INTRODUCTION

Anyone who can read Freud's Interpretation of Dreams without being outraged by the novelty and seemingly unjustified boldness of his procedure, and without waxing morally indignant over the stark nakedness of his dream-interpretations, but can let this extraordinary book work upon his imagination calmly and without prejudice, will not fail to be deeply impressed at that point where Freud reminds us that an individual conflict, which he calls the incest fantasy, lies at the root of that monumental drama of the ancient world, the Oedipus legend. The impression made by this simple remark may be likened to the uncanny feeling which would steal over us if, amid the noise and bustle of a modern city street, we were suddenly to come upon an ancient relic—say the Corinthian capital of a long-immured column, or a fragment of an inscription. A moment ago, and we were completely absorbed in the hectic, ephemeral life of the present; then, the next moment, something very remote and strange flashes upon us, which directs our gaze to a different order of things. We turn away from the vast confusion of the present to glimpse the higher continuity of history. Suddenly we remember that on this spot where we now hasten to and fro about our business a similar scene of life and activity prevailed two thousand years ago in slightly different forms; similar passions moved mankind, and people were just as convinced as we are of the uniqueness of their lives. This is the impression that may very easily be left behind by a first acquaintance with the monuments of antiquity, and it seems to me that Freud's reference to the Oedipus legend is in every way comparable. While still struggling with the confusing impressions of the infinite variability of the individual psyche, we suddenly catch a glimpse of the simplicity and grandeur of the Oedipus tragedy, that perennial highlight of the Greek theatre. This broadening of our vision has about it something of a revelation. For our psychology, the ancient world has long since been sunk in the shadows of the past; in the schoolroom one could scarcely repress a sceptical smile when one indiscreetly calculated the matronly age of Penelope or pictured to oneself the comfortable middle-aged appearance of Jocasta, and comically compared the result with the tragic tempests of eroticism that agitate the legend and drama. We did not know then—and who knows even today?—that a man can have an unconscious, all-consuming passion for his mother which may undermine and tragically complicate his whole life, so that the monstrous fate of Oedipus seems not one whit overdrawn. Rare and pathological cases like that of Ninon de Lenclos and her son are too remote from most of us to convey a living impression. But when we follow the paths traced out by Freud we gain a living knowledge of the existence of these possibilities, which, although too weak to compel actual incest, are yet sufficiently strong to cause very considerable psychic disturbances. We cannot, to begin with, admit such possibilities in ourselves without a feeling of moral revulsion, and without resistances which are only too likely to blind the intellect and render self-knowledge impossible. But if we can succeed in discriminating between objective knowledge and emotional value-judgments, then the gulf that separates our age from antiquity is bridged over, and we realize with astonishment that Oedipus is still alive for us. The importance of this realization should not be underestimated, for it teaches us that there is an identity of fundamental human conflicts which is independent of time and place. What aroused a feeling of horror in the Greeks still remains true, but it is true for us only if we give up the vain illusion that we are different, i.e., morally better, than the ancients. We have merely succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble link binds us to the men of antiquity. This truth opens the way to an understanding of the classical spirit such as has never existed before—the way of inner sympathy on the one hand and of intellectual comprehension on the other. By penetrating into the blocked subterranean passages of our own psyches we grasp the living meaning of classical civilization, and at the same time we establish a firm foothold outside our own culture from which alone it is possible to gain an objective understanding of its foundations. That at least is the hope we draw from the rediscovery of the immortality of the Oedipus problem.

2 This line of inquiry has already yielded fruitful results: to it we owe a number of successful advances into the territory of the human mind and its history. These are the works of Riklin, Abraham, Rank, Maeder, and Jones, to which there has now been added Silberer's valuably study entitled "Phantasie und Mythos." Another work which cannot be overlooked is Pfister's contribution to Christian religious psychology. The leitmotiv of all these works is to find a clue to historical problems through the application of insights derived from the activity of the unconscious psyche in modern man. I must refer the reader to the works specified if he wishes to inform himself of the extent and nature of the insights already achieved. The interpretations are sometimes uncertain in particulars, but that does not materially detract from the total result. It would be significant enough if this merely demonstrated the far-reaching analogy between the psychological structure of the historical products and those of modern individuals. But the analogy applies with particular force to the symbolism, as Riklin, Rank, Maeder, and Abraham have shown, and also to the individual mechanisms governing the unconscious elaboration of motifs.

