WAKING CAUSED BY DREAMS, THE FUNCTION OF DREAMS, THE
ANXIETY-DREAM

Now that we know that throughout the night the preconscious is orientated to the wish to
sleep, we can follow the dream process with proper understanding. But let us first
summarise what we already know about this process. We have seen that day-residues are
left over from the waking activity of the mind, residues from which it has not been
possible to withdraw all cathexis. Either one of the unconscious wishes has been aroused
through the waking activity during the day or it so happens that the two coincide; we
have already discussed the multifarious possibilities. Either already during the day or
only on the establishment of the state of sleep the unconscious wish has made its way to
the day-residues, and has effected a transference to them. Thus there arises a wish
transferred to recent material; or the suppressed recent wish is revived by a reinforcement
from the unconscious. This wish now endeavours to make its way to consciousness along
the normal path of the thought processes, through the preconscious, to which indeed it
belongs by virtue of one of its constituent elements. It is, however, confronted by the
censorship which still subsists, and to whose influence it soon succumbs. It now takes on
the distortion for which the way has already been paved by the transference to recent
material. So far it is on the way to becoming something resembling an obsession, a
delusion, or the like, i.e. a thought reinforced by a transference, and distorted in
expression owing to the censorship. But its further progress is now checked by the state
of sleep of the preconscious; this system has presumably protected itself against invasion
by diminishing its excitations. The dream-process, therefore, takes the regressive course,
which is just opened up by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and in so doing follows
the attraction exerted on it by memory-groups, which are, in part only, themselves present
as visual cathexis, not as translations into the symbols of the later systems. On its way to
regression it acquires representability. The subject of compression will be discussed later.
The dream-process has by this time covered the second part of its contorted course. The
first part threads its way progressively from the unconscious scenes or fantasies to the
preconscious, while the second part struggles back from the boundary of the censorship
to the tract of the perceptions. But when the dream-process becomes a perceptioncontent,
it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the Pcs. by the censorship and
the sleeping state. It succeeds in drawing attention to itself, and in being remarked by
consciousness. For consciousness, which for us means a sense-organ for the apprehension
of psychic qualities, can be excited in waking life from two sources: firstly, from the
periphery of the whole apparatus, the perceptive system; and secondly, from the
excitations of pleasure and pain which emerge as the sole psychic qualities yielded by the
transpositions of energy in the interior of the apparatus. All other processes in the y-
systems, even those in the preconscious, are devoid of all psychic quality, and are
therefore not objects of consciousness, inasmuch as they do not provide either pleasure or
pain for its perception. We shall have to assume that these releases of pleasure and pain
automatically regulate the course of the cathectic processes. But in order to make
possible more delicate performances, it subsequently proved necessary to render the flow
of ideas more independent of pain-signals. To accomplish this, the Pcs. system needed
qualities of its own which could attract consciousness, and most probably received them
through the connection of the preconscious processes with the memory-system of speech
symbols, which was not devoid of quality. Through the qualities of this system,
consciousness, hitherto only a sense-organ for perceptions, now becomes also a senseorgan
for a part of our thought-processes. There are now, as it were, two sensory
surfaces, one turned toward perception and the other toward the preconscious thoughtprocesses.
I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness which is turned to the
preconscious is rendered far more unexcitable by sleep than the surface turned toward the
P-system. The giving up of interest in the nocturnal thought-process is, of course, an
appropriate procedure. Nothing is to happen in thought; the preconscious wants to sleep.
But once the dream becomes perception, it is capable of exciting consciousness through
the qualities now gained. The sensory excitation performs what is in fact its function;
namely, it directs a part of the cathectic energy available in the Pcs. to the exciting cause
in the form of attention. We must therefore admit that the dream always has a waking
effect -- that is, it calls into activity part of the quiescent energy of the Pcs. Under the
influence of this energy, it now undergoes the process which we have described as
secondary elaboration with a view to coherence and comprehensibility. This means that
the dream is treated by this energy like any other perception-content; it is subjected to the
same anticipatory ideas as far, at least, as the material allows. As far as this third part of
the dream-process has any direction, this is once more progressive.
