AURAL WITNESSES.

From Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology by Carl Gustav Jung.

_Witness I._--"M. dreamed that she and Lina P. had gone swimming with our teacher. After they had swum out in the lake pretty far, M. said she could not swim any further as her foot hurt her so much. The teacher said she might sit on my[162] back. M. got up and they swam out. After a time a steamer came along and they got up on it. Our teacher seems to have had a rope by which he tied M. and L. together and dragged them out into the lake. They travelled thus as far as Z., where they stepped out. But now they had no clothes on. The teacher bought a jacket whilst M. and L. got a long, thick veil, and all three walked up the street along the lake. This was when the wedding was going on. Presently they met the party. The bride had on a blue silk dress but no veil. She asked M. and L. if they would be kind enough to give her their veil. M. and L. gave it, and in return they were allowed to go to the wedding. They went into the Sun Inn. Afterwards they went a honeymoon journey to Andermatt; I do not know now whether they went to the Inn at A. or at Z. There they got coffee, potatoes, honey, and butter."

"I must not say any more, only the teacher finally was made godfather."

_Remarks._--The roundabout story concerning the want of room in the swimming-bath is absent; Marie goes direct with her teacher to the bath. Their persons are more closely bound together in the water by means of the rope fastening the teacher and the two girls together. The ambiguity of the "getting up" in the first story has other consequences here, for the part about the steamer in the first story now occurs in two places; in the first the teacher takes Marie on his back. The delightful little slip "she could sit on my back" (instead of _his_), shows the real part taken by the narrator herself in this scene. This makes it clear why the dream brings the steamer somewhat abruptly into action, in order to give an innocent, harmless turn to the equivocal "getting up" instead of another which is common, for instance, in music-hall songs. The passage about the want of clothing, the uncertainty of which has been already noticed, arouses the special interest of the narrator. The teacher buys a jacket, the girls get a long veil (such as one only wears in case of death or at weddings). That the latter is meant is shown by the remark that the bride had none (it is the bride who wears the veil). The narrator, a girl-friend of Marie, here helps the dreamer to dream further: the possession of the veil designates the bride or the brides, Marie and Lina. Whatever is shocking or immoral in this situation is relieved by the girls giving up the veil; it then takes an innocent turn. The narrator follows the same mechanism in the cloaking of the equivocal scene at Andermatt; there is nothing but nice food, coffee, potatoes, honey, butter, a turning back to the infantile life according to the well-known method. The conclusion is apparently very abrupt: the teacher becomes a godfather.

_Witness II._--M. dreamt she had gone bathing with L. P. and the teacher. Far out in the lake M. said to the teacher that her leg was hurting her very much. Then the teacher said she could get up on him. I don't know now whether the last sentence was really so told, but I think so. As there was just then a ship on the lake the teacher said she should swim as far as the ship and then get in. I don't remember exactly how it went on. Then the teacher or M., I don't really remember which, said they would get out at Z. and run home. Then the teacher called out to two gentlemen who had just been bathing there, that they might carry the children to land. Then L. P. sat up on one man, and M. on the other fat man, and the teacher held on to the fat man's leg and swam after them. Arrived on land they ran home. On the way the teacher met his friend who had a wedding. M. said: "It was then the fashion to go on foot, not in a carriage." Then the bride said she must now go along also. Then the teacher said it would be nice if the two girls gave the bride their black veils, which they had got on the way. I can't now remember how. The children gave it her, and the bride said they were really dear generous children. Then they went on further and put up at the Sun Hotel. There they got something to eat, I don't know exactly what. Then they went to a barn and danced. All the men had taken off their coats except the teacher. Then the bride said he ought to take off his coat also. Then the teacher hesitated but finally did so. Then the teacher was.... Then the teacher said he was cold. I must not tell any more; it is improper. That's all I heard of the dream.

_Remarks._--The narrator pays special attention to the getting up, but is uncertain whether in the original it referred to getting up on the teacher or the steamer. This uncertainty is, however, amply compensated for by the elaborate invention of the two strangers who take the girls upon their backs. The getting up is too valuable a thought for the narrator to surrender, but she is troubled by the idea of the teacher seeing the object. The want of clothing likewise arouses much interest. The bride's veil has, it is true, become the black veil of mourning (naturally in order to conceal anything indelicate). There is not only no innocent twisting, but it is conspicuously virtuous ("dear, generous children"); the amoral wish has become changed into virtue which receives special emphasis, arousing suspicion as does every accentuated virtue.

