Chapter 6

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Moreover, inversion, or transformation into the opposite, is one of the most favoured and most versatile methods of representation which the dream-work has at its disposal. It serves, in the first place, to enable the wish-fulfilment to prevail against a definite element of the dream-thoughts. "If only it were the other way about!" is often the best expression for the reaction of the ego against a disagreeable recollection. But inversion becomes extraordinarily useful in the service of the censorship, for it effects, in the material to be represented, a degree of distortion which at first simply paralyses our understanding of the dream. It is therefore always permissible, if a dream stubbornly refuses to surrender its meaning, to venture on the experimental inversion of definite portions of its manifest content. Then, not infrequently, everything becomes clear.

Besides the inversion of content, the temporal inversion must not be overlooked. A frequent device of dream-distortion consists in presenting the final issue of the event or the conclusion of the train of thought at the beginning of the dream, and appending at the end of the dream, and appending at the end of the dream the premises of the conclusion, or the causes of the event. Anyone who forgets this technical device of dream-distortion stands helpless before the problem of dream-interpretation.5 In many cases, indeed, we discover the meaning of the dream only when we have subjected the dream-content to a multiple inversion, in accordance with the different relations. For example, in the dream of a young patient who is suffering from obsessional neurosis, the memory of the childish death-wish directed against a dreaded father concealed itself behind the following words: His father scolds him because he comes home so late, but the context of the psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment and the impressions of the dreamer show that the sentence must be read as follows: He is angry with his father, and further, that his father always came home too early (i.e. too soon). He would have preferred that his father should not come home at all, which is identical with the wish (see p. 143 ff.) that his father would die. As a little boy, during the prolonged absence of his father, the dreamer was guilty of a s.e.xual aggression against another child, and was punished by the threat: "Just you wait until your father comes home!"

If we should seek to trace the relations between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts a little farther, we shall do this best by making the dream itself our point of departure, and asking ourselves: What do certain formal characteristics of the dream-presentation signify in relation to the dream-thoughts? First and foremost among the formal characteristics which are bound to impress us in dreams are the differences in the sensory intensity of the single dream-images, and in the distinctness of various parts of the dream, or of whole dreams as compared with one another. The differences in the intensity of individual dream images cover the whole gamut, from a sharpness of definition which one is inclined -- although without warrant -- to rate more highly than that of reality, to a provoking indistinctness which we declare to be characteristic of dreams, because it really is not wholly comparable to any of the degrees of indistinctness which we occasionally perceive in real objects. Moreover, we usually describe the impression which we receive of an indistinct object in a dream as "fleeting", while we think of the more distinct dream-images as having been perceptible also for a longer period of time. We must now ask ourselves by what conditions in the dream-material these differences in the distinctness of the individual portions of the dream-content are brought about.

Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to deal with certain expectations which seem to be almost inevitable. Since actual sensations experienced during sleep may const.i.tute part of the dream-material, it will probably be a.s.sumed that these sensations, or the dream-elements resulting from them, are emphasised by a special intensity, or conversely, that anything which is particularly vivid in the dream can probably be traced to such real sensations during sleep. My experience, however, has never confirmed this. It is not true that those elements of a dream which are derivatives of real impressions perceived in sleep (nerve stimuli) are distinguished by their special vividness from others which are based on memories. The factor of reality is inoperative in determining the intensity of dream-images.

Further, it might be expected that the sensory intensity (vividness) of single dream-images is in proportion to the psychic intensity of the elements corresponding to them in the dream-thoughts. In the latter, intensity is identical with psychic value; the most intense elements are in fact the most significant, and these const.i.tute the central point of the dream-thoughts. We know, however, that it is precisely these elements which are usually not admitted to the dream-content, owing to the vigilance of the censorship. Still, it might be possible for their most immediate derivatives, which represent them in the dream, to reach a higher degree of intensity without, however, for that reason const.i.tuting the central point of the dream-representation. This a.s.sumption also vanishes as soon as we compare the dream and the dream-material. The intensity of the elements in the one has nothing to do with the intensity of the elements in the other; as a matter of fact, a complete "transvaluation of all psychic values" takes place between the dream-material and the dream. The very element of the dream which is transient and hazy, and screened by more vigorous images, is often discovered to be the one and only direct derivative of the topic that completely dominates the dream-thoughts.

The intensity of the dream-elements proves to be determined in a different manner: that is, by two factors which are mutually independent. It will readily be understood that those elements by means of which the wish-fulfilment expresses itself are those which are intensely represented. But a.n.a.lysis tells us that from the most vivid elements of the dream the greatest number of trains of thought proceed, and that those which are most vivid are at the same time those which are best determined. No change of meaning is involved if we express this latter empirical proposition in the following formula: The greatest intensity is shown by those elements of the dream for whose formation the most extensive condensation-work was required. We may, therefore, expect that it will be possible to express this condition, as well as the other condition of the wish-fulfilment in a single formula.

I must utter a warning that the problem which I have just been considering -- the causes of the greater or lesser intensity or distinctness of single elements in dreams -- is not to be confounded with the other problem -- that of variations in the distinctness of whole dreams or sections of dreams. In the former case the opposite of distinctness is haziness; in the latter, confusion. It is, of course, undeniable that in both scales the two kinds of intensities rise and fall in unison. A portion of the dream which seems clear to us usually contains vivid elements; an obscure dream, on the contrary, is composed of less vivid elements. But the problem offered by the scale of definition, which ranges from the apparently clear to the indistinct or confused, is far more complicated than the problem of the fluctuations in vividness of the dream-elements. For reasons which will be given later, the former cannot at this stage be further discussed. In isolated cases one observes, not without surprise, that the impression of distinctness or indistinctness produced by a dream has nothing to do with the dream-structure, but proceeds from the dream-material, as one of its ingredients. Thus, for example, I remember a dream which on waking seemed so particularly well-constructed, flawless and clear that I made up my mind, while I was still in a somnolent state, to admit a new category of dreams -- those which had not been subject to the mechanism of condensation and distortion, and which might thus be described as "fantasies during sleep." A closer examination, however, proved that this unusual dream suffered from the same structural flaws and breaches as exist in all other dreams; so I abandoned the idea of a category of "dream-fantasies".6 The content of the dream, reduced to its lowest terms, was that I was expounding to a friend a difficult and long-sought theory of bis.e.xuality, and the wish-fulfilling power of the dream was responsible for the fact that this theory (which, by the way, was not communicated in the dream) appeared to be so lucid and flawless. Thus, what I believed to be a judgment as regards the finished dream was a part, and indeed the most essential part, of the dream-content. Here the dream-work reached out, as it were, into my first waking thoughts, and presented to me, in the form of a judgment of the dream, that part of the dream-material which it had failed to represent with precision in the dream. I was once confronted with the exact counterpart of this case by a female patient who at first absolutely declined to relate a dream which was necessary for the a.n.a.lysis "because it was so hazy and confused", and who finally declared, after repeatedly protesting the inaccuracy of her description, that it seemed to her that several persons -- herself, her husband, and her father -- had occurred in the dream, and that she had not known whether her husband was her father, or who really was her father, or something of that sort. Comparison of this dream with the ideas which occurred to the dreamer in the course of the sitting showed beyond a doubt that it dealt with the rather commonplace story of a maidservant who has to confess that she is expecting a child, and hears doubts expressed as to "who the father really is".7 The obscurity manifested by this dream, therefore, was once more a portion of the dream-exciting material. A fragment of this material was represented in the form of the dream. The form of the dream or of dreaming is employed with astonishing frequency to represent the concealed content.

