THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Freud wrote ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’ I have it on my bookshelf, but haven’t read it yet, except for the opening paragraph:

  … there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state.

  So that you won’t think I’m a highbrow, I have another book, ‘Dreams for Dummies,’ also mostly unread. Both books were bought from a second-hand bookshop. One day I’ll probably find time to read them, but for now, I must interpret my own dreams.

Sunday morning I woke up and remembered three dreams I had just had. Dreams are easily forgotten, perhaps because we remember them in a half-asleep, half-awake state; so I lay there going over the incidents in the dreams to make sure I would be able to write them down later. I still managed to forget two of the dreams.

  Here’s the one I remembered: I’m in a room on the fourth floor of a building. The room is bare except for two windows. Besides myself, there are two other people, a beautiful girl and her boyfriend. (I don’t know them in real life.) I don’t go near the windows; I tell the girl I’m afraid of heights. She presses close to a window, as if to taunt me, says her father also warns her about falling out.

  Now the three of us are rolling around on the floor; I’m in the middle. The boyfriend puts a leg over me and tries to get me to touch the girl’s bare back, which I want to do but resist doing. The desire to touch yet the fear of touching is almost orgiastic. I say to the boy, ‘I don’t think my brother will understand when he comes back and sees you all over me like this. End of dream.

 Interpretation:

Falling out of the window: The previous day I saw workmen cleaning the top of a twenty-story apartment. They were working close to the edge; must be scary, I thought.

  Brother in the dream: Actually, this brother is dead. But recently his widow asked me to write some letters for her. Haven’t written them yet, perhaps guilt anxiety.

  Boy puts leg over me: Haven’t a clue what this means. Later that morning, I happened to take down a book from a shelf: The Tao Te Ching. In Tao they talk of yin and yang. Perhaps that’s the connection. But then it would be a case of life imitating dreams, not dreams reflecting psychology of waking state, as Freud said.

  Who are the girl and boyfriend?: Not a clue.