This narrator exuberantly fills in the blanks in the scene of the barn: the men take off their coats; the teacher also, and is therefore ... _i.e._ naked and hence cold. Whereupon it becomes too improper.

The narrator has correctly recognised the parallels which were suspected in the criticisms of the original dream; she has filled in the scene about the undressing which belongs to the bathing, for it must finally come out that the girls are together with the naked teacher.

_Witness III._--M. told me she had dreamt: Once I went to the baths but there was no room for me. The teacher took me into his dressing-room. I undressed and went bathing. I swam until I reached the bank. Then I met the teacher. He said would I not like to swim across the lake with him. I went, and L. P. also. We swam out and were soon in the middle of the lake. I did not want to swim any further. Now I can't remember it exactly. Soon a ship came up, and we got up on the ship. The teacher said, "I am cold," and a sailor gave us an old shirt. The three of us each tore a piece of the shirt away. I fastened it round the neck. Then we left the ship and swam away towards K.

L. P. and I did not want to go further, and two fat men took us upon their backs. In K. we got a veil which we put on. In K. we went into the street. The teacher met his friend who invited us to the wedding. We went to the Sun and played games. We also danced the polonaise; now I don't remember exactly. Then we went for a honeymoon journey to Andermatt. The teacher had no money with him, and stole some chestnuts in Andermatt. The teacher said, "I am so glad that I can travel with my two pupils." Then there is something improper which I will not write. The dream is now finished.

_Remarks._--The undressing together now takes place in the narrow space of the dressing-room at the baths. The want of dress on the ship gives occasion to a further variant. (The old shirt torn in three.) In consequence of great uncertainty the getting up on the teacher is not mentioned. Instead, the two girls get up on two fat men. As "fat" becomes so prominent it should be noted that the teacher is more than a little plump. The setting is thoroughly typical; each one has a teacher. The duplication or multiplication of the persons is an expression of their significance, _i.e._ of the stored-up libido.[163] (Compare the duplication of the attribute in dementia præcox in my "Psychology of Dementia Præcox.") In cults and mythologies the significance of this duplication is very striking. (Cp. the Trinity and the two mystical formulas of confession: "Isis una quæ es omnia. Hermes omnia solus et ter unus.") Proverbially we say he eats, drinks, or sleeps "for two." The multiplication of the personality expresses also an analogy or comparison--_my friend_ has the same "ætiological value" (Freud) as _myself_. In dementia præcox, or schizophrenia, to use Bleuler's wider and better term, the multiplication of the personality is mainly the expression of the stored-up libido, for it is invariably the person to whom the patient has transference who is subjected to this multiplication. ("There are two professors N." "Oh, you are also Dr. J.; this morning another came to see me who called himself Dr. J.") It seems that, corresponding to the general tendency in schizophrenia, this splitting is an analytic degradation whose motive is to prevent the arousing of too violent impressions. A final significance of the multiplication of personality which, however, does not come exactly under this concept is the raising of some attribute of the person to a living figure. A simple instance is Dionysos and his companion Phales, wherein Phales is the equivalent of Phallos, the personification of the penis of Dionysos. The so-called attendants of Dionysos (Satyri, Sileni, Mænades, Mimallones, etc.) consist of the personification of the attributes of Dionysos.

The scene in Andermatt is portrayed with a nice wit, or more properly speaking, dreamt further: "The teacher steals chestnuts," that is equivalent to saying he does what is prohibited. By chestnuts is meant roasted chestnuts, which on account of the incision are known as a female sexual symbol. Thus the remark of the teacher, that he was especially glad to travel with his pupils, following directly upon the theft of the chestnuts, becomes intelligible. This theft of the chestnuts is certainly a personal interpolation, for it does not occur in any of the other accounts. It shows how intensive was the inner participation of the school companions of Marie X. in the dream, resting upon similar ætiological requirements.

This is the last of the aural witnesses. The story of the veil, the pain in the feet, are items which we may perhaps suspect to have been suggested in the original narrative. Other interpolations are, however, absolutely personal, and are due to independent inner participation in the meaning of the dream.

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AURAL WITNESSES.: Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology by Carl Gustav Jung | amphi