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In “Antithetical Meaning of the Primal Words” (Freud 1910b), he pointed out the similarity of symbolism in ‘dream language’ and ancient languages, especially in terms of the ‘law of contradiction’: in both dreams and ancient languages the opposite meanings can coexist. In 1911, writing on “Dreams in Folklore”, Freud stated: “It is very much more convenient to study dream-symbolism in folklore than in actual dreams. Dreams are obliged to conceal things and only surrender their secrets to interpretation; these comic anecdotes, however, which are disguised as dreams, are intended as communications, meant to give pleasure to the person who tells them as well as to the listener, and therefore the interpretation is added quite unashamedly to the symbol. These stories delight in stripping off the veiling symbols” (Freud 1911, p. 181). In “On the History of Psychonalytic Movement”, Freud (1914) summarized: “…about the interpretation of dreams. It came as the first-fruits of the technical innovation I had adopted when, following a dim presentiment, I decided to replace hypnosis by free association…Since this was how the discovery came about, it followed that the symbolism in the language of dreams was almost the last thing to become accessible to me…Later on I found the essential characteristic and most important part of my dream theory—the derivation of dream-distortion from an internal conflict…patients' dreams …might be regarded as analogues of their symptoms…” (1914, pp. 19-20). In “Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis”, Freud (1916-1917) noted that “what is symbolically represented in dreams involves “the human body as a whole, parents, children, brothers and sisters, birth, death, nakedness and —and something else besides. The one typical—that is regular—representation of the human figure as a whole is a house …” (p.153). In the same text Freud refers to the limitations of the concept and its definition, and issued a cautionary statement: “We must admit, too, that the concept of a symbol cannot at present be sharply delimited: it shades off into such notions as those of a replacement or representation and even approaches that of an allusion. With a number of symbols, the comparison which underlies them is obvious. But again, there are other symbols in regard to which we must ask ourselves where we are to look for the common element, the tertium comparationis , of the supposed comparisons. On further reflection we may afterwards discover it or it may definitely remain concealed. It is strange, moreover, that if a symbol is a comparison, it should not be brought to light by an association, and that the dreamer should not be acquainted with it but should make use of it without knowing about it: more than that, indeed, that the dreamer feels no inclination to acknowledge the comparison even after it has been pointed out to him” (Freud 1916, p. 152, original italics).
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