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II THE DREAM FIFTH LECTURE THE DREAM Difficulties and Preliminary Approach ONE day the discovery was made that the disease symptoms of certain nervous patients have a meaning . [ 22 ] Thereupon the psychoanalytic method of therapy was founded . In this treatment it happened that the patients also presented dreams in place of their symptoms . Herewith originated the conjecture that these dreams also have a meaning . We will not , however , pursue this historical path , but enter upon the opposite one . We wish to discover the meaning of dreams as preparation for the study of the neuroses . This inversion is justified , for the study of dreams is not only the best preparation for that of the neuroses , but the dream itself is also a neurotic symptom , and in fact one which possesses for us the incalculable advantage of occurring in all normals . Indeed , if all human beings were well and would dream , we could gain from their dreams almost all the insight to which the study of the neuroses has led . Thus it is that the dream becomes the object of psychoanalytic research — again an ordinary , little - considered phenomenon , apparently of no practical value , like the errors with which , indeed , it shares the character of occurring in normals . But otherwise the conditions are rather less favorable for our work . Errors had been neglected only by science , which had paid little attention to them ; but at least it was no disgrace to occupy one's self with them . People said there are indeed more important things , but perhaps something may come of it . Preoccupation with the dream , however , is not merely impractical and superfluous , but actually ignominious ; it carries the odium of the unscientific , awakens the suspicion of a personal leaning towards mysticism . The idea of a physician busying himself with dreams when even in neuropathology and psychiatry there are matters so much more serious — tumors the size of apples which incapacitate the organ of the psyche , hemorrhages , and chronic inflammations in which one can demonstrate changes in the tissues under the microscope ! No , the dream is much too trifling an object , and unworthy of Science . And besides , it is a condition which in itself defies all the requirements of exact research — in dream investigation one is not even sure of one's object . A delusion , for example , presents itself in clear and definite outlines . " I am the Emperor of China , " says the patient aloud . But the dream ? It generally cannot be related at all . If anyone relates a dream , has he any guarantee that he has told it correctly , and not changed it during the telling , or invented an addition which was forced by the indefiniteness of his recollection ? Most dreams cannot be remembered at all , are forgotten except for small fragments . And upon the interpretation of such material shall a scientific psychology or method of treatment for patients be based ? A certain excess in judgment may make us suspicious . The objections to the dream as an object of research obviously go too far . The question of insignificance we have already had to deal with in discussing errors . We said to ourselves that important matters may manifest themselves through small signs . As concerns the indefiniteness of the dream , it is after all a characteristic like any other . One cannot prescribe the characteristics of an object . Moreover , there are clear and definite dreams . And there are other objects of psychiatric research which suffer from the same trait of indefiniteness , e . g . , many compulsion ideas , with which even respectable and esteemed psychiatrists have occupied themselves . I might recall the last case which occurred in my practice .
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