CARL PLETSCH
friend Otto had given her an injection of a preparation of propyl ,
propyls ... propionic acid ... trimethylamin (and I saw before
me the formula for this printed in heavy type) .... Injections of
that sort ought not to be made so thoughtlessly .... And prob-
ably the syringe had not been clean.
311
Immediately following the presentation of this dream-text, but
before entering upon his detailed analysis, Freud notes that "it was
immediately clear what events of the previous day provided its start–
ing point." On the other hand, he asserts that' 'no one who had only
read the preamble and the content of the dream itself could have the
slightest notion of what the dream meant. I myself had no notion."
He knows the starting point but has no notion of the dream's mean–
ing. The rhetorical effect is to suspend the question, "What does the
dream mean?" It underscores the necessity of methodical inter–
pretation. But this question affects the reader doubly. It is a question
about how this "specimen dream"-standing for dreams in
general-is to be interpreted. But it also raises the question of what
this particular dream means to Freud.
In Freud's detailed analysis there are many associations that do
not contribute directly either to an understanding of his method or
even to the myth of the heroic scientist; they do nonetheless further
stimulate the reader's desire to know about Freud. The most impor–
tant of these are the numerous allusions to sex and the possibility of a
sexual attraction between the doctor and his patient. The allusions
to sex constitute an agenda that might rival the one Freud chose to
emphasize-his anxiety about doing psychotherapy. He intimates
that it is such an agenda, but then suppresses it. First Freud notices
that his encounter with Irma in the dream takes place at his wife's
birthday party. Then he realizes that Irma looks like another woman
of his acquaintance and recollects that "I had often played with the
idea that she too might ask me to relieve her of her symptoms."
When he arrives at the scenario in the dream where his friend
Leopold is "percussing [Irma] through her bodice," and the
dreamer notices the "dull area down low on the left," he remarks
upon the phrase, "in spite of her dress." This detail raises the issue
of the propriety of (male) physicians examining adult female pa–
tients, and whether women should be examined nude. However,
just when the analysis of the dream veers toward the question of the
physician's sexual interests, the text breaks off with the sentence,
"Frankly, I had no desire to penetrate more deeply at this point."
