- analysis, their opposition being based on well-known prejudices
and misunderstandings. When I had the chance of analyzing them, whereby they obtained at last a real insight into the method, the first mistake generally made in their own psychoanalytic work was that they did violence to the material by their own preconceived opinion. They gave vent to their former prejudice against psychoanalysis in their attitude towards the material, which they could not estimate objectively, but only according to their subjective phantasies.
If one would have the courage to sift dream material, one must not recoil from any parallel. The dream material generally consists of very heterogeneous associations, out of which it is sometimes very difficult to deduce the tertium comparationis. I refrain from giving detailed examples, as it is quite impossible to handle in a lecture the voluminous material of a dream. I might call your attention to Rank's[1] article in the Jahrbuch, "Ein Traum der sich selber deutet" (A dream interpreted by itself). There you will see what an extensive material must be taken into consideration for comparison.
Hence, for the interpretation of the unconscious we proceed in the same way as is universal when a conclusion is to be drawn by classifying material. The objection is very often heard: Why does the dream have an unconscious content at all? In my view, this objection is as unscientific as possible. Every actual psychological moment has its special history. Every sentence I pronounce has, beside the intended meaning known to me another historical meaning, and it is possible that its second meaning is entirely different from its conscious meaning. I express myself on purpose somewhat paradoxically. I do not mean that I could explain every individual sentence in its historical meaning. This is a thing easier to do in larger and more detailed contributions. It will be clear to everyone, that a poem is, apart from its manifest content, especially characteristic of the poet in regard to its form, its content, and its manner of origin. Although the poet, in his poem, gave expression to the mood of a moment, the literary historian will find things in it and behind it which the poet never foresaw. The analysis which the literary historian draws from the poet's material is exactly the method of psychoanalysis.
- ↑ Jahrbuch für psychopath. u. psychoanalyt. Forschungen, Bd. II, p. 465.