Glosses on the dream, and seemingly harmless comments on it, often serve in the most subtle manner to conceal -- although, of course, they really betray -- a part of what is dreamed. As, for example, when the dreamer says: Here the dream was wiped out, and the a.n.a.lysis gives an infantile reminiscence of listening to someone cleaning himself after defecation. Or another example, which deserves to be recorded in detail: A young man has a very distinct dream, reminding him of fantasies of his boyhood which have remained conscious. He found himself in a hotel at a seasonal resort; it was night; he mistook the number of his room, and entered a room in which an elderly lady and her two daughters were undressing to go to bed. He continues: "Then there are some gaps in the dream; something is missing; and at the end there was a man in the room, who wanted to throw me out, and with whom I had to struggle." He tries in vain to recall the content and intention of the boyish fantasy to which the dream obviously alluded. But we finally become aware that the required content had already been given in his remarks concerning the indistinct part of the dream. The "gaps" are the genital apertures of the women who are going to bed: "Here something is missing" describes the princ.i.p.al characteristic of the female genitals. In his young days he burned with curiosity to see the female genitals, and was still inclined to adhere to the infantile s.e.xual theory which attributes a male organ to women.

A very similar form was a.s.sumed in an a.n.a.logous reminiscence of another dreamer. He dreamed: I go with Fraulein K. into the restaurant of the Volksgarten . . . then comes a dark place, an interruption . . . then I find myself in the salon of a brothel, where I see two or three women, one in a chemise and drawers.

a.n.a.lysis. -- Fraulein K. is the daughter of his former employer; as he himself admits, she was a sister-subst.i.tute. He rarely had the opportunity of talking to her, but they once had a conversation in which "one recognised one"s s.e.xuality, so to speak, as though one were to say: I am a man and you are a woman." He had been only once to the above-mentioned restaurant, when he was accompanied by the sister of his brother-in-law, a girl to whom he was quite indifferent. On another occasion he accompanied three ladies to the door of the restaurant. The ladies were his sister, his sister-in-law, and the girl already mentioned. He was perfectly indifferent to all three of them, but they all belonged to the "sister category". He had visited a brothel but rarely, perhaps two or three times in his life.

The interpretation is based on the "dark place", the "interruption" in the dream, and informs us that on occasion, but in fact only rarely, obsessed by his boyish curiosity, he had inspected the genitals of his sister, a few years his junior. A few days later the misdemeanour indicated in the dream recurred to his conscious memory.

All dreams of the same night belong, in respect of their content, to the same whole; their division into several parts, their grouping and number, are all full of meaning and may be regarded as pieces of information about the latent dream-thoughts. In the interpretation of dreams consisting of several main sections, or of dreams belonging to the same night, we must not overlook the possibility that these different and successive dreams mean the same thing, expressing the same impulses in different material. That one of these h.o.m.ologous dreams which comes first in time is usually the most distorted and most bashful, while the next dream is bolder and more distinct.

Even Pharaoh"s dream of the ears and the kine, which Joseph interpreted, was of this kind. It is given by Josephus in greater detail than in the Bible. After relating the first dream, the King said: "After I had seen this vision I awaked out of my sleep, and, being in disorder, and considering with myself what this appearance should be, I fell asleep again, and saw another dream much more wonderful than the foregoing, which still did more affright and disturb me." After listening to the relation of the dream, Joseph said: "This dream, O King, although seen under two forms, signifies one and the same event of things."8 Jung, in his Beitrag sur Psychologie des Geruchtes, relates how a veiled erotic dream of a schoolgirl was understood by her friends without interpretation, and continued by them with variations, and he remarks, with reference to one of these narrated dreams, "that the concluding idea of a long series of dream-images had precisely the same content as the first image of the series had endeavoured to represent. The censorship thrust the complex out of the way as long as possible by a constant renewal of symbolic screenings, displacements, transformations into something harmless, etc." Scherner was well acquainted with this peculiarity of dream-representation, and describes it in his Leben des Traumes in terms of a special law in the Appendix to his doctrine of organic stimulation: "But finally, in all symbolic dream-formations emanating from definite nerve stimuli, the fantasy observes the general law that at the beginning of the dream it depicts the stimulating object only by the remotest and freest allusions, but towards the end, when the graphic impulse becomes exhausted, the stimulus itself is nakedly represented by its appropriate organ or its function; whereupon the dream, itself describing its organic motive, achieves its end . . ."

A pretty confirmation of this law of Scherner"s has been furnished by Otto Rank in his essay Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet. This dream, related to him by a girl, consisted of two dreams of the same night, separated by an interval of time, the second of which ended with an o.r.g.a.s.m. It was possible to interpret this orgastic dream in detail in spite of the few ideas contributed by the dreamer, and the wealth of relations between the two dream-contents made it possible to recognise that the first dream expressed in modest language the same thing as the second, so that the latter -- the orgastic dream -- facilitated a full explanation of the former. From this example, Rank very justifiably argues the significance of orgastic dreams for the theory of dreams in general.

