Morbid fears and compulsions : their psychology and psychoanalytic treatment . o most ofour dreams, and precisely for the same reason, for it would thenbe a case of indirect representation which we had not inter-preted. To us the cartoon has a meaning only because ofour ability to interpret it. To be able to make the inter-pretation we need to possess certain information which isnot given by the cartoon itself. Thus we have to know thesetting—what was going on in the political world at thetime the cartoon was drawn. We must be able to recognisethe features of Mr Bryan, and must be familiar wit
Morbid fears and compulsions : their psychology and psychoanalytic treatment . o most ofour dreams, and precisely for the same reason, for it would thenbe a case of indirect representation which we had not inter-preted. To us the cartoon has a meaning only because ofour ability to interpret it. To be able to make the inter-pretation we need to possess certain information which isnot given by the cartoon itself. Thus we have to know thesetting—what was going on in the political world at thetime the cartoon was drawn. We must be able to recognisethe features of Mr Bryan, and must be familiar with thesymbolic figure, the dove of peace, and the colloquialism to have an axe to grind. If we do not have this informa-tion we can take the cartoon only at its face value and then itseems utterly senseless. What is true of indirect representa-tion as exemplified in this cartoon also applies everywhereelse. In order to see any sense or meaning in it, one has tohave certain information not given in the representationitself, and to use this as a means of interpretation. When. Courtesy of the New York Tribune NIGHT DREAMS 61 we have the required information and use it, the appearanceof senselessness vanishes at once. I will now relate a real dream and I think it will be apparentthat the means by which ideas are represented in it are almostidentical with those of the cartoon. To see what it means,the same sort of extra information and interpretation isrequired as in the case of the cartoon, and, when the inter-pretation is made, what seemed nonsense suddenly appearsas sense. An acquaintance of mine once dreamed that he was kickinga skunk but that animal, instead of emitting its usual odour,gave off a strong smell of Palmers perfume. This dream of course seems absolutely absurd and meaning-less. But we must remember that as yet we know nothingof the dreamer, nor of the setting in which the dream short we are in about the same position as would be anIcelander in attempti
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