that a chain of thought starting from one of the experiences of the day of the dream (one of the "recent" impressions) reaches back to these earlier ones.
But why this preference for recent impressions? We shall reach some conjectures on this point if we subject one of the dreams already mentioned to a more exact analysis. I select the dream about the monograph.
Content of the dream.—I have written a monograph upon a
of the Romans. When had I first (and last) seen this monument? According to my notes, it was on the seventeenth day of September, in the evening, and from this date to the dream there really passed 13 and 10, equals 23, days—according to Fliess, a "masculine period."
But I regret to say that here, too, this connection seems somewhat less inevitable when we enter into the interpretation of this dream. The dream was occasioned by the information, received on the day of the dream, that the lecture-room in the clinic in which I was invited to deliver my lectures had been changed to some other place. I took it for granted that the new room was very inconveniently situated, and said to myself, it is as bad as not having any lecture-room at my disposal. My thoughts must have then taken me back to the time when I first became a docent, when I really had no lecture-room, and when, in my efforts to get one, I met with little encouragement from the very influential gentlemen councillors and professors. In my distress at that time, I appealed to L., who then had the title of dean, and whom I considered kindly disposed. He promised to help me, but that was all I ever heard from him. In the dream he is the Archimedes, who gives me the πήστω and leads me into the other room. That neither the desire for revenge nor the consciousness of one's own importance is absent in this dream will be readily divined by those familiar with dream interpretation. I must conclude, however, that without this motive for the dream, Archimedes would hardly have got into the dream that night. I am not certain whether the strong and still recent impression of the statue in Syracuse did not also come to the surface at a different interval of time.
III.—Dream from October 2–3, 1910.
(Fragment)...Something about Professor Oser, who himself prepared the menu for me, which served to restore me to great peace of mind (rest forgotten).
The dream was a reaction to the digestive disturbances of this day, which made me consider asking one of my colleagues to arrange a diet for me. That in the dream I selected for this purpose Professor Oser, who had died in the summer, is based on the recent death (October 1) of another university teacher, whom I highly revered. But when did Oser die, and when did I hear of his death? According to the newspaper notice, he died on the 22nd of August, but as I was at the time in Holland, whither my Vienna newspapers were regularly sent me, I must have read the obituary notice on the 24th or 25th of August. This interval no longer corresponds to any period. It takes in 7 and 30 and 2, equals 39, days, or perhaps 38 days. I cannot recall having spoken or thought of Oser during this interval.
Such intervals as were not available for the "period theory" without further elaboration, were shown from my dreams to be far more frequent than the regular ones. As maintained in the text, the only thing constantly found is the relation to an impression of the day of the dream itself.