To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss to say a few words as to the temporal
characteristics of these dream-processes. In a very interesting discussion, evidently
suggested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream, Goblot tries to demonstrate that a dream
takes up no other time than the transition period between sleeping and waking. The
process of waking up requires time; during this time the dream occurs. It is supposed that
the final picture of the dream is so vivid that it forces the dreamer to wake; in reality it is
so vivid only because when it appears the dreamer is already very near waking. `Un rêve,
c'est un réveil qui commence.'
It has already been pointed out by Dugas that Goblot, in order to generalise his theory,
was forced to ignore a great many facts. There are also dreams from which we do not
awaken; for example, many dreams in which we dream that we dream. From our
knowledge of the dream-work, we can by no means admit that it extends only over the
period of waking. On the contrary, we must consider it probable that the first part of the
dream-work is already begun during the day, when we are still under the domination of
the preconscious. The second phase of the dream-work, viz. the alteration by the
censorship, the attraction exercised by unconscious scenes, and the penetration to
perception, continues probably all through the night, and accordingly we may always be
correct when we report a feeling that we have been dreaming all night, even although we
cannot say what we have dreamed. I do not, however, think that it is necessary to assume
that up to the time of becoming conscious the dream-processes really follow the temporal
sequence which we have described; viz. that there is first the transferred dream-wish,
then the process of distortion due to the censorship, and then the change of direction to
regression, etc. We were obliged to construct such a sequence for the sake of description;
in reality, however, it is probably rather a question of simultaneously trying this path and
that, and of the excitation fluctuating to and fro, until finally, because it has attained the
most apposite concentration, one particular grouping remains in the field. Certain
personal experiences even incline me to believe that the dream-work often requires more
than one day and one night to produce its result, in which case the extraordinary art
manifested in the construction of the dream is shorn of its miraculous character. In my
opinion, even the regard for the comprehensibility of the dream as a perceptual event may
exert its influence before the dream attracts consciousness to itself. From this point,
however, the process is accelerated, since the dream is henceforth subjected to the same
treatment as any other perception. It is like fireworks, which require hours for their
preparation and then flare up in a moment.
Through the dream-work, the dream-process now either gains sufficient intensity to
attract consciousness to itself and to arouse the preconscious (quite independently of the
time or profundity of sleep), or its intensity is insufficient, and it must wait in readiness
until attention, becoming more alert immediately before waking, meets it half-way. Most
dreams seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the
process of waking. This, then, explains the fact that as a rule we perceive something
dreamed if we are suddenly roused from a deep sleep. Here, as well as in spontaneous
waking, our first glance lights upon the perception-content created by the dream-work,
while the next falls on that provided by the outer world.
But of greater theoretical interest are those dreams which are capable of waking us in the
midst of our sleep. We may bear in mind the purposefulness which can be demonstrated
in all other cases, and ask ourselves why the dream, that is, the unconscious wish, is
granted the power to disturb our sleep, i.e. the fulfilment of the preconscious wish. The
explanation is probably to be found in certain relations of energy which we do not yet
understand. If we did so, we should probably find that the freedom given to the dream
and the expenditure upon it of a certain detached attention represent a saving of energy as
against the alternative case of the unconscious having to be held in check at night just as
it is during the day. As experience shows, dreaming, even if it interrupts our sleep several
times a night, still remains compatible with sleep. We wake up for a moment, and
immediately fall asleep again. It is like driving off a fly in our sleep; we awake ad hoc.
When we fall asleep again we have removed the cause of disturbance. The familiar
examples of the sleep of wet-nurses, etc., show that the fulfilment of the wish to sleep is
quite compatible with the maintenance of a certain amount of attention in a given
direction.
But we must here take note of an objection which is based on a greater knowledge of the
unconscious processes. We have ourselves described the unconscious wishes as always
active, whilst nevertheless asserting that in the daytime they are not strong enough to
make themselves perceptible. But when the state of sleep supervenes, and the
unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream, and with it to awaken the
preconscious, why does this power lapse after cognisance has been taken of the dream?
Would it not seem more probable that the dream should continually renew itself, like the
disturbing fly which, when driven away, takes pleasure in returning again and again?
What justification have we for our assertion that the dream removes the disturbance to
sleep?
It is quite true that the unconscious wishes are always active. They represent paths which
are always practicable, whenever a quantum of excitation makes use of them. It is indeed
an outstanding peculiarity of the unconscious processes that they are indestructible.
Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is past or forgotten. This is
impressed upon us emphatically in the study of the neuroses, and especially of hysteria.