But in my experience it is only in rare cases that one is in a position to translate the lucidity or confusion of a dream, respectively, into a certainty or doubt in the dream-material. Later on I shall have to disclose a hitherto unmentioned factor in dream-formation, upon whose operation this qualitative scale in dreams is essentially dependent.

In many dreams in which a certain situation and environment are preserved for some time, there occur interruptions which may be described in the following words: "But then it seemed as though it were, at the same time, another place, and there such and such a thing happened." In these cases what interrupts the main action of the dream, which after a while may be continued again, reveals itself in the dream-material as a subordinate clause, an interpolated thought. Conditionality in the dream-thoughts is represented by simultaneity in the dream-content (wenn or wann = if or when, while).

We may now ask, What is the meaning of the sensation of inhibited movement which so often occurs in dreams, and is so closely allied to anxiety? One wants to move, and is unable to stir from the spot; or wants to accomplish something, and encounters obstacle after obstacle. The train is about to start, and one cannot reach it; one"s hand is raised to avenge an insult, and its strength fails, etc. We have already met with this sensation in exhibition-dreams, but have as yet made no serious attempt to interpret it. It is convenient, but inadequate, to answer that there is motor paralysis in sleep, which manifests itself by means of the sensation alluded to. We may ask: "Why is it, then, that we do not dream continually of such inhibited movements?" And we may permissibly suspect that this sensation, which may at any time occur during sleep, serves some sort of purpose for representation, and is evoked only when the need of this representation is present in the dream-material.

Inability to do a thing does not always appear in the dream as a sensation; it may appear simply as part of the dream-content. I think one case of this kind is especially fitted to enlighten us as to the meaning of this peculiarity. I shall give an abridged version of a dream in which I seem to be accused of dishonesty. The scene is a mixture made up of a private sanatorium and several other places. A manservant appears, to summon me to an inquiry. I know in the dream that something has been missed, and that the inquiry is taking place because I am suspected of having appropriated the lost article. a.n.a.lysis shows that inquiry is to be taken in two senses; it includes the meaning of medical examination. Being conscious of my innocence, and my position as consultant in this sanatorium, I calmly follow the manservant. We are received at the door by another manservant who says, pointing at me, "Have you brought him? Why, he is a respectable man." Thereupon, and unattended, I enter a great hall where there are many machines, which reminds me of an inferno with its h.e.l.lish instruments of punishment. I see a colleague strapped to an appliance; he has every reason to be interested in my appearance, but he takes no notice of me. I understand that I may now go. Then I cannot find my hat, and cannot go after all.

The wish that the dream fulfils is obviously the wish that my honesty shall be acknowledged, and that I may be permitted to go; there must therefore be all sorts of material in the dream-thoughts which comprise a contradiction of this wish. The fact that I may go is the sign of my absolution; if, then, the dream provides at its close an event which prevents me from going, we may readily conclude that the suppressed material of the contradiction is a.s.serting itself in this feature. The fact that I cannot find my hat therefore means: "You are not after all an honest man." The inability to do something in the dream is the expression of a contradiction, a "No"; so that our earlier a.s.sertion, to the effect that the dream is not capable of expressing a negation, must be revised accordingly.9 In other dreams in which the inability to do something occurs, not merely as a situation, but also as a sensation, the same contradiction is more emphatically expressed by the sensation of inhibited movement, or a will to which a counter-will is opposed. Thus the sensation of inhibited movement represents a conflict of will. We shall see later on that this very motor paralysis during sleep is one of the fundamental conditions of the psychic process which functions during dreaming. Now an impulse which is conveyed to the motor system is none other than the will, and the fact that we are certain that this impulse will be inhibited in sleep makes the whole process extraordinarily well-adapted to the representation of a will towards something and of a "No" which opposes itself thereto. From my explanation of anxiety, it is easy to understand why the sensation of the inhibited will is so closely allied to anxiety, and why it is so often connected with it in dreams. Anxiety is a libidinal impulse which emanates from the unconscious and is inhibited by the preconscious.10 Therefore, when a sensation of inhibition in the dream is accompanied by anxiety, the dream must be concerned with a volition which was at one time capable of arousing libido; there must be a s.e.xual impulse.

As for the judgment which is often expressed during a dream: "Of course, it is only a dream", and the psychic force to which it may be ascribed, I shall discuss these questions later on. For the present I will merely say that they are intended to depreciate the importance of what is being dreamed. The interesting problem allied to this, as to what is meant if a certain content in the dream is characterised in the dream itself as having been "dreamed" -- the riddle of a "dream within a dream" -- has been solved in a similar sense by W. Stekel, by the a.n.a.lysis of some convincing examples. Here again the part of the dream "dreamed" is to be depreciated in value and robbed of its reality; that which the dreamer continues to dream after waking from the "dream within a dream" is what the dream-wish desires to put in place of the obliterated reality. It may therefore be a.s.sumed that the part "dreamed" contains the representation of the reality, the real memory, while, on the other hand, the continued dream contains the representation of what the dreamer merely wishes. The inclusion of a certain content in "a dream within a dream" is therefore equivalent to the wish that what has been characterised as a dream had never occurred. In other words: when a particular incident is represented by the dream-work in a "dream", it signifies the strongest confirmation of the reality of this incident, the most emphatic affirmation of it. The dream-work utilises the dream itself as a form of repudiation, and thereby confirms the theory that a dream is a wish-fulfilment.

1 I have since given the complete a.n.a.lysis and synthesis of two dreams in the Bruchstuck einer Hysteriea.n.a.lyse, 1905 (Ges. Schriften, Bd. viii). Fragment of an a.n.a.lysis of a Case of Hysteria, translated by Strachey, Collected Papers, vol. iii, Hogarth Press, London. O. Rank"s a.n.a.lysis, Ein Traum der sich selbst deutet, deserves mention as the most complete interpretation of a comparatively long dream.

2 From a work of K. Abel"s Der Gegensinn der Urworte, 1884 (see my review of it in the Bleuler-Freud Jahrbuch, ii, 1910 (Ges. Schriften, Bd. x), I learned the surprising fact, which is confirmed by other philologists, that the oldest languages behaved just as dreams do in this regard. They had originally only one word for both extremes in a series of qualities or activities (strong-weak, old-young, far-near, bind-separate), and formed separate designations for the two opposites only secondarily, by slight modifications of the common primitive word. Abel demonstrates a very large number of those relationships in ancient Egyptian, and points to distinct remnants of the same development in the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages.

