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The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter 5 - D. Typical Dreams (2) DREAMS OF THE DEATH OF BELOVED PERSONS Psychology
V. THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS (continued)
D. Typical Dreams -
(4) The Examination-Dream
Everyone who has received his certificate of matriculation after passing his
final examination at school complains of the persistence with which he is
plagued by anxiety-dreams in which he has failed, or must go through his course
again, etc. For the holder of a university degree this typical dream is replaced
by another, which represents that he has not taken his doctor's degree, to which
he vainly objects, while still asleep, that he has already been practising for
years, or is already a university lecturer or the senior partner of a firm of
lawyers, and so on. These are the ineradicable memories of the punishments we
suffered as children for misdeeds which we had committed- memories which were
revived in us on the dies irae, dies illa * of the gruelling examination at the
two critical junctures in our careers as students. The examination-anxiety of
neurotics is likewise intensified by this childish fear. When our student days
are over, it is no longer our parents or teachers who see to our punishment; the
inexorable chain of cause and effect of later life has taken over our further
education. Now we dream of our matriculation, or the examination for the
doctor's degree- and who has not been faint-hearted on such occasions?- whenever
we fear that we may be punished by some unpleasant result because we have done
something carelessly or wrongly, because we have not been as thorough as we
might have been- in short, whenever we feel the burden of responsibility.
* Day of wrath.
For a further explanation of examination-dreams I have to thank a remark made by
a colleague who had studied this subject, who once stated, in the course of a
scientific discussion, that in his experience the examination-dream occurred
only to persons who had passed the examination, never to those who had flunked.
We have had increasing confirmation of the fact that the anxiety-dream of
examination occurs when the dreamer is anticipating a responsible task on the
following day, with the possibility of disgrace; recourse will then be had to an
occasion in the past on which a great anxiety proved to have been without real
justification, having, indeed, been refuted by the outcome. Such a dream would
be a very striking example of the way in which the dream-content is
misunderstood by the waking instance. The exclamation which is regarded as a
protest against the dream: "But I am already a doctor," etc., would in reality
be the consolation offered by the dream, and should, therefore, be worded as
follows: "Do not be afraid of the morrow; think of the anxiety which you felt
before your matriculation; yet nothing happened to justify it, for now you are a
doctor," etc. But the anxiety which we attribute to the dream really has its
origin in the residues of the dream-day.
The tests of this interpretation which I have been able to make in my own case,
and in that of others, although by no means exhaustive, were entirely in its
favour. * For example, I failed in my examination for the doctor's degree in
medical jurisprudence; never once has the matter worried me in my dreams, while
I have often enough been examined in botany, zoology, and chemistry, and I sat
for the examinations in these subjects with well-justified anxiety, but escaped
disaster, through the clemency of fate, or of the examiner. In my dreams of
school examinations, I am always examined in history, a subject in which I
passed brilliantly at the time, but only, I must admit, because my good-natured
professor- my one-eyed benefactor in another dream- did not overlook the fact
that on the examination-paper which I returned to him I had crossed out with my
fingernail the second of three questions, as a hint that he should not insist on
it. One of my patients, who withdrew before the matriculation examination. only
to pass it later, but failed in the officer's examination, so that he did not
become an officer, tells me that he often dreams of the former examination, but
never of the latter.
* See also chapter VI., A.
W. Stekel, who was the first to interpret the matriculation dream, maintains
that this dream invariably refers to sexual experiences and sexual maturity.
This has frequently been confirmed in my experience.
The Interpretation of Dreams
Chapter VI. THE DREAM-WORK
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