Carl Gustav Jung

“ Remarks.—The undressing in the swimming-bath is properly detailed. The union in the water receives a further simplification for which the story of the rope led the way; the teacher fastens himself to Marie. Lina P. is not mentioned at all; she only comes later when Marie is already sitting upon the teacher. The dress is here a jacket. The wedding ceremony contains a very direct meaning. “The teacher will not go home any more to wife and child.” Marie is the darling. In the barn they all found a place together, and then it becomes highly improper. ”

“ The birth suddenly follows and quite without sequence. The teacher as godfather is extremely equivocal. Marie’s rôle in the whole story is throughout of secondary importance, indeed she is only a spectator.
All this has the appearance of a genuine dream, and those of my readers who have a wide experience of the dreams of girls of this age, will assuredly confirm this view. Hence the meaning of the dream is so simple that we may quietly leave its interpretation to her school companions, whose declarations are as follows:
Aural Witnesses. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is therefore a strong probability that the original recital could not have run very differently. (The passage about the cold and the blouse seems to be an early interpolation, for it is an attempt to supply a logical relationship. Coming out of the water one is wet, has on only a bathing dress, and is therefore unable to take part in a wedding before putting on some clothes.) At first, of course, the teacher would not allow that the whole affair had arisen only out of a dream. ”

“ Remarks.—The narrator approaches the basis. Marie is to lie upon the teacher’s back in the bathing compartment. Beyond the improper part she cannot give any more of the dream.
(VIII.) The whole school went bathing. M. had no room and was invited by the teacher into his compartment. The teacher swam out with her and told her that she was his darling or something like that. When they got ashore at Z. a friend was just having a wedding and he invited them both in their swimming costumes. The teacher found an old dressing jacket and put it over the swimming drawers. ”

“ In dementia praecox, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”