dream. We can now also solve the last riddle in this obscure passage of the dream, namely, that I have already driven before (vorher gefahren, vorgefahren) with the coachman.
Thus the dream is made absurd if there occurs as one of the elements in the dream thoughts the judgment "That is nonsense" and in general if disdain and criticism are the motives for one of the trains of unconscious thought. Hence absurdity becomes one of the means by which the dream activity expresses contradiction, as it does by reversing a relation in the material between the dream thoughts and dream content, and by utilising sensations of motor impediment. But absurdity in the dream is not simply to be translated by "no"; it is rather intended to reproduce the disposition of the dream thoughts, this being to show mockery and ridicule along with the contradiction. It is only for this purpose that the dream activity produces anything ridiculous. Here again it transforms a part of the latent content into a manifest form.[1]
As a matter of fact we have already met with a convincing example of the significance of an absurd dream. The dream, interpreted without analysis, of the Wagnerian performance lasting until 7.45 in the morning, in which the orchestra is conducted from a tower, &c. (see p. 316) is apparently trying to say: It is a crazy world and an insane society. He who deserves a thing doesn't get it, and he who doesn't care for anything has it—and in this she means to compare her fate with that of her cousin. The fact that dreams concerning a dead father were the first to furnish us with examples of absurdity in dreams is by no means an accident. The conditions necessary for the creations of absurd dreams are here grouped together in a typical manner. The authority belonging to the father has at an early age aroused the criticism of the child, and the strict demands he has made have
- ↑ Here the dream activity parodies the thought which it designates as ridiculous, in that it creates something ridiculous in relation to it. Heine does something similar when he tries to mock the bad rhymes of the King of Bavaria. He does it in still worse rhymes:
"Herr Ludwig ist ein grosser Poet
Und singt er, so stuerzt Apollo
Vor ihm auf die Knie und bittet und fleht,
'Halt ein, ich werde sonst toll oh!'"
