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Freuds Model of the Mind in Sleep and Dreaming

a

Margaret Gilmore M.D. & Edward Nersessian M.D.

a

120 East 75th Street, New York, NY 10021

72 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128, e-mail: .

Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Margaret Gilmore M.D. & Edward Nersessian M.D. (1999) Freuds Model of the Mind in Sleep and
Dreaming, Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 1:2, 225-232, DOI:
10.1080/15294145.1999.10773263
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.1999.10773263

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APPENDIX

Freud's Model of the Mind in Sleep and

Dreaming

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Margaret Gilmore (New York) and

Edward Nersessian (New York)

Abstract: This paper presents a brief summary of Freud's model

of the mind in sleep and dreaming as presented in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and amended in his paper "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1917). The basic
elements of the metapsychology are described including the functional role of the mind and the contributions from the different
components of the mind, such as perception, memory, thought
processes, and libidinal drives. The mechanisms employed to handle psychological stimuli by the sleeping mind are contrasted with
those used by the awake mind. The primary and secondary processes are defined and illustrated. There is a description ofFreud's
model for the formation of dreams. A clinical example of a dream
and its associations, including a second dream, are used to illustrate Freud's model.

In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud (1900) presented his psychological model of the mind and the
role of dreams and dreaming. He proposed that dreaming protects sleep: dreams are the guardians, not the
disturbers of sleep. The presence of a dream indicates
that there is an external or internal stimulus that is
impinging upon the sleeper's mind and threatening to
awaken him. The sleeping mind creates a dream to
handle this threatening stimulus in such a manner as
to allow sleep to continue.

Metapsychology of the Mind

Freud viewed the mind as the "mental apparatus"
designed to serve "the biological purpose of meeting
Margaret M. Gilmore, M.D., is an Assistant Course Instructor in
Psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Assistant

the imperative internal needs of the organism in a

changing (and largely indifferent) external environment. These needs are expressed through the drives:
quantitative demands on the mental apparatus to perform work (i.e., to bring about the specific changes
that are necessary to relieve the current internal
needs)" (Solms and Nersessian, 1999, p. 5). The function of the mental apparatus is to enable the organism
to find means to satisfy its many pressing needs including those for food, elimination, and reproduction.
Using inferences derived from his observations
of the mental processes involved in neurotic symptom
formation and dreams, Freud (1900, pp. 509-621;
1917, pp. 222-235) developed a hypothetical model
for the structure of the mental apparatus. He divided
the mental apparatus into two main systems: the system unconscious and the system conscious. The system
unconscious was the older, more primitive system for
handling the organism's demands upon the mind. He
proposed that the systerrl unconscious comprised several agencies with different functions. Perception was
the agency responsible for the reception of incoming
stimuli both from within the body and from the external environment. The memory system was responsible
for storing these stimuli. This original memory system
functioned without conscious perception (thus Freud
named it the unconscious) and without verbal encoding. He called the system by which the mind processed
incoming stimuli and memories the primary process.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical Center.
Edward Nersessian, M.D., is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst,
New York Psychoanalytic Institute; and Clinical Associate Professor of
Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College.

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226
This system associated nonverbal, often visual, memories with one another on the bases of simultaneity in
time or space as well as upon partial similarities of
the objects in the memories with regard to size, color,
shape, texture, sound, or feeling. The primary process
was regulated by the pleasure-unpleasure principle,
which required that all incoming demand stimuli be
discharged (or satisfied) as immediately as possible.
Pleasure was defined as the reduction or elimination of
the demand stimuli through discharge (or satisfaction).
The motor system was the agency in control of the
organism's motor activity or behavior. In the system
unconscious there was relatively open and automatic
communication between incoming stimuli, memories,
and outgoing motor stimuli.
Freud hypothesized that the system unconscious
processed incoming stimuli in the following manner:
they traveled through the nonverbal memory system
until reaching a memory in which they were presented
as having been discharged successfully (satisfied). The
agency conscious then perceived this memory of prior
satisfaction as a present experience, i.e., as a hallucination. Any motor activity connected with the memory
of gratification would also be automatically stimulated. Thus the mind attempted to satisfy the present
demand stimulus by reexperiencing a prior satisfaction in present consciousness. When an incoming
stimulus made demands upon the mental apparatus,
the mental apparatus hallucinated a prior experience
of gratification in an attempt to satisfy the present
demand. This system unconscious functioned like a
reflex with stimulus in and hallucination and motor
activity out. For example, an infant experiencing hunger would respond with a hallucination of drinking
milk accompanied by sucking movements of its mouth
and lips.
Freud proposed that the system conscious
emerged later in development when the mental apparatus acquired an agency called the censor, which had
-several new capacities for handling demand stimuli,
memories, and motor actions. First, the censor (later
in theory development elaborated into and referred to
as the ego) had the power to delay and inhibit the
immediate discharge (or satisfaction) of the incoming
demand: it could interrupt the primary process treatment of the incoming demand stimulus. Second, the
censor had the capacity to control the motor system.
It could block automatic motor activities as well as
stimulate specific behaviors. Third, the censor had the
capacity to represent demand stimuli, memories, and
behaviors with verbal symbols. This verbal encoding
enabled the censor to differentiate stimuli incoming