3 cf. here the observations made on pp. 161ff.

4 If I do not know behind which of the persons appearing in the dream I am to look for my ego, I observe the following rule: That person in the dream who is subject to an emotion which I am aware of while asleep is the one that conceals my ego.

5 The hysterical attack often employs the same device of temporal inversion in order to conceal its meaning from the observer. The attack of a hysterical girl, for example, consists in enacting a little romance, which she has imagined in the unconscious in connection with an encounter in a tram. A man, attracted by the beauty of her foot, addresses her while she is reading, whereupon she goes with him and a pa.s.sionate love-scene ensues. Her attack begins with the representation of this scene by writhing movements of the body (accompanied by movements of the lips and folding of the arms to signify kisses and embraces), whereupon she hurries into the next room, sits down on a chair, lifts her skirt in order to show her foot, acts as though she were about to read a book, and speaks to me (answers me). Cf. the observation of Artemidorus: "In interpreting dreamstories one must consider them the first time from the beginning to the end, and the second time from the end to the beginning."

6 I do not know today whether I was justified in doing so.

7 Accompanying hysterical symptoms, amenorrhoea and profound depression were the chief troubles of this patient.

8 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book ii, chap. v, trans. by Wm. Whiston, David McKay, Philadelphia.

9 A reference to an experience of childhood emerges, in the complete a.n.a.lysis, through the following connecting links: "The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go." And then follows the waggish question: "How old is the Moor when he has done his duty?" -- "A year, then he can go (walk)." (It is said that I came into the world with so much black curly hair that my mother declared that I was a little Moor.) The fact that I cannot find my hat is an experience of the day which has been exploited in various senses. Our servant, who is a genius at stowing things away, had hidden the hat. A rejection of melancholy thoughts of death is concealed behind the conclusion of the dream: "I have not nearly done my duty yet; I cannot go yet." Birth and death together -- as in the dream of Goethe and the paralytic, which was a little earlier in date.

10 This theory is not in accordance with more recent views.

D. REGARD FOR REPRESENTABILITY.

We have hitherto been concerned with investigating the manner in which our dreams represent the relations between the dream-thoughts, but we have often extended our inquiry to the further question as to what alterations the dream-material itself undergoes for the purposes of dream-formation. We now know that the dream-material, after being stripped of a great many of its relations, is subjected to compression, while at the same time displacements of the intensity of its elements enforce a psychic transvaluation of this material. The displacements which we have considered were shown to be subst.i.tutions of one particular idea for another, in some way related to the original by its a.s.sociations, and the displacements were made to facilitate the condensation, inasmuch as in this manner, instead of two elements, a common mean between them found its way into the dream. So far no mention has been made of any other kind of displacement. But we learn from the a.n.a.lyses that displacement of another kind does occur, and that it manifests itself in an exchange of the verbal expression for the thought in question. In both cases we are dealing with a displacement along a chain of a.s.sociations, but the same process takes place in different psychic spheres, and the result of this displacement in the one case is that one element is replaced by another, while in the other case an element exchanges its verbal shape for another.

This second kind of displacement occurring in dream-formation is not only of great theoretical interest, but is also peculiarly well-fitted to explain the appearance of fantastic absurdity in which dreams disguise themselves. Displacement usually occurs in such a way that a colourless and abstract expression of the dream-thought is exchanged for one that is pictorial and concrete. The advantage, and along with it the purpose, of this subst.i.tution is obvious. Whatever is pictorial is capable of representation in dreams and can be fitted into a situation in which abstract expression would confront the dream-representation with difficulties not unlike those which would arise if a political leading article had to be represented in an ill.u.s.trated journal. Not only the possibility of representation, but also the interests of condensation and of the censorship, may be furthered by this exchange. Once the abstractly expressed and unserviceable dream-thought is translated into pictorial language, those contacts and ident.i.ties between this new expression and the rest of the dream-material which are required by the dream-work, and which it contrives whenever they are not available, are more readily provided, since in every language concrete terms, owing to their evolution, are richer in a.s.sociations than are abstract terms. It may be imagined that a good part of the intermediate work in dream-formation, which seeks to reduce the separate dream-thoughts to the tersest and most unified expression in the dream, is effected in this manner, by fitting paraphrases of the various thoughts. The one thought whose mode of expression has perhaps been determined by other factors will therewith exert a distributive and selective influence on the expressions available for the others, and it may even do this from the very start, just as it would in the creative activity of a poet. When a poem is to be written in rhymed couplets, the second rhyming line is bound by two conditions: it must express the meaning allotted to it, and its expression must permit of a rhyme with the first line. The best poems are, of course, those in which one does not detect the effort to find a rhyme, and in which both thoughts have as a matter of course, by mutual induction, selected the verbal expression which, with a little subsequent adjustment, will permit of the rhyme.

In some cases the change of expression serves the purposes of dream-condensation more directly, in that it provides an arrangement of words which, being ambiguous, permits of the expression of more than one of the dream-thoughts. The whole range of verbal wit is thus made to serve the purpose of the dream-work. The part played by words in dream-formation ought not to surprise us. A word, as the point of junction of a number of ideas, possesses, as it were, a predestined ambiguity, and the neuroses (obsessions, phobias) take advantage of the opportunities for condensation and disguise afforded by words quite as eagerly as do dreams.1 That dream-distortion also profits by this displacement of expression may be readily demonstrated. It is indeed confusing if one ambiguous word is subst.i.tuted for two with single meanings, and the replacement of sober, everyday language by a plastic mode of expression baffles our understanding, especially since a dream never tells us whether the elements presented by it are to be interpreted literally or metaphorically, whether they refer to the dream-material directly, or only by means of interpolated expressions. Generally speaking, in the interpretation of any element of a dream it is doubtful whether it (a) is to be accepted in the negative or the positive sense (contrast relation);

(b) is to be interpreted historically (as a memory);

(d) its valuation is to be based upon its wording.

In spite of this versatility, we may say that the representation effected by the dream-work, which was never even intended to be understood, does not impose upon the translator any greater difficulties than those that the ancient writers of hieroglyphics imposed upon their readers.

