Stamering And Cognate Defects Of Speech Vol - Ii

246 SYSTEMS OF TREATING STAMMERING

of an unsatisfied wish. The manifest dream, which we re-
member after waking, may then be described as a disguised
fulfilment1 of repressed wishes." z

In observing the patient's "Fehlhandlungen" —
his bungling acts, and his errors in reading, writing,
speaking, etc. — the psychoanalyst again looks for
hidden meanings:

"These little things, the bungling of acts, like the sympto-
matic and chance acts (Symptom- und Zufallshandlungen) are
not so entirely without meaning as is generally supposed by a
sort of tacit agreement. They have a meaning, generally easy
and sure to interpret from the situation in which they occur, and
it can be demonstrated that they either express impulses and
purposes which are repressed, hidden if possible from the con-

*To the present writer it would seem a thousand times more
reasonable to ascribe dreams to the idio-activity of brain-cells that
have recently subserved powerful impressions, or ideas accompanied
by emotion. If the dream were to start with such ideas as a nucleus,
it would, if continued, lead by association (a process of "impartial
redintegration") to things more irrelevant. With this state of affairs,
the nucleus would, of course, occasionally be a wish.

It is interesting to note the following paragraph by Breuer;

"In the days immediately following a railway accident, for in-
stance, one re-lives the scene in his waking hours and during sleep,
and experiences again the painful shock and emotion. This continues
till at last, after the period of'psychic maturation' (Charcot) or in-
cubation, conversion to a somatic phenomenon is effected." ("Stu-
dien iiber Hysteric," p. 186.)

But what repressed wish is symbolized when one re-lives such an
event in his dreams ?

2 Freud, "Lectures and Addresses on Psychology and Pedagogy at
Clark University," pp. 21-22.