Imitative Elaboration in the Oral Reporting of Dreams

JUST AS SCHOLARS HAVE STRESSED the important difference between oral and written literature, we must give due attention to dreams in terms of the way of being delivered, i.e., by writing or viva voce. When dealing with orally delivered dreams, we sometimes come upon, unexpectedly, a peculiar type of dream elaboration which has hitherto escaped focused consideration and which I have judged significant enough to become the topic of this essay. At the outset, however, we encounter in our path a major terminological difficulty and we shall facilitate our progress if we clear it up first. Basing himself on a thorough collection of references to dream elaboration in the Freudian canon, Breznitz (1971) shows that Freud was inconsistent in chronologically situating secondary revision during dream-work, after the dream-work proper, and after awakening. To these three moments Breznitz assigns three different labels, viz., primary, secondary and tertiary revision respectively. He concludes (p. 412) that PR is chiefly a primary-process operation; TR is conceivable "mainly" as secondary process (though on p. 411 he states that TR is using "only" secondary-process type of thought): and SR is a mixture of primary and secondary process. By contrast Silber's study (1973) concentrates on the dream elaboration after awakening, and more specifically, on the patient's reporting of the dream itself, a phase marked by the synthetic functions of the ego and the mechanisms of the secondary process. While retaining though further distinguishing Freud's own terminology, Silber posits a dual aspect to this ulterior phase of dream construction: secondary revision, which disguises the dream to the dreamer himself; and secondary elaboration, which obscures the dream's meaning to the person to whom the dream is reported. As an example of the latter, Silber refers to a