I have already given several examples of dream-representations which are held together only by ambiguity of expression ("her mouth opens without difficulty", in the dream of Irma"s injection; "I cannot go yet after all", in the last dream related, etc.). I shall now cite a dream in the a.n.a.lysis of which plastic representation of the abstract thoughts plays a greater part. The difference between such dream-interpretation and the interpretation by means of symbols may nevertheless be clearly defined; in the symbolic interpretation of dreams the key to the symbolism is selected arbitrarily by the interpreter, while in our own cases of verbal disguise these keys are universally known and are taken from established modes of speech. Provided one hits on the right idea on the right occasion, one may solve dreams of this kind, either completely or in part, independently of any statements made by the dreamer.

A lady, a friend of mine, dreams: She is at the opera. It is a Wagnerian performance, which has lasted until 7.45 in the morning. In the stalls and pit there are tables, at which people are eating and drinking. Her cousin and his young wife, who have just returned from their honeymoon, are sitting at one of these tables; beside them is a member of the aristocracy. The young wife is said to have brought him back with her from the honeymoon quite openly, just as she might have brought back a hat. In the middle of the stalls there is a high tower, on the top of which there is a platform surrounded by an iron railing. There, high overhead, stands the conductor, with the features of Hans Richter, continually running round behind the railing, perspiring terribly; and from this position he is conducting the orchestra, which is arranged round the base of the tower. She herself is sitting in a box with a friend of her own s.e.x (known to me). Her younger sister tries to hand her up, from the stalls, a large lump of coal, alleging that she had not known that it would be so long, and that she must by this time be miserably cold. (As though the boxes ought to have been heated during the long performance.) Although in other respects the dream gives a good picture of the situation, it is, of course, nonsensical enough: the tower in the middle of the stalls, from which the conductor leads the orchestra, and above all the coal which her sister hands up to her. I purposely asked for no a.n.a.lysis of this dream. With some knowledge of the personal relations of the dreamer, I was able to interpret parts of it independently of her. I knew that she had felt intense sympathy for a musician whose career had been prematurely brought to an end by insanity. I therefore decided to take the tower in the stalls verbally. It then emerged that the man whom she wished to see in the place of Hans Richter towered above all the other members of the orchestra. This tower must be described as a composite formation by means of apposition; by its substructure it represents the greatness of the man, but by the railing at the top, behind which he runs round like a prisoner or an animal in a cage (an allusion to the name of the unfortunate man2), it represents his later fate. "Lunatic-tower" is perhaps the expression in which the two thoughts might have met.

Now that we have discovered the dream"s method of representation, we may try, with the same key, to unlock the meaning of the second apparent absurdity, that of the coal which her sister hands up to the dreamer. "Coal" should mean "secret love".

No fire, no coal so hotly glows As the secret love of which no one knows.

She and her friend remain seated3 while her younger sister, who still has a prospect of marrying, hands her up the coal "because she did not know that it would be so long." What would be so long is not told in the dream. If it were an anecdote, we should say "the performance"; but in the dream we may consider the sentence as it is, declare it to be ambiguous, and add "before she married". The interpretation "secret love" is then confirmed by the mention of the cousin who is sitting with his wife in the stalls, and by the open love-affair attributed to the latter. The contrasts between secret and open love, between the dreamer"s fire and the coldness of the young wife, dominate the dream. Moreover, here once again there is a person "in a high position" as a middle term between the aristocrat and the musician who is justified in raising high hopes.

In the above a.n.a.lysis we have at last brought to light a third factor, whose part in the transformation of the dream-thoughts into the dream-content is by no means trivial: namely, consideration of the suitability of the dream-thoughts for representation in the particular psychic material of which the dream makes use -- that is, for the most part in visual images. Among the various subordinate ideas a.s.sociated with the essential dream-thoughts, those will be preferred which permit of visual representation, and the dreamwork does not hesitate to recast the intractable thoughts into another verbal form, even though this is a more unusual form, provided it makes representation possible, and thus puts an end to the psychological distress caused by strangulated thinking. This pouring of the thought-content into another mould may at the same time serve the work of condensation, and may establish relations with another thought which otherwise would not have been established. It is even possible that this second thought may itself have previously changed its original expression for the purpose of meeting the first one halfway.

Herbert Silberer4 has described a good method of directly observing the transformation of thoughts into images which occurs in dream-formation, and has thus made it possible to study in isolation this one factor of the dream-work. If while in a state of fatigue and somnolence he imposed upon himself a mental effort, it frequently happened that the thought escaped him, and in its place there appeared a picture in which he could recognise the subst.i.tute for the thought. Not quite appropriately, Silberer described this subst.i.tution as "auto-symbolic". I shall cite here a few examples from Silberer"s work, and on account of certain peculiarities of the phenomena observed I shall refer to the subject later on.

Example 1. -- I remember that I have to correct a halting pa.s.sage in an essay.

Symbol. -- I see myself planing a piece of wood.

Example 5. -- I endeavour to call to mind the aim of certain metaphysical studies which I am proposing to undertake.

This aim, I reflect, consists in working one"s way through, while seeking for the basis of existence, to ever higher forms of consciousness or levels of being.

Symbol. -- I run a long knife under a cake as though to take a slice out of it.

Interpretation. -- My movement with the knife signifies "working one"s way through". . . . The explanation of the basis of the symbolism is as follows: At table it devolves upon me now and again to cut and distribute a cake, a business which I perform with a long, flexible knife, and which necessitates a certain amount of care. In particular, the neat extraction of the cut slices of cake presents a certain amount of difficulty; the knife must be carefully pushed under the slices in question (the slow "working one"s way through" in order to get to the bottom). But there is yet more symbolism in the picture. The cake of the symbol was really a "doboscake" -- that is, a cake in which the knife has to cut through several layers (the levels of consciousness and thought).

Example 9. -- I lost the thread in a train of thought. I make an effort to find it again, but I have to recognise that the point of departure has completely escaped me.

Symbol. -- Part of a form of type, the last lines of which have fallen out."

In view of the part played by witticisms, puns, quotations, songs, and proverbs in the intellectual life of educated persons, it would be entirely in accordance with our expectations to find disguises of this sort used with extreme frequency in the representation of the dream-thoughts. Only in the case of a few types of material has a generally valid dream-symbolism established itself on the basis of generally known allusions and verbal equivalents. A good part of this symbolism, however, is common to the psychoneuroses, legends, and popular usages as well as to dreams.