The unconscious path of thought which leads to the discharge through an attack is
forthwith passable again when there is a sufficient accumulation of excitation. The
mortification suffered thirty years ago operates, after having gained access to the
unconscious sources of affect, during all these thirty years as though it were a recent
experience. Whenever its memory is touched, it revives, and shows itself to be cathected
with excitation which procures a motor discharge for itself in an attack. It is precisely
here that psychotherapy must intervene, its task being to ensure that the unconscious
processes are settled and forgotten. Indeed, the fading of memories and the weak affect of
impressions which are no longer recent, which we are apt to take as self-evident, and to
explain as a primary effect of time on our psychic memory-residues, are in reality
secondary changes brought about by laborious work. It is the preconscious that
accomplishes this work; and the only course which psychotherapy can pursue is to bring
the Ucs. under the dominion of the Pcs.
There are, therefore, two possible issues for any single unconscious excitation-process.
Either it is left to itself, in which case it ultimately breaks through somewhere and
secures, on this one occasion, a discharge for its excitation into motility, or it succumbs to
the influence of the preconscious, and through this its excitation becomes bound instead
of being discharged. It is the latter case that occurs in the dream-process. The cathexis
from the Pcs. which goes to meet the dream once this has attained to perception, because
it has been drawn thither by the excitation of consciousness, binds the unconscious
excitation of the dream and renders it harmless as a disturber of sleep. When the dreamer
wakes up for a moment, he has really chased away the fly that threatened to disturb his
sleep. We may now begin to suspect that it is really more expedient and economical to
give way to the unconscious wish, to leave clear its path to regression so that it may form
a dream, and then to bind and dispose of this dream by means of a small outlay of
preconscious work, than to hold the unconscious in check throughout the whole period of
sleep. It was, indeed, to be expected that the dream, even if originally it was not a
purposeful process, would have seized upon some definite function in the play of forces
of the psychic life. We now see what this function is. The dream has taken over the task
of bringing the excitation of the Ucs., which had been left free, back under the
domination of the preconscious; it thus discharges the excitation of the Ucs., acts as a
safety-valve for the latter, and at the same time, by a slight outlay of waking activity,
secures the sleep of the preconscious. Thus, like the other psychic formations of its
group, the dream offers itself as a compromise, serving both systems simultaneously, by
fulfilling the wishes of both, in so far as they are mutually compatible. A glance at
Robert's `elimination theory' will show that we must agree with this author on his main
point, namely, the determination of the function of dreams, though we differ from him in
our general presuppositions and in our estimation of the dream-process.1
The above qualification -- in so far as the two wishes are mutually compatible -- contains
a suggestion that there may be cases in which the function of the dream fails. The dreamprocess
is, to begin with, admitted as a wish-fulfilment of the unconscious, but if this
attempted wish-fulfilment disturbs the preconscious so profoundly that the latter can no
longer maintain its state of rest, the dream has broken the compromise, and has failed to
perform the second part of its task. It is then at once broken off, and replaced by complete
awakening. But even here it is not really the fault of the dream if, though at other times
the guardian, it has now to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor need this prejudice us
against its averred purposive character. This is not the only instance in the organism in
which a contrivance that is usually to the purpose becomes inappropriate and disturbing
so soon as something is altered in the conditions which engender it; the disturbance, then,
at all events serves the new purpose of indicating the change, and of bringing into play
against it the means of adjustment of the organism. Here, of course, I am thinking of the
anxiety-dream, and lest it should seem that I try to evade this witness against the theory
of wish-fulfilment whenever I encounter it, I will at least give some indications as to the
explanation of the anxiety-dream.
That a psychic process which develops anxiety may still be a wish-fulfilment has long
ceased to imply any contradiction for us. We may explain this occurrence by the fact that
the wish belongs to one system (the Ucs.), whereas the other system (the Pcs.) has
rejected and suppressed it.2 The subjection of the Ucs. by the Pcs. is not thoroughgoing
even in perfect psychic health; the extent of this suppression indicates the degree of our
psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms indicate to us that the two systems are in mutual
conflict; the symptoms are the result of a compromise in this conflict, and they
temporarily put an end to it. On the one hand they afford the Ucs. a way out for the
discharge of its excitation -- they serve it as a kind of sally-gate -- while, on the other
hand, they give the Pcs. the possibility of dominating the Ucs. in some degree. It is
instructive to consider, for example, the significance of a hysterical phobia, or of
agoraphobia. A neurotic is said to be incapable of crossing the street alone, and this we
should rightly call a `symptom'. Let someone now remove this symptom by constraining
him to this action which he deems himself incapable of performing. The result will be an
attack of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often been the exciting
cause of the establishment of an agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has been
constituted in order to prevent the anxiety from breaking out. The phobia is thrown up
before the anxiety like a frontier fortress.