Gilmore-Nersessian
from the internal bodily and psychological world from
those stimuli incoming from the external world. The
censor-ego could search for verbal memories of prior
satisfaction while simultaneously monitoring data incoming from external reality to test for compatibility
between those memories and the present reality. The
censor-ego had developed the capacity to test reality.
Fourth, the censor had the capacity to control which
stimuli gained access to consciousness. Only those demand stimuli or memories acceptable to the censor
became conscious. By employing its ability to delay
satisfaction, block immediate motor discharge, provide verbal encoding, and control access to consciousness, the censor-ego developed the capacity for
handling demand stimuli with thoughts as trial actions,
or thinking. Now the censor-ego compared and contrasted the verbal representatives of the demand stimuli, memories, and incoming sensory data. The censor
allowed the system conscious to perceive only those
thoughts compatible with reality and released only
those motor activities appropriate to satisfying the demand in reality. The reality principle replaced the
pleasure/unpleasure principle. In the secondary process, the censor rejected a hallucination as an inadequate method to satisfy a stimulus demand.
The secondary process treatment of incoming
stimuli led to logical thought and goal-directed behavior. Only after the censor-ego had subjected the incoming demand stimulus to treatment by the secondary
process would the censor allow the system conscious
to perceive a memory in consciousness and release
appropriate goal-directed motor activity. How would
this work in the example of the hungry child? The
child would interpret the stimulus demand as hunger
and then recall in verbal memory that milk satisfied
hunger and that mother supplied milk. The child would
search incoming environmental data to find a match
for mother. Having located mother in reality, the child
would then employ appropriate motor functions such
as crying to attract mother or crawling to reach mother
in order to get milk to satisfy its hunger. The awake
mind of the adult usually functions primarily according to the system conscious.

The Sleeping Mind

Freud observed that a person who wishes to sleep reduces his perceptions of sensory input by shutting his
eyes, finding a quiet, dark environment; and assuming
a comfortable body position. This person also reduces
the potential for internal demands being made upon

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Appendix
his sleeping mind by satisfying his needs for food,
drink, and elimination before going to sleep. Finally,
he lays aside his mental cares.
In his description of the mind approaching sleep,
Freud made the following analogy. In just such a manner as the would-be sleeper lays aside his eyeglasses,
his hearing aid, or his walking cane so the mind in
approaching sleep lays aside many of its ego functions.
In sleep many of the capacities of the awake ego, particularly those for secondary process treatment of demand stimuli and for reality testing, are severely
weakened or lost. The sleeping mind attempts to handle disturbing demand stimuli by reverting to conscious perceptions of prior satisfactions; i.e., to
hallucinations during sleep. The manifest dream recalled on awakening is that hallucination. However,
the weakened censor-ego of sleep maintains some of
its functions. It can still provide some verbal encoding
and block some conscious perceptions of unacceptable
memories. Also access to the motor system is usually
blocked during sleep.
As stated above, in order for the mind-body to
sleep, it is necessary to reduce the work demands
placed on the mental apparatus. The agency of the
mind called the conscious must reduce its perceptions
of demand stimuli from both the external environment
and from the internal world of the organism. The conscious turns away its perceptions from internal and
external stimuli. The reduction in sensory input from
the external world results in a marked decrease in the
ego's ability to test reality. The weakened censor loses
much of its capacity to block demand stimuli from
gaining verbal representation. Drive demands which
the waking ego-censor had ignored (or repressed) by
blocking their access to verbal representation may successfully gain verbal representation. These verbal demands result in verbal wishes to satisfy them. Since
the weakened censor loses its capacity for secondary
process, these drive demands and their consequent
wishes fall under the dominance of the primary process. In order to satisfy the demand stimulus and its
wish, and thus maintain sleep, the sleeping mind
allows the conscious to perceive a memory, or a combination of memories, of prior satisfactions as a present reality; i.e., as a hallucination. The dream recalled
upon awakening is the hallucination experienced during sleep. Nevertheless, the sleeping censor maintains
some power to control which memory stimuli gain
conscious perception. Thus only those memories of
drive satisfaction which have been treated by the primary process sufficiently to be deemed acceptable by

