On waking, the dream became a subtle instrument of her hatred, because the wish-idea was also that of her school companions, as it always is in rumours of this kind. Revenge certainly had its triumph, but the recoil upon Marie herself was still more severe. Such is the rule when our impulses are given over to the unconscious. Marie X. was expelled from school, but upon my report she was allowed to return to it.
I am well aware that this little communication is inadequate and unsatisfactory from the point of view of exact science. Had the original story been accurately verified we should have clearly demonstrated what we have now been only able to suggest. This case therefore only posits a question, and it remains for happier observers to collect convincing experiences in this field.
[Footnote 161: "Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse," 1911, vol. I., p. 81.]
[Footnote 163: This also holds good for any objects that are repeated.]
[Footnote 164: See "The Association Method," Lecture III.]
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBER-DREAMS[165]
The symbolism of numbers which greatly engaged the imaginative philosophy of earlier centuries has again acquired a fresh interest from the analytic investigations of Freud and his school. But in the material of number-dreams we no longer discover conscious puzzles of symbolic concatenations of numbers but the unconscious roots of the symbolism of numbers. There is scarcely anything quite fundamentally new to offer in this sphere since the presentations of Freud, Adler and Stekel. It must here suffice to corroborate their experiences by recording parallel cases. I have had under observation a few cases of this kind which are worth reporting for their general interest.
The first three instances are from a middle-aged married man whose conflict of the moment was an extra-conjugal love affair. The piece of the dream from which I take the symbolised number is: _in front of the manager his general subscription. The manager comments on the high number of the subscription. It reads 2477._
The analysis of the dream brings out a rather ungentlemanly reckoning up of the expense of the affair, which is foreign to the generous nature of the dreamer, and which the unconscious makes use of as a resistance to this affair. The preliminary interpretation is, therefore, that the number has some financial importance and origin. A rough estimate of the expenses so far leads to a number which in fact approaches 2477 francs; a more exact reckoning, however, gives 2387 francs, which could be only arbitrarily translated into 2477. I then left the numbers to the free association of the patient; it occurs to him that the figure in the dream should be divided as 24-77. Perhaps it is a telephone number; this supposition proves incorrect. The next association is that it is the total of some numbers. A reminiscence then occurs to him that he once told me that he had celebrated the 100th birthday of his mother and himself when his mother was 65 and he was 35 years old. (Their birthdays are on the same day.)