We cannot enlarge further on this subject unless we examine the role of the affects in
these processes, which can only be done here imperfectly. We will therefore affirm the
proposition that the principal reason why the suppression of the Ucs. becomes necessary
is that if the movement of ideas in the Ucs. were allowed to run its course, it would
develop an affect which originally had the character of pleasure, but which, since the
process of repression, bears the character of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of the
suppression is to prevent the development of this pain. The suppression extends to the
idea-content of the Ucs., because the liberation of pain might emanate from this ideacontent.
We here take as our basis a quite definite assumption as to the nature of the
development of affect. This is regarded as a motor or secretory function, the key to the
innervation of which is to be found in the ideas of the Ucs. Through the domination of the
Pcs. these ideas are as it were strangled, that is, inhibited from sending out the impulse
that would develop the affect. The danger which arises if cathexis by the Pcs. ceases thus
consists in the fact that the unconscious excitations would liberate an affect that -- in
consequence of the repression that has previously occurred -- could only be felt as pain or
anxiety.
This danger is released if the dream-process is allowed to have its own way. The
conditions for its realisation are, that repressions shall have occurred, and that the
suppressed wish-impulses can become sufficiently strong. They therefore fall entirely
outside the psychological framework of dream-formation. Were it not for the fact that our
theme is connected by just one factor with the theme of the development of anxiety,
namely, by the setting free of the Ucs. during sleep, I could refrain from the discussion of
the anxiety-dream altogether, and thus avoid all the obscurities involved in it.
The theory of the anxiety-dream belongs, as I have already repeatedly stated, to the
psychology of the neuroses. I might further add that anxiety in dreams is an anxietyproblem
and not a dream-problem. Having once exhibited the point of contact of the
psychology of the neuroses with the theme of the dream-process, we have nothing further
to do with it. There is only one thing left which I can do. Since I have asserted that
neurotic anxiety has its origin in sexual sources, I can subject anxiety-dreams to analysis
in order to demonstrate the sexual material in their dream-thoughts.
For good reasons I refrain from citing any of the examples so abundantly placed at my
disposal by neurotic patients, and prefer to give some anxiety-dreams of children.
Personally, I have no real anxiety-dream for decades, but I do recall one from my seventh
or eighth year which I subjected to interpretation some thirty years later. The dream was
very vivid, and showed me my beloved mother, with a peculiarly calm, sleeping
countenance, carried into the room and laid on the bed by two (or three) persons with
birds' beaks. I awoke crying and screaming, and disturbed my parents' sleep. The
peculiarly draped, excessively tall figures with beaks I had taken from the illustrations of
Philippson's Bible; I believe they represented deities with the heads of sparrowhawks
from an Egyptian tomb-relief. The analysis yielded, however, also the recollection of a
house-porter's boy, who used to play with us children on meadow in front of the house; I
might add that his name was Philip. It seemed to me then that I first heard from this boy
the vulgar word signifying sexual intercourse, which is replaced among educated persons
by the Latin word coitus, but which the dream plainly enough indicates by the choice of
the birds' heads.3 I must have guessed the sexual significance of the word from the look
of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's expression in the dream was copied from the
countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring in a
state of coma. The interpretation of the secondary elaboration in the dream must therefore
have been that my mother was dying; the tomb-relief, too, agrees with this. I awoke with
this anxiety, and could not calm myself until I had waked my parents. I remember that I
suddenly became calm when I saw my mother; it was as though I had needed the
assurance: then she is not dead. But this secondary interpretation of the dream had only
taken place when the influence of the developed anxiety was already at work. I was not in
a state of anxiety because I had dreamt that my mother was dying; I interpreted the dream
in this manner in the preconscious elaboration because I was already under the
domination of the anxiety. The latter, however, could be traced back, through the
repression to a dark, plainly sexual craving, which had found appropriate expression in
the visual content of the dream.