In fact, if we look more closely into the matter, we must recognise that in employing this kind of subst.i.tution the dream-work is doing nothing at all original. For the achievement of its purpose, which in this case is representation without interference from the censorship, it simply follows the paths which it finds already marked out in unconscious thinking, and gives the preference to those transformations of the repressed material which are permitted to become conscious also in the form of witticisms and allusions, and with which all the fantasies of neurotics are replete. Here we suddenly begin to understand the dream-interpretations of Scherner, whose essential correctness I have vindicated elsewhere. The preoccupation of the imagination with one"s own body is by no means peculiar to or characteristic of the dream alone. My a.n.a.lyses have shown me that it is constantly found in the unconscious thinking of neurotics, and may be traced back to s.e.xual curiosity, whose object, in the adolescent youth or maiden, is the genitals of the opposite s.e.x, or even of the same s.e.x. But, as Scherner and Volkelt very truly insist, the house does not const.i.tute the only group of ideas which is employed for the symbolisation of the body, either in dreams or in the unconscious fantasies of neurosis. To be sure, I know patients who have steadily adhered to an architectural symbolism for the body and the genitals (s.e.xual interest, of course, extends far beyond the region of the external genital organs) -- patients for whom posts and pillars signify legs (as in the Song of Songs), to whom every door suggests a bodily aperture ("hole"), and every water-pipe the urinary system, and so on. But the groups of ideas appertaining to plant-life, or to the kitchen, are just as often chosen to conceal s.e.xual images;5 in respect of the former everyday language, the sediment of imaginative comparisons dating from the remotest times, has abundantly paved the way (the "vineyard" of the Lord, the "seed" of Abraham, the "garden" of the maiden in the Song of Songs). The ugliest as well as the most intimate details of s.e.xual life may be thought or dreamed of in apparently innocent allusions to culinary operations, and the symptoms of hysteria will become absolutely unintelligible if we forget that s.e.xual symbolism may conceal itself behind the most commonplace and inconspicuous matters as its safest hiding-place. That some neurotic children cannot look at blood and raw meat, that they vomit at the sight of eggs and macaroni, and that the dread of snakes, which is natural to mankind, is monstrously exaggerated in neurotics -all this has a definite s.e.xual meaning. Wherever the neurosis employs a disguise of this sort, it treads the paths once trodden by the whole of humanity in the early stages of civilisation -- paths to whose thinly veiled existence our idiomatic expressions, proverbs, superst.i.tions, and customs testify to this day.

I here insert the promised "flower-dream" of a female patient, in which I shall print in Roman type everything which is to be s.e.xually interpreted. This beautiful dream lost all its charm for the dreamer once it had been interpreted.

(a) Preliminary dream: She goes to the two maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare "a little bite of food". She also sees a very large number of heavy kitchen utensils in the kitchen, heaped into piles and turned upside down in order to drain. Later addition: The two maids go to fetch water, and have, as it were, to climb into a river which reaches up to the house or into the courtyard.6

(b) Main dream:7 She is descending from a height8 over curiously constructed railings, or a fence which is composed of large square trelliswork hurdles with small square apertures.9 It is really not adapted for climbing; she is constantly afraid that she cannot find a place for her foot, and she is glad that her dress doesn"t get caught anywhere, and that she is able to climb down it so respectably.10 As she climbs she is carrying a big branch in her hand,11 really like a tree, which is thickly studded with red flowers; a spreading branch, with many twigs.12 With this is connected the idea of cherry-blossoms (Bluten = flowers), but they look like fully opened camellias, which of course do not grow on trees. As she is descending, she first has one, then suddenly two, and then again only one.13 When she has reached the ground the lower flowers have already begun to fall. Now that she has reached the bottom she sees an "odd man" who is combing --as she would like to put it --just such a tree, that is, with a piece of wood he is sc.r.a.ping thick bunches of hair from it, which hang from it like moss. Other men have chopped off such branches in a garden, and have flung them into the road, where they are lying about, so that a number of people take some of them. But she asks whether this is right, whether she may take one, too.14 In the garden there stands a young man (he is a foreigner, and known to her) toward whom she goes in order to ask him how it is possible to transplant such branches in her own garden.15 He embraces her, whereupon she struggles and asks him what he is thinking of, whether it is permissible to embrace her in such a manner. He says there is nothing wrong in it, that it is permitted.16 He then declares himself willing to go with her into the other garden, in order to show her how to put them in, and he says something to her which she does not quite understand: "Besides this I need three metres (later she says: square metres) or three fathoms of ground." It seems as though he were asking her for something in return for his willingness, as though he had the intention of indemnifying (reimbursing) himself in her garden, as though he wanted to evade some law or other, to derive some advantage from it without causing her an injury. She does not know whether or not he really shows her anything.

The above dream, which has been given prominence on account of its symbolic elements, may be described as a "biographical" dream. Such dreams occur frequently in psychoa.n.a.lysis, but perhaps only rarely outside it.17 I have, of course, an abundance of such material, but to reproduce it here would lead us too far into the consideration of neurotic conditions. Everything points to the same conclusion, namely, that we need not a.s.sume that any special symbolising activity of the psyche is operative in dream-formation; that, on the contrary, the dream makes use of such symbolisations as are to be found ready-made in unconscious thinking, since these, by reason of their ease of representation, and for the most part by reason of their being exempt from the censorship, satisfy more effectively the requirements of dream-formation.

1 cf. Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious.

2 Hugo Wolf.

3 [The German sitzen geblieben is often applied to women who have not succeeded in getting married. --TRANS.]

4 Bleuler-Freud Jahrbuch, i, 1909.

5 A ma.s.s of corroborative material may be found in the three supplementary volumes of Edward Fuchs"s Ill.u.s.trierte Sittengeschichte; privately printed by A. Lange, Munich.

6 For the interpretation of this preliminary dream, which is to be regarded as "causal", see p. 199.

7 Her career.

8 Exalted origin, the wish-contrast to the preliminary dream.

9 A composite formation, which unites two localities, the so-called garret (German: Boden = floor, garret) of her father"s house, in which she used to play with her brother, the object of her later fantasies, and the farm of a malicious uncle, who used to tease her. 10 Wish-contrast to an actual memory of her uncle"s farm, to the effect that she used to expose herself while she was asleep.

