ABSTRACT
Indeed, the Standard Edition rendering of Dreams, in many senses a rather voluminous work, uses the translation “ego” only forty-nine times, according to the author count, and largely in the form of a theoretically vague attribute—“egoistical”, rendered “egoistisch” in the original German. As psychoanalytic orthodoxy rather tendentiously has it, Freud’s definitive interest in dreams struck him as suddenly as, on July 24, 1885, the nature of dreams was miraculously revealed to him in a dream—the dream of Irma’s injection to be discussed later—while ruminating in his self-analysis on his father’s recent death. Acting, identification, phantasy—all are terms indicating something other than a mere accumulation of affect, pointing rather to a less time-bound, less material structure. In summary, it seems that a double perspective runs from the nature of the unconscious wish throughout Dreams, splitting the nature of the I along the way.
