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At the beginning of chapter III in The Interpretation of Dreams (the Traumdeutung, 1900), Freud makes the first brief mention of the dream of convenience (Bequemlichkeitstraum) as a convincing device to present the wish-fulfilling function of the dream. He backs up his point by quickly linking these dreams with children's dreams in which, during the night, the dreamer makes up for the dissatisfactions of the previous day—the hike that remained unfinished, for example, or the strawberries that were denied.
In adulthood, dreams of convenience are defined as short dreams that come up under conditions of hardship or discomfort—hunger, cold—or under some pressure from somatic sources or external stimulations requiring action, such as to get up to satisfy a bodily need—to drink or to urinate. That dream is a counterproposal of comfort and relaxation (Trägheitstraum) to protest against an existing difficulty and to preserve the sleeping state.
My aim in this paper is to stress the greater complexity of such dreams so as to open the door to the larger aspect of the dream work vis-à-vis traumas. A brief clinical vignette serves to develop my discussion.
One night, I am vaguely awakened by my wife as she moves back to the bed from the bathroom. There follows the thought that I could do the