11 Just as the angel bears a lily-stem in the Annunciation.

12 For the explanation of this composite formation, see pp. 202-03; innocence, menstruation, La Dame aux Camelias. 13 Referring to the plurality of the persons who serve her fantasies.

14 Whether it is permissible to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e. ["Sich einen herunterreissen" means "to pull off" and colloquially "to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e". --TRANS.]

15 The branch (Ast) has long been used to represent the male organ, and, moreover, contains a very distinct allusion to the family name of the dreamer 16 Refers to matrimonial precautions, as does that which immediately follows.

17 An a.n.a.logous "biographical" dream is recorded on p. 242, among the examples of dream symbolism.

E. REPRESENTATION IN DREAMS BY SYMBOLS: SOME FURTHER TYPICAL DREAMS.

The a.n.a.lysis of the last biographical dream shows that I recognised the symbolism in dreams from the very outset. But it was only little by little that I arrived at a full appreciation of its extent and significance, as the result of increasing experience, and under the influence of the works of W. Stekel, concerning which I may here fittingly say something.

This author, who has perhaps injured psychoa.n.a.lysis as much as he has benefited it, produced a large number of novel symbolic translations, to which no credence was given at first, but most of which were later confirmed and had to be accepted. Stekel"s services are in no way belittled by the remark that the sceptical reserve with which these symbols were received was not unjustified. For the examples upon which he based his interpretations were often unconvincing, and, moreover, he employed a method which must be rejected as scientifically unreliable. Stekel found his symbolic meanings by way of intuition, by virtue of his individual faculty of immediately understanding the symbols. But such an art cannot be generally a.s.sumed; its efficiency is immune from criticism, and its results have therefore no claim to credibility. It is as though one were to base one"s diagnosis of infectious diseases on the olfactory impressions received beside the sick-bed, although of course there have been clinicians to whom the sense of smell -- atrophied in most people -- has been of greater service than to others, and who really have been able to diagnose a case of abdominal typhus by their sense of smell.

The progressive experience of psychoa.n.a.lysis has enabled us to discover patients who have displayed in a surprising degree this immediate understanding of dream-symbolism. Many of these patients suffered from dementia praec.o.x, so that for a time there was an inclination to suspect that all dreamers with such an understanding of symbols were suffering from that disorder. But this did not prove to be the case; it is simply a question of a personal gift or idiosyncrasy without perceptible pathological significance.

When one has familiarised oneself with the extensive employment of symbolism for the representation of s.e.xual material in dreams, one naturally asks oneself whether many of these symbols have not a permanently established meaning, like the signs in shorthand; and one even thinks of attempting to compile a new dream-book on the lines of the cipher method. In this connection it should be noted that symbolism does not appertain especially to dreams, but rather to the unconscious imagination, and particularly to that of the people, and it is to be found in a more developed condition in folklore, myths, legends, idiomatic phrases, proverbs, and the current witticisms of a people than in dreams. We should have, therefore, to go far beyond the province of dream-interpretation in order fully to investigate the meaning of symbolism, and to discuss the numerous problems -- for the most part still unsolved -- which are a.s.sociated with the concept of the symbol.1 We shall here confine ourselves to say that representation by a symbol comes under the heading of the indirect representations, but that we are warned by all sorts of signs against indiscriminately cla.s.sing symbolic representation with the other modes of indirect representation before we have clearly conceived its distinguishing characteristics.

In a number of cases the common quality shared by the symbol and the thing which it represents is obvious, in others it is concealed; in these latter cases the choice of the symbol appears to be enigmatic. And these are the very cases that must be able to elucidate the ultimate meaning of the symbolic relation; they point to the fact that it is of a genetic nature. What is today symbolically connected was probably united, in primitive times, by conceptual and linguistic ident.i.ty.2 The symbolic relationship seems to be a residue and reminder of a former ident.i.ty. It may also be noted that in many cases the symbolic ident.i.ty extends beyond the linguistic ident.i.ty, as had already been a.s.serted by Schubert (1814).3 Dreams employ this symbolism to give a disguised representation to their latent thoughts. Among the symbols thus employed there are, of course, many which constantly, or all but constantly, mean the same thing. But we must bear in mind the curious plasticity of psychic material. Often enough a symbol in the dream-content may have to be interpreted not symbolically but in accordance with its proper meaning; at other times the dreamer, having to deal with special memory-material, may take the law into his own hands and employ anything whatever as a s.e.xual symbol, though it is not generally so employed. Wherever he has the choice of several symbols for the representation of a dream-content, he will decide in favour of that symbol which is in addition objectively related to his other thought-material; that is to say, he will employ an individual motivation besides the typically valid one.

Although since Scherner"s time the more recent investigations of dream-problems have definitely established the existence of dream-symbolism -- even Havelock Ellis acknowledges that our dreams are indubitably full of symbols -- it must yet be admitted that the existence of symbols in dreams has not only facilitated dream-interpretation, but has also made it more difficult. The technique of interpretation in accordance with the dreamer"s free a.s.sociations more often than otherwise leaves us in the lurch as far as the symbolic elements of the dream-content are concerned. A return to the arbitrariness of dream-interpretation as it was practised in antiquity, and is seemingly revived by Stekel"s wild interpretations, is contrary to scientific method. Consequently, those elements in the dream-content which are to be symbolically regarded compel us to employ a combined technique, which on the one hand is based on the dreamer"s a.s.sociations, while on the other hand the missing portions have to be supplied by the interpreter"s understanding of the symbols. Critical circ.u.mspection in the solution of the symbols must coincide with careful study of the symbols in especially transparent examples of dreams in order to silence the reproach of arbitrariness in dream-interpretation. The uncertainties which still adhere to our function as dream-interpreters are due partly to our imperfect knowledge (which, however, can be progressively increased) and partly to certain peculiarities of the dream-symbols themselves. These often possess many and varied meanings, so that, as in Chinese script, only the context can furnish the correct meaning. This multiple significance of the symbol is allied to the dream"s faculty of admitting over-interpretations, of representing, in the same content, various wish-impulses and thought-formations, often of a widely divergent character.