3 Psychological investigators have hitherto turned their attention mainly to the analysis of individual problems. But, as things are at present, it seems to me imperative that they should broaden the basis of this analysis by a comparative study of the historical material, as Freud has already tried to do in his study of Leonardo da Vinci. For, just as psychological knowledge furthers our understanding of the historical material, so, conversely, the historical material can throw new light on individual psychological problems. These considerations have led me to direct my attention more to the historical side of the picture, in the hope of gaining fresh insight into the foundations of psychology. In my later writings I have concerned myself chiefly with the question of historical and ethnological parallels, and here the researches of Erich Neumann have made a massive contribution towards solving the countless difficult problems that crop up everywhere in this hitherto little explored territory. I would mention above all his key work, The Origins and History of Consciousness, which carries forward the ideas that originally impelled me to write this book, and places them in the broad perspective of the evolution of human consciousness in general.

TWO KINDS OF THINKING

4 As most people know, one of the basic principles of analytical psychology is that dream-images are to be understood symbolically; that is to say, one must not take them literally, but must surmise a hidden meaning in them. This ancient idea of dream symbolism has aroused not only criticism, but the strongest opposition. That dreams should have a meaning, and should therefore be capable of interpretation, is certainly neither a strange nor an extraordinary idea. It has been known to mankind for thousands of years; indeed it has become something of a truism. One remembers having heard even at school of Egyptian and Chaldaean dream-interpreters. Everyone knows the story of Joseph, who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams, and of Daniel and the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar; and the dream-book of Artemidorus is familiar to many of us. From the written records of all times and peoples we learn of significant and prophetic dreams, of warning dreams and of healing dreams sent by the gods. When an idea is so old and so generally believed, it must be true in some way, by which I mean that it is psychologically true.

5 For modern man it is hardly conceivable that a God existing outside ourselves should cause us to dream, or that the dream foretells the future prophetically. But if we translate this into the language of psychology, the ancient idea becomes much more comprehensible. The dream, we would say, originates in an unknown part of the psyche and prepares the dreamer for the events of the following day.

6 According to the old belief, a god or demon spoke to the sleeper in symbolic language, and the dream-interpreter had to solve the riddle. In modern speech we would say that the dream is a series of images which are apparently contradictory and meaningless, but that it contains material which yields a clear meaning when properly translated.

7 Were I to suppose my readers to be entirely ignorant of dream-analysis, I should be obliged to document this statement with numerous examples. Today, however, these things are so well known that one must be sparing in the use of case-histories so as not to bore the public. It is an especial inconvenience that one cannot recount a dream without having to add the history of half a lifetime in order to represent the individual foundations of the dream. Certainly there are typical dreams and dream-motifs whose meaning appears to be simple enough if they are regarded from the point of view of sexual symbolism. One can apply this point of view without jumping to the conclusion that the content so expressed must also be sexual in origin. Common speech, as we know, is full of erotic metaphors which are applied to matters that have nothing to do with sex; and conversely, sexual symbolism by no means implies that the interests making use of it are by nature erotic. Sex, as one of the most important instincts, is the prime cause of numerous affects that exert an abiding influence on our speech. But affects cannot be identified with sexuality inasmuch as they may easily spring from conflict situations—for instance, many emotions spring from the instinct of self-preservation.

8 It is true that many dream-images have a sexual aspect or express erotic conflicts. This is particularly clear in the motif of assault. Burglars, thieves, murderers, and sexual maniacs figure prominently in the erotic dreams of women. It is a theme with countless variations. The instrument of murder may be a lance, a sword, a dagger, a revolver, a rifle, a cannon, a fire-hydrant, a watering-can; and the assault may take the form of a burglary, a pursuit, a robbery, or it may be someone hidden in the cupboard or under the bed. Again, the danger may be represented by wild animals, for instance by a horse that throws the dreamer to the ground and kicks her in the stomach with his hind leg; by lions, tigers, elephants with threatening trunks, and finally by snakes in endless variety. Sometimes the snake creeps into the mouth, sometimes it bites the breast like Cleopatra's legendary asp, sometimes it appears in the role of the paradisal serpent, or in one of the variations of Franz Stuck, whose snake-pictures bear significant titles like "Vice," "Sin," or "Lust" (cf. pi. x). The mixture of anxiety and lust is perfectly expressed in the sultry atmosphere of these pictures, and far more crudely than in Morike's piquant little poem:

     Girl's First Love Song

    What's in the net? I feel
    Frightened and shaken!
    Is it a sweet-slipping eel
    Or a snake that I've taken?