A man twenty-seven years of age, who had been seriously ill for a year, had repeatedly
dreamed, between the ages of eleven and thirteen, dreams attended with great anxiety, to
the effect that a man with a hatchet was running after him; he wanted to run away, but
seemed to be paralysed, and could not move from the spot. This may be taken as a good
and typical example of a very common anxiety-dream, free from any suspicion of a
sexual meaning. In the analysis, the dreamer first thought of a story told him by his uncle
(chronologically later than the dream), viz. that he was attacked at night in the street by a
suspicious-looking individual; and he concluded from this association that he might have
heard of a similar episode at the time of the dream. In association with the hatchet, he
recalled that during this period of his life he once hurt his hand with a hatchet while
chopping wood. This immediately reminded him of his relations with his younger
brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock down. He recalled, in particular, one
occasion when he hit his brother's head with his boot and made it bleed, and his mother
said: `I'm afraid he will kill him one day.' While he seemed to be thus held by the theme
of violence, a memory from his ninth year suddenly emerged. His parents had come
home late and had gone to bed, whilst he was pretending to be asleep. He soon heard
panting, and other sounds that seemed to him mysterious, and he could also guess the
position of his parents in bed. His further thoughts showed that he had established an
analogy between this relation between his parents and his own relation to his younger
brother. He subsumed what was happening between his parents under the notion of `an
act of violence and a fight.' The fact that he had frequently noticed blood in his mother's
bed corroborated this conception.
That the sexual intercourse of adults appears strange and alarming to children who
observe it, and arouses anxiety in them, is, I may say, a fact established by everyday
experience. I have explained this anxiety on the ground that we have here a sexual
excitation which is not mastered by the child's understanding, and which probably also
encounters repulsion because their parents are involved, and is therefore transformed into
anxiety. At a still earlier period of life the sexual impulse towards the parent of opposite
sex does not yet suffer repression, but as we have seen (pp. 84-5) expresses itself freely.
For the night terrors with hallucinations (pavor nocturnus) so frequent in children I
should without hesitation offer the same explanation. These, too, can only be due to
misunderstood and rejected sexual impulses which, if recorded, would probably show a
temporal periodicity, since an intensification of sexual libido may equally be produced by
accidentally exciting impressions and by spontaneous periodic processes of development.
I have not the necessary observational material for the full demonstration of this
explanation.4 On the other hand, pediatrists seem to lack the point of view which alone
makes intelligible the whole series of phenomena, both from the somatic and from the
psychic side. To illustrate by a comical example how closely, if one is made blind by the
blinkers of medical mythology, one may pass by the understanding of such cases, I will
cite a case which I found in a thesis on pavor nocturnus (Debacker, 1881, p. 66).
A boy of thirteen, in delicate health, began to be anxious and dreamy; his sleep became
uneasy, and once almost every week it was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with
hallucinations. The memory of these dreams was always very distinct. Thus he was able
to relate that the devil had shouted at him: `Now we have you, now we have you!' and
then there was a smell of pitch and brimstone, and the fire burned his skin. From this
dream he woke in terror; at first he could not cry out; then his voice came back to him,
and he was distinctly heard to say: `No, no, not me; I haven't done anything,' or: `Please,
don't; I will never do it again!' At other times he said: `Albert has never done that!' Later
he avoided undressing, `because the fire attacked him only when he was undressed.' In
the midst of these evil dreams, which were endangering his health, he was sent into the
country, where he recovered in the course of eighteen months. At the age of fifteen he
confessed one day: `Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais j'éprouvais continuellement des
picotements et des surexcitations aux parties;5 à la fin, cela m'énervait tant que plusieurs
fois j'ai pensé me jeter par la fenêtre du dortoir.'
It is, of course, not difficult to guess: (1) That the boy had practised masturbation in
former years, that he had probably denied it, and was threatened with severe punishment
for his bad habit. (His confession: Je ne le ferai plus; his denial: Albert n'a jamais fait ça)
(2) That under the advancing pressure of puberty the temptation to masturbate was
reawakened through the titillation of the genitals. (3) That now, however, there arose
within him a struggle for repression, which suppressed the libido and transformed it into
anxiety, and that this anxiety now gathered up the punishments with which he was
originally threatened.