After these limitations and reservations I will proceed. The Emperor and the Empress (King and Queen)4 in most cases really represent the dreamer"s parents; the dreamer himself or herself is the prince or princess. But the high authority conceded to the Emperor is also conceded to great men, so that in some dreams, for example, Goethe appears as a father-symbol (Hitschmann). -- All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, umbrellas (on account of the opening, which might be likened to an erection), all sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, represent the male member. A frequent, but not very intelligible symbol for the same is a nail-file (a reference to rubbing and sc.r.a.ping?). -- Small boxes, chests, cupboards, and ovens correspond to the female organ; also cavities, ships, and all kinds of vessels. -- A room in a dream generally represents a woman; the description of its various entrances and exits is scarcely calculated to make us doubt this interpretation.5 The interest as to whether the room is "open" or "locked" will be readily understood in this connection. (Cf. Dora"s dream in Fragment of an a.n.a.lysis of Hysteria.) There is no need to be explicit as to the sort of key that will unlock the room; the symbolism of "lock and key" has been gracefully if broadly employed by Uhland in his song of the Graf Eberstein. -- The dream of walking through a suite of rooms signifies a brothel or a harem. But, as H. Sachs has shown by an admirable example, it is also employed to represent marriage (contrast). An interesting relation to the s.e.xual investigations of childhood emerges when the dreamer dreams of two rooms which were previously one, or finds that a familiar room in a house of which he dreams has been divided into two, or the reverse. In childhood the female genitals and a.n.u.s (the "behind"6) are conceived of as a single opening according to the infantile cloaca theory, and only later is it discovered that this region of the body contains two separate cavities and openings. Steep inclines, ladders, and stairs, and going up or down them, are symbolic representations of the s.e.xual act.7 Smooth walls over which one climbs, facades of houses, across which one lets oneself down -- often with a sense of great anxiety -correspond to erect human bodies, and probably repeat in our dreams childish memories of climbing up parents or nurses. "Smooth" walls are men; in anxiety dreams one often holds firmly to "projections" on houses. Tables, whether bare or covered, and boards, are women, perhaps by virtue of contrast, since they have no protruding contours. "Wood", generally speaking, seems, in accordance with its linguistic relations, to represent feminine matter (Materie). The name of the island Madeira means "wood" in Portuguese. Since "bed and board" (mensa et thorus) const.i.tute marriage, in dreams the latter is often subst.i.tuted for the former, and as far as practicable the s.e.xual representation-complex is transposed to the eating-complex. -- Of articles of dress, a woman"s hat may very often be interpreted with certainty as the male genitals. In the dreams of men one often finds the necktie as a symbol for the p.e.n.i.s; this is not only because neckties hang down in front of the body, and are characteristic of men, but also because one can select them at pleasure, a freedom which nature prohibits as regards the original of the symbol. Persons who make use of this symbol in dreams are very extravagant in the matter of ties, and possess whole collections of them.8 All complicated machines and appliances are very probably the genitals -- as a rule the male genitals -- in the description of which the symbolism of dreams is as indefatigable as human wit. It is quite unmistakable that all weapons and tools are used as symbols for the male organ: e.g. ploughshare, hammer, gun, revolver, dagger, sword, etc. Again, many of the landscapes seen in dreams, especially those that contain bridges or wooded mountains, may be readily recognised as descriptions of the genitals. Marcinowski collected a series of examples in which the dreamer explained his dream by means of drawings, in order to represent the landscapes and places appearing in it. These drawings clearly showed the distinction between the manifest and the latent meaning of the dream. Whereas, naively regarded, they seemed to represent plans, maps, and so forth, closer investigation showed that they were representations of the human body, of the genitals, etc., and only after conceiving them thus could the dream be understood.9 Finally, where one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may suspect combinations of components having a s.e.xual significance. -- Children, too, often signify the genitals, since men and women are in the habit of fondly referring to their genital organs as "little man", "little woman", "little thing". The "little brother" was correctly recognised by Stekel as the p.e.n.i.s. To play with or to beat a little child is often the dream"s representation of masturbation. The dream-work represents castration by baldness, haircutting, the loss of teeth, and beheading. As an insurance against castration, the dream uses one of the common symbols of a p.e.n.i.s in double or multiple form; and the appearance in a dream of a lizard -- an animal whose tail, if pulled off, is regenerated by a new growth -- has the same meaning. Most of those animals which are utilised as genital symbols in mythology and folklore play this part also in dreams: the fish, the snail, the cat, the mouse (on account of the hairiness of the genitals), but above all the snake, which is the most important symbol of the male member. Small animals and vermin are subst.i.tutes for little children, e.g. undesired sisters or brothers. To be infected with vermin is often the equivalent for pregnancy. -- As a very recent symbol of the male organ I may mention the airship, whose employment is justified by its relation to flying, and also, occasionally, by its form. -- Stekel has given a number of other symbols, not yet sufficiently verified, which he has ill.u.s.trated by examples. The works of this author, and especially his book Die Sprache des Traumes, contain the richest collection of interpretations of symbols, some of which were ingeniously guessed and were proved to be correct upon investigation, as, for example, in the section on the symbolism of death. The author"s lack of critical reflection, and his tendency to generalise at all costs, make his interpretations doubtful or inapplicable, so that in making use of his works caution is urgently advised. I shall therefore restrict myself to mentioning a few examples.

Right and left, according to Stekel, are to be understood in dreams in an ethical sense. "The right-hand path always signifies the way to righteousness, the left-hand path the path to crime. Thus the left may signify h.o.m.os.e.xuality, incest, and perversion, while the right signifies marriage, relations with a prost.i.tute, etc. The meaning is always determined by the individual moral standpoint of the dreamer" (loc. cit., p. 466). Relatives in dreams generally stand for the genitals (pp. 373 ff.). Here I can confirm this meaning only for the son, the daughter, and the younger sister -- that is, wherever "little thing" could be employed. On the other hand, verified examples allow us to recognise sisters as symbols of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and brothers as symbols of the larger hemispheres. To be unable to overtake a carriage is interpreted by Stekel as regret at being unable to catch up with a difference in age (p. 479). The luggage of a traveller is the burden of sin by which one is oppressed (ibid.). But a traveller"s luggage often proves to be an unmistakable symbol of one"s own genitals. To numbers, which frequently occur in dreams, Stekel has a.s.signed a fixed symbolic meaning, but these interpretations seem neither sufficiently verified nor of universal validity, although in individual cases they can usually be recognised as plausible. We have, at all events, abundant confirmation that the figure three is a symbol of the male genitals. One of Stekel"s generalisations refers to the doub

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