227

the censor will gain conscious perception during sleep;

i.e., be hallucinated.

Examples Illustrating the Theory

Freud (1900, pp. 123-124) used the example of his
own thirst to illustrate his model for dream formation
in response to a pressing internal bodily need. He observed that if he ate anchovies or another salty food
before sleep, he would have a dream in which he was
drinking great gulps of delicious water. Following the
dream, he would awaken thirsty. He proposed that the
salty food produced a thirst during sleep which put a
demand upon his sleeping mind to find satisfaction.
Initially his mind tried to ignore his thirst. But the
unsatisfied, and thus increasing stimulus, slipped past
the weakened censor during sleep and gained verbal
representation: "I am thirsty." In response to this verbal signal the sleeping ego formed a verbal wish aimed
at satisfying the demand: "I wish I had a drink of
water." It is at this point that the sleeping mind handles the wish so differently from the manner in which
the awake mind would. Specifically, the awake mind
with a fully functioning ego would submit the wish to
secondary process thinking and check both its memories of prior satisfactions and its data from the present
external environment to form a logical plan to employ
motor activity to satisfy the wish in reality. In this
case, the awake ego's decision might be to get out of
bed and get a drink of water. However, the sleeping
mind, with its loss of both reality testing and secondary process thinking, submits this wish for a drink to
primary process treatment and creates a dream. The
wishful thought passes through the memories to find
an experience of prior gratification. Then the sleeping
censor allows the system conscious to perceive this
memory as a present conscious experience; i.e., as a
hallucination. Thus the sleeping mind translates the
verbal wish into a visual hallucination in which the
drive-satisfying wish is presented as being satisfied;
for example, the sleeper dreams he is drinking great
gulps of delicious water. Freud argued that the verbal
wish to drink is presented to the sleeper as a visual
experience, i.e., as a hallucination, because the wishfulfilling thought has to be received in the sleeping
mind as a conscious perception in order that the ego
will mistake the wish for a reality experience and
allow the person to continue to sleep. Nevertheless,
as the thirst is not really satisfied by the hallucination
of drinking, the stimulus will continue to grow in intensity and eventually awaken the sleeper. Thus Freud

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228
awakens thirsty. Freud's dream of drinking water is
similar to the hungry infant's hallucination of drinking
milk. As the drive demand persists, the hallucination
fails.
To further support his proposition that dreams
represent the hallucinations of gratification for pressing needs during sleep, Freud cited evidence from the
dreams of children. He reported an example from his
daughter. On the night following a day of fasting
which had been imposed in response to an intestinal
upset which his daughter's nurse had blamed upon
Anna's having eaten strawberries, Anna was overheard calling out in her sleep, "Anna Freud, stwawbewwies, wild stwawbewwies, omblet, pudden!" (Freud
1900, p. 130). He claimed that Anna was satisfying
her wish for revenge against the nurse by having a
dream in which she ordered the prohibited foods.
Freud provided another example of a dream in which
a child satisfied a frustration stimulated the previous
day. An 8-year-old girl, bitterly disappointed by the
brevity of a boat trip, reported on awakening, "Last
night I went on the lake" (Freud, 1900, p. 129).
Freud generalized these findings to claim that
dreams represent hallucinated wish fulfillments aimed
at satisfying drive demands impinging upon the mind
during sleep. Thus dreams protect sleep.

Outline of Freud's Initial Model of Dream

Formation
Freud's initial model of sleep and dreaming can be
outlined as follows. First, the person wishes to sleep.
Second, there is a disturbing demand impinging on the
sleeper's mind. This disturbing demand is often the
result of a frustrated longing from the previous day.
Third, the disturbing stimulus bypasses the weakened
censor and achieves verbal representation. Fourth, the
sleeping mind forms a verbal wish aimed at satisfying
or discharging the stimulus. Fifth, the sleeping mind
subjects this verbal wish to primary process treatment
and the censor allows the system conscious to perceive
a memory of prior gratification as a present experience. The sleeping mind creates a dream by translating
the wishful thought into a hallucinated dream scene in
which the wish is experienced as being satisfied. He
labeled the dream scene which is consciously perceived during sleep, the manifest content of the dream.
He labeled those dreams in which the dream scene
portrays a direct (undistorted) gratification of the demand stimulus, dreams of convenience.

Gilmore-Nersessian

Freud's Second Model of Dream Formation:

The Conflict Model
Freud claimed that dreams of convenience are rare in
adults. Much more frequent are dreams in which the
manifest content is only a disguised version of the
original wishful thought. He suggested two related
reasons for this finding. First, the adult mind with its
stronger ego is quite capable of ignoring minor bodily
and psychological frustrations during sleep. Second,
those demand stimuli with sufficient force to require
satisfaction during sleep usually represent drive demands which lead to wishes for which the censor rejects the direct conscious perception of their
gratification (hallucination). The explicit hallucinated
gratification is not acceptable even to the weakened
censor of the sleeping mind.
According to Freud, most of the stimuli which
attain verbal representation during sleep (i.e., many
of the thoughts and ideas arising during sleep), lack
sufficient intensity to demand satisfaction. It is only
when these minor stimuli can gain reinforcement from
more intense current or past demands still seeking
gratification that a minor demand stimulus can attain
the force necessary to require the sleeping mind to
provide satisfaction with a dream. In these instances
the minor demand stimulus is simply providing a disguised vehicle for the satisfaction of the more intense,
but prohibited longing.
Freud illustrated this model for dream formation
by making an analogy to the situation of the entrepreneur and the capitalist. The entrepreneur has the idea
for the business but requires the capitalist to supply
the money. In the sleeping state, the mind (like the
entrepreneur) has ideas, impulses, and wishes but most
of these ideas and wishes have insufficient intensity
(capital) to require the sleeping mind to satisfy them
with a dream. Most of the demands and ideas which
occur to the sleeping mind do not result in dreams. It
is only when one, or more, of these ideas gains intensity (or capital) by borrowing intensity from another,
more forceful demand that the mind finds it necessary
to create a dream. Freud claimed that the demands
most capable of supplying such intensity (capital) were
the libidinal demands frustrated in childhood or current life. The libinal dreams included, but were not
limited to, those needs for food, elimination, and sexual gratification. The dream occurs only if one or more
of the current ideas can attract the interest of the libidinal drives and borrow their intensity by representing
them.

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Appendix
This borrowing of intensity from libinal demands
leads to the second reason that dreams of convenience
are rare in adults. These libidinal demands with adequate force to threaten sleep lead to wishes for which
the hallucinated gratification is not acceptable even to
the weakened censor of the sleeping mind. The censor
blocks the system conscious from perceiving in consciousness, even during sleep, the direct gratification
of the wishful thought. There is a conflict between
the mind's wish to achieve immediate discharge and
hallucinate the most direct scene of satisfaction, and
the sleeping censor's standards for what it will allow
the system conscious to perceive. Even when the wish
has gained verbal representation, the sleeping censor
still has the power to refuse to grant conscious perception to scenes unacceptable to its standards. Although
the wishful thought is subjected to the primary process
functioning, the censor is able to influence the final
outcome by refusing conscious perception to scenes
of direct satisfaction which do not meet its standards.
In these instances, the final dream hallucination is only
an indirect representation of the original wishful
thought. Freud named the original wishful thought the
latent dream wish. The dream scene was still called
the manifest dream. In these dreams there is a marked
difference between the latent dream wish and the final
manifest dream.
The second conflict model of dream formation
proceeds as follows. First, there is a wish to sleep.
Second, there is a demand stimulus during sleep.
Third, this demand attains verbal representation.
Fourth, the mind forms a verbal wish aimed at satisfying the stimulus and preserving sleep. Fifth, if the
original demand stimulus has sufficient intensity or
can borrow adequate intensity from a libidinal wish,
the sleeping mind subjects this verbal wish to primary
process treatment until a scene of gratification acceptable to the censor is created. Sixth, the censor allows
the system conscious to perceive in consciousness this
acceptable scene which is only a disguised representation of the original wishful thought. Thus, the manifest
content of the dream is a compromise formation resulting from the conflict between the original latent
dream wish and the censor's demands on the expression of that wish. If the mind of the sleeper is capable
of finding a compromise formation which is capable
of sufficiently satisfying the drive demand and is also
adequately disguised to satisfy the censor, the sleeper
has a successful dream and is able to continue sleeping. However, if the compromise formation is not satisfying enough for the original demand and/or if it is

229
not sufficiently disguised for the censor, the sleeper
has an unsuccessful dream and awakens.

Support for the Conflict Model of Dreaming

Freud spent much of his effort in The Interpretation
of Dreams establishing support for his claim that the
manifest content of the dream is a disguised version
of the latent dream wish. Obviously this claim for a
latent dream wish was of major importance since the
manifest content of many dreams does not, on the
surface, appear to represent a wish fulfillment. This
statement is particularly true for nightmares and for
those dreams in which the dreamer represents an event
which he knows is distasteful to him. Freud claimed
that nightmares represented failed dreams: either the
hallucination was unable to adequately satisfy the
drive demand or the manifest content was insufficiently disguised to be acceptable to the censor. In
either case, anxiety develops and awakens the
dreamer. However, Freud provided a different explanation for the unpleasant situation dreams. He considered the unpleasant situation dreams to be successful
attempts at disguising the gratification of a prohibited
latent dream wish. For example, Freud (1900, pp.
152-154) cited the dream of a single woman in which
she was at the funeral of her beloved nephew. He
claimed the dream represented the woman's wish to
see her former suitor whom she had last seen at another funeral. In his opinion, the woman did not wish
the death of her nephew but rather expected that her
former suitor would attend the funeral. Thus, she could
disguise her latent wish to meet the man for whom she
was longing by representing in the manifest content of
the dream only the place (a funeral) in which she had
last seen the man and omitting representation of the
suitor himself. Freud also attributed some painful
dreams to the satisfaction of wishes for masochistic
satisfaction.
Freud employed his associative decoding method
of dream interpretation to uncover both the latent
wishes in dreams and the mechanisms of functioning
employed by the primary process. He outlined several
mechanisms by which the primary process transformed the latent dream wish into the manifest dream.
First the phrases of the original latent dream wish are
separated from one another. Then these phrases are
replaced by other phrases derived from thoughts and
visual images which are associated through the primary process connections with the original phrases
but which are less threatening to the mind and thus

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230

more acceptable to the censor. For example, the mind

may transfer the psychological importance of a particular phrase or image in the latent dream thought onto
an adjacent thought or image which is of less psychological importance. This indifferent idea or image may
now stand in for the original psychologically more
important idea which the censor has refused to represent directly in the manifest content. Freud named this
process displacement. In the dream of the single
woman longing to see her former suitor, she displaced
her longing to see the suitor onto the scene in which
she had last met him: a funeral. The longed for suitor
is not directly represented in the dream at all. Freud
claimed that one such example of displacement, the
day residue, occurred in the manifest content of almost
all dreams. The excitement from the demand stimulus
leading to the latent dream wish is displaced onto ,~n
innocuous memory from the previous day. This indifferent memory appears in the manifest content in place
of the exciting, but prohibited, longing. Freud labeled
the innocuous memory the day residue.
Freud described a second method of distortion
introduced by the primary process as condensation. In
this process the mind combines two or more phrases
or images from the original latent wishful thought, or
from thoughts derived from that thought, in order to
create a new thought or image which is a composite
of the original phrases and images. This composite
thought or image replaces the thoughts and images
from the original latent dream wish. These combinations of images are often based upon a single shared
similarity which is the concept which the latent wish
desires to represent. For example, a dreamer wished
to accuse his friend, Mr. X, a man with white hair,
of disloyalty ("You traitor"). However, the dreamer
disapproved of his wish to call Mr. X a traitor. Instead
of Mr. X appearing in the dream image, Mr. Y, a
man with a well-earned reputation for disloyalty and
a shock of brown hair, appeared in the dream adorned
with Mr. X's white hair. The new composite dream
figure of Mr. Y with Mr. X's white hair represented
both men. By creating this composite image, the
dreamer accused Mr. X of being similar to Mr. Y, i.e.,
of being a traitor.
A third method of processing the latent dream
thought employed by the primary process is to translate the original verbal thought of the latent dream
wish into a visual image. Freud labeled this process
plastic representation. For example, a man wishing to
attribute his "bad habits" to others may have a dream
of nuns wearing soiled clothing; i.e., having "dirty
habits." Such example of word play in dreams are

Gilmore-Nersessian
quite common. A young man wishing to "meet a
mate" had a dream in which he was shopping in a
meat market where there were many sailors (mates).
A fourth process employed by the primary process is that in which the latent dream thought is transformed from a verbal thought to an observed image
and finally to a scene in which the dreamer has the
belief that he is experiencing a situation in reality.
This process is called regression. This regression is
the result of the censor allowing the system conscious
to perceive the memory as a present experience in
reality. For example, a young woman with a wish to
be pregnant had a dream in which she was driving a
car with a pleasant passenger.
Finally, Freud added that the sleeping censor may
contribute to the final dream not only by controlling
the wishful scene's access to consciousness but also
by making comments upon the already perceived
dream and/or making alterations to the sequencing of
the dream images. Sometimes the censor fails to block
an unacceptable wish before it gains conscious representation. In these instances the sleeping censor may
make after-the-fact comments on the dream such as,
"This is only a dream," in a belated attempt to disguise the dreamer's wish. Or the sleeping censor may
rearrange the already consciously perceived dream images into a ' 'story line" designed to obscure the
dream's intention from the dreamer. Freud named
these processes secondary revision and saw them as a
product of a weakened censor rather than as a mechanism of the primary process. He claimed that dreams
with organized story lines were the result of much
secondary revision.

A Clinical Example
The following dream, reported by a 30-year-old patient to his analyst, is offered in order to illustrate
some of Freud's theory. In psychoanalysis a person's
spontaneous associations following the dream report
as well as following the analyst's comments are assumed to elucidate the meaning of a dream.
I am in this house, upstairs, and the room I am in is
green. I am with a woman and then there seems to
be a danger, like the color green becomes dangerous,
and we have to escape and I wake up.
Associations: I visited my parents over the weekend with
my wife and went upstairs to the apartment my aunt
and her husband used to rent in our house when I was

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Appendix

a kid. I was trying to see if it was as I remembered it

or not. We were there for Mother's Day and my mom
was happy that we went. That afternoon I started
thinking of 1 and wondered if I should call her and
wish her a happy Mother's Day. (1 is a woman to
whom he is very attracted and with whom he has been
very flirtatious.) I decided not to call 1 because if my
wife ever found out she would kill me.
Analyst: In your dream you were with a woman and there
was danger.
Patient: I didn't think about it that way. It was the green
color that was dangerous and I can't imagine why I
would be afraid of a color.
Analyst: Does the color bring anything to mind?
Patient: It is my mother's favorite color. In our house when
I was growing up everything was green; walls, curtains, bedspreads. Not upstairs though, only in our
part of the house. My mother also loved plants so we
had plants everywhere but my aunt didn't have any
because they only lived upstairs a few months a year.
I remember when they were away, I would go up
there and play. In high school I would go there with
girls and fool around but my mother never caught us.
When I was much younger, 8 or 9 years old, I would
play doctor with our next door neighbor's daughter
who was my age, but I don't remember doing that
upstairs. They had a big back yard and we would go
there and take our clothes off.

Following session:
Patient: I had another dream.

I was in my country house. There was a station

wagon. I was in the station wagon and there was
someone else in it.
Associations: My car is not a station wagon but my parents
used to have one when I was a kid. I remember when
I was 8 or 9 we took a long cross-country trip in that
car. I loved that trip. My sister (two years younger)
and I were in the back seat of the station wagon and
I think we had taken our clothes off under a blanket
and I asked her to touch my penis and my mother
heard it and was furious. Maybe the dangerous green
is my mother. (Laughs)
Analyst: So did you play doctor with your sister?
Patient: Oh, a lot. We were very sexual together when we
were young, but I don't remember where we did that.
I clearly remember the back yard with the neighbor
but with my sister I don't seem to picture a place

except that time in the car but I just know we fooled

around a lot.
Analyst: Could it have been upstairs?
Patient: Could have been but I don't remember being upstairs with my sister.

Discussion
From a psychoanalytic perspective, these two dreams
were not fully analyzed but they can help to illustrate
a few points. For the first dream, the day residue appears to be going home for Mother's Day, visiting the
upstairs apartment, and frustrating his wish to call J,
primarily out of the fear of his wife. In his dream, the
current unfulfilled wish, his longing to call J, appears
to become connected to memories of satisfied sexual
play from childhood and adolescence. His fear is connected to the green danger; that is, his mother,. or his
getting caught by his mother, as he once was in the
car. The color green in the dream represents his mother
and her anger, an example of both displacement and
condensation. Mother is not directly represented in the
dream, only the color with which she is associated.
The color green in the first dream appears to be a
condensation representing his mother, plants, household decorations, and, probably, greenery from the
back yard. This list is most likely incomplete as the
prominence of the color green in the dream indicates
that many ideas and strong affects are condensed in
that dream image. The woman in the first dream appears to be a composite figure formed by the condensation of his sister, his neighbor, his high-school girl
friends and J. Since the first dream was not fully analyzed we cannot explain its determinants completely.
However, the dream clearly illustrates that the dreamer
is being disturbed by thoughts and feelings from the
day before and that the dream is an attempt to diminish
that disturbance by connecting it with situations from
childhood where a similar wish was gratified. Then
the whole wish is disguised in order to represent it as
something relatively innocuous: being in an upstairs
room with an unspecified woman. The following is a
general summary of how the dream formation may
have occurred in this instance. It would appear likely
that the patient's sexual longing for J, left over from
the previous day, was making demands upon his sleeping mind. The patient treats this longing by making a
wish to satisfy his sexual curiosity with J. Such a wish
would represent the latent dream wish. Wishing to
remain asleep, the patient tries to satisfy this wish by
returning to multiple memories in which his sexual

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232

longings were satisfied in childhood and adolescence.

These memories are then treated by the primary process until they are acceptable to the censor. He displaces the excitement from his recalled sexual activity
from the activity itself onto the place, upstairs, in
which some of these activities took place. Thus he
avoids direct representation of his recalled sexual play
and instead remembers only the place. By condensation of several prior sexual partners he creates an unspecified woman, a woman who represents both his
former willing sexual partners and J. By condensing
J with these other women he can express his desire
that she be similar to them; i.e., that she also satisfy
his sexual longings. As noted above he displaces his
fear of his mother onto the color green and thus avoids
direct representation of his mother. The censor then
allows the system conscious to perceive this scene as
an actual reality or a hallucination during sleep. This
final hallucination is the manifest content of the dream.
This first dream cannot be said to have totally protected sleep. The patient woke up. It is what Freud
considered a failed dream, that is to say the dream
work was not fully able to eliminate the demand disturbance in a manner acceptable to the censor. Anxiety
developed which woke up the dreamer. Even the representation of the angry mother by the innocuous color

Gilmore-Nersessian
green was not sufficient to protect sleep. The second
dream, on the other hand, can be considered to have
been a successful dream. Again the hallucination or
manifest content represents the scene of a prior sexual
satisfaction as well as the scene of anxiety. However,
in this dream there is no affect and the other person
remains completely unspecified, even as to gender.

References
Freud, S. (1900), The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard
Edition, 4&5. London: Hogarth Press, 1953.
- - (1917), A metapsychological supplement to the theory of dreams. Standard Edition, 14:217-235. London:
Hogarth Press, 1953.
Solms, M., & Nersessian, E. (1999), Freud's theory of affect: Questions for neuroscience. This Journal, 1:5-14.

Margaret M. Gilmore, M.D.

120 East 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
Edward Nersessian, M.D.
72 East 91 st Street
New York, NY 10128
e-mail: enerss@worldnet.att.net.