Let us, on the other hand, see what conclusions were drawn by the author (p. 69):
1. It is clear from this observation that the influence of puberty may produce in a
boy of delicate health a condition of extreme weakness, and that this may lead to a
very marked cerebral anaemia.6
2. This cerebral anaemia produces an alteration of character, demonomaniacal
hallucinations, and very violent nocturnal, and perhaps also diurnal, states of
anxiety.
3. The demonomania and the self-reproaches of the boy can be traced to the
influences of a religious education which had acted upon him as a child.
4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of a lengthy sojourn in the country,
bodily exercise, and the return of physical strength after the termination of
puberty.
5. Possibly an influence predisposing to the development of the boy's cerebral state
may be attributed to heredity and to the father's former syphilis.
Then finally come the concluding remarks: `Nous avons fait entrer cette observation dans
le cadre délires apyrétiques d'inanition, car c'est à l'ischémie cérébrale que nous
rattachons cet état particulier.'
1 Is this the only function which we can attribute to dreams? I know of no other. A.
Maeder, to be sure, has endeavoured to claim for the dream yet other `secondary'
functions. He started from the just observation that many dreams contain attempts to
provide solutions of conflicts, which are afterwards actually carried through. They thus
behave like preparatory practice for waking activities. He therefore drew a parallel
between dreaming and the play of animals and children, which is to be conceived as a
training of the inherited instincts, and a preparation for their later serious activity, thus
setting up a fonction ludique for the dream. A little while before Maeder, Alfred Adler
likewise emphasised the function of `thinking ahead' in the dream. (An analysis which I
published in 1905 contained a dream which may be conceived as a resolution-dream,
which was repeated night after night until it was realised.)
But an obvious reflection must show us that this `secondary' function of the dream has no
claim to recognition within the framework of any dream-interpretation. Thinking ahead,
making resolutions, sketching out attempted solutions which can then perhaps be realised
in waking life -- these and many more performances are functions of the unconscious and
preconscious activities of the mind which continue as `day-residues' in the sleeping state,
and can then combine with an unconscious wish to form a dream (see pp. 399-400). The
function of `thinking ahead' in the dream is thus rather a function of preconscious waking
thought, the result of which may be disclosed to us by the analysis of dreams or other
phenomena. After the dream has so long been fused with its manifest content, one must
now guard against confusing it with the latent dream-thoughts.
2 `A second consideration, much more important and far-reaching, but equally overlooked
by the laity, is the following. A wish-fulfilment must certainly bring some pleasure; but
we go on to ask; ``To whom?'' Of course to the person who has the wish. But we know
that the attitude of the dreamer towards his wishes is a peculiar one: he rejects them,
censors them, in short, he will have none of them. Their fulfilment, then, can afford him
no pleasure, rather the opposite, and here experience shows that this ``opposite'', which
has still to be explained, takes the form of anxiety. The dreamer, where his wishes are
concerned, is like two separate people closely linked together by some important thing in
common. Instead of enlarging upon this I will remind you of a well-known fairy-tale in
which you will see these relationships repeated. A good fairy promised a poor man and
his wife to fulfil their first three wishes. They were delighted, and made up their minds to
choose the wishes carefully. But the woman was tempted by the smell of some sausages
being cooked in the next cottage and wished for two like them. Lo! and behold, there they
were -- and the first wish was fulfilled. With that, the man lost his temper and in his
resentment wished that the sausages might hang on the tip of his wife's nose. This also
came to pass and the sausages could not be removed from their position; so the second
wish was fulfilled, but it was the man's wish and its fulfilment was most unpleasant for
the woman. You know the rest of the story: as they were after all man and wife the third
wish had to be that the sausages should come off the end of the woman's nose. We might
make use of this fairytale many times over in other contexts, but here it need only serve
to illustrate the fact that it is possible for the fulfilment of one person's wish to be very
disagreeable to someone else, unless the two people are entirely at one!' Introductory
Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, London, 1929, pp. 182-83.
3 [The German of the word `bird' is Vogel, which gives origin to the vulgar expression
vögeln, denoting sexual intercourse. -- TRANS.]
4 This material has since been provided in abundance by the literature of psychoanalysis.
5 The emphasis is my own, though the meaning is plain enough without it.
6 The italics are mine.