    Love's a blind fisherman,
    Love cannot see;
    Whisper the child, then,
    What would love of me?

    It leaps in my hands! This is
    Anguish unguessed.
    With cunning and kisses
    It creeps to my breast.

    It bites me, O wonder!
    Worms under my skin.
    My heart bursts asunder,
    I tremble within.

    Where go and where hide me?
    The shuddersome thing
    Rages inside me,
    Then sinks in a ring.

    What poison can this be?
    O that spasm again!
    It burrows in ecstasy
    Till I am slain.

9 All these things seem simple and need no explanation to be intelligible. Somewhat more complicated is the following dream of a young woman. She dreamt that she saw the triumphal Arch of Constantine. Before it stood a cannon, to the right a bird, to the left a man. A cannon-ball shot out of the muzzle and hit her; it went into her pocket, into her purse. There it remained, and she held the purse as if there were something very precious inside it. Then the picture faded, and all she could see was the stock of the cannon, with Constantine's motto above it: "In hoc signo vinces." The sexual symbolism of this dream is sufficiently obvious to justify the indignant surprise of all innocent-minded people. If it so happens that this kind of realization is entirely new to the dreamer, thus filling a gap in her conscious orientation, we can say that the dream has in effect been interpreted. But if the dreamer has known this interpretation all along, then it is nothing more than a repetition whose purpose we cannot ascertain. Dreams and dream-motifs of this nature can repeat themselves in a never-ending series without our being able to discover—at any rate from the sexual side—anything in them except what we know already and are sick and tired of knowing. This kind of approach inevitably leads to that "monotony" of interpretation of which Freud himself complained. In these cases we may justly suspect that the sexual symbolism is as good a façon de parler as any other and is being used as a dream-language. "Canis panem somniat, piscator pisces." Even dream-language ultimately degenerates into jargon. The only exception to this is in cases where a particular motif or a whole dream repeats itself because it has never been properly understood, and because it is necessary for the conscious mind to reorient itself by recognizing the compensation which the motif or dream expresses. In the above dream it is certainly a case either of ordinary unconsciousness, or of repression. One can therefore interpret it sexually and leave it at that, without going into all the niceties of the symbolism. The words with which the dream ends—"In hoc signo vinces"—point to a deeper meaning, but this level could only be reached if the dreamer became conscious enough to admit the existence of an erotic conflict.

These few references to the symbolic nature of dreams must suffice. We must accept dream symbolism as an accomplished fact if we wish to treat this astonishing truth with the necessary degree of seriousness. It is indeed astonishing that the conscious activity of the psyche should be influenced by products which seem to obey quite other laws and to follow purposes very different from those of the conscious mind.

How is it that dreams are symbolical at all? In other words, whence comes this capacity for symbolic representation, of which we can discover no trace in our conscious thinking? Let us examine the matter a little more closely. If we analyse a train of thought, we find that we begin with an "initial" idea, or a "leading" idea, and then, without thinking back to it each time, but merely guided by a sense of direction, we pass on to a series of separate ideas that all hang together. There is nothing symbolical in this, and our whole conscious thinking proceeds along these lines." If we scrutinize our thinking more closely still and follow out an intensive train of thought—the solution of a difficult problem, for instance—we suddenly notice that we are thinking in words, that in very intensive thinking we begin talking to ourselves, or that we occasionally write down the problem or make a drawing of it, so as to be absolutely clear. Anyone who has lived for some time in a foreign country will certainly have noticed that after a while he begins to think in the language of that country. Any very intensive train of thought works itself out more or less in verbal form—if, that is to say, one wants to express it, or teach it, or convince someone of it. It is evidently directed outwards, to the outside world. To that extent, directed or logical thinking is reality-thinking, a thinking that is adapted to reality, by means of which we imitate the successiveness of objectively real things, so that the images inside our mind follow one another in the same strictly causal sequence as the events taking place outside it. We also call this "thinking with directed attention." It has in addition the peculiarity of causing fatigue, and is for that reason brought into play for short periods only. The whole laborious achievement of our lives is adaptation to reality, part of which consists in directed thinking. In biological terms it is simply a process of psychic assimilation that leaves behind a corresponding state of exhaustion, like any other vital achievement.