deep impression is made upon the reader—in Brutus’ speech of justification in Shakespeare’s Julius Cæsar: “As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.” Is not this which I have discovered, the same sentence structure and thought contrast as in the dream thought? I thus play Brutus in the dream. If I could only find in the dream thoughts, one further trace of confirmation for this astonishing collateral connection! I think the following might be such: My friend comes to Vienna in July. This detail finds no support whatever in reality. To my knowledge my friend has never been in Vienna during the month of July. But the month of July is named after Julius Cæsar, and might therefore very well furnish the required allusion to the intermediary thought that I am playing the part of Brutus.[[EQ]]
Strangely enough I once actually played the part of Brutus. I presented the scene between Brutus and Cæsar from Schiller’s poems to an audience of children when I was a boy of fourteen years. I did this with my nephew, who was a year older than I, and who had come to us from England—also a revenant—for in him I recognised the playmate of my first childish years. Until the end of my third year we had been inseparable, had loved each other and scuffled with each other, and, as I have already intimated, this childish relation has constantly determined my later feelings in my intercourse with persons of my own age. My nephew John has since found many incarnations, which have revivified first one aspect, then another, of this character which is so ineradicably fixed in my unconscious memory. Occasionally he must have treated me very badly and I must have shown courage before my tyrant, for in later years I have often been told of the short speech with which I vindicated myself when my father—his grandfather—called me to account: “I hit him because he hit me.” This childish scene must be the one which causes non vivit to branch off into non vixit, for in the language of later childhood striking is called wichsen (German, wichsen—to smear with shoe-polish, to tan, i.e., to flog); the dream activity does not hesitate to take advantage of such connections. My hostility towards my friend P., which has so little foundation in reality—he was far superior to me, and might therefore have been a new edition of the playmate of my childhood—can certainly be traced to my complicated relations with John during our infancy. I shall, however, return to this dream later.
(f) Absurd Dreams—Intellectual Performances in the Dream
In our interpretation of dreams thus far we have come upon the element of absurdity in the dream-content so often that we must no longer postpone an investigation of its cause and significance. We remember, of course, that the absurdity of dreams has furnished the opponents of dream investigation with their chief argument for considering the dream nothing but the meaningless product of a reduced and fragmentary activity of the mind.
I begin with specimens in which the absurdity of the dream-content is only apparent and immediately disappears when the dream is more thoroughly examined. There are a few dreams which—accidentally one is at first inclined to think—are concerned with the dead father of the dreamer.
I. Here is the dream of a patient who had lost his father six years before: