Irma Dream References

• Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, of course, as translated by either James Strachey or A.A. Brill.
• Some Additional "Day Residues of "The Specimen Dream of Psychoanalysis," by Max Schur, which is in Psychoanalysis--A General Psychology, edited by Rudolph M. Loewenstein, Lottie M. Newman, Max Schur, and Albert J. Solnit
• The Dream Specimen of Psychoanalysis, by Erik Homburger Erikson, which is in J. Am Psa. Assn., 2:5-56 (1954)
• Sigmund Freud's Dreams by Alexander Grinstein
• Freud's Self-Analysis, by Didier Anzieu
• Freud: Living and Dying, by Max Schur
• Freud's Theory of Psychoanalysis, by Ole Andkjaer Olsen and Simo Koppe

Other books I've found helpful are:

• Studies in Hysteria, by Freud and Beuer
• The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1, by Ernest Jones
• Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, Vol. 1
• Freud: Biologist of the Mind, by Frank J. Sulloway
• The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904, Translated by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
• Cocaine Papers by Sigmund Freud, edited by Robert Byck

For everyone's convenience, I will quote Freud's preamble and statement of the dream:

Preamble

During the summer of 1895 I had been giving psychoanalytic treatment to a young lady who was on very friendly terms with me and my family. It will be readily understood that a mixed relationship such as this may be a source of many disturbing feelings in a physician and particularly a psychotherapist. While the physician's personal interest is greater, his authority is less; any failure would bring a threat to the old-established friendship with the patient's family. This treatment had ended in a partial success; the patient was relieved of her hysterical anxiety but did not lose all her somatic symptoms. At that time I was not yet quite clear in my mind as to the criteria indicating that a hysterical case history was finally closed, and I proposed a solution to the patient which she seemed unwilling to accept. While we were thus at variance, we had broken off the treatment for the summer vacation--One day I had a visit from a junior colleague, one of my oldest friends, who had been staying with my patient, Irma, and her family at their country resort. I asked him how he had found her and he answered: `She's better, but not quite well.' I was conscious that my friend Otto's words, or the tone in which he spoke them, annoyed me. I fancied I detected a reproof in them, such as to the effect that I had promised the patient too much; and, whether rightly or wrongly, I attributed the supposed fact of Otto's siding against me to the influence of my patient's relatives, who, as it seemed to me, had never looked with favor on the treatment. However, my disagreeable impression was not clear to me and I gave no outward sign of it. The same evening I wrote out Irma's case history, with the idea of giving it to Dr. M. (a common friend who was at that time the leading figure in our circle) in order to justify myself. That night (or more probably the next morning) I had the following dream, which I noted down immediately after waking.

Dream of July 23rd—24th, 1895

A large hall—numerous guests, whom we were receiving.—Among them was Irma. I at once took her on one side, as though to answer her letter and to reproach her for not having accepted my ‘solution’ yet; I said to her: ‘If you still get pains, it’s really only your fault.’ She replied: ‘If you only knew what pains I’ve got now in my throat and stomach and abdomen—it’s choking me’—I was alarmed and looked at her. She looked pale and puffy. I thought to myself that after all I must be missing some organic trouble. I took her to the window and looked down her throat, and she showed signs of recalcitrance, like women with artificial dentures. I thought to myself that there was really no need for her to do that.—She then opened her mouth properly and on the right I found a big white patch; at another place I saw extensive whitish gray scabs upon some remarkable curly structures which were evidently modeled on the turbinal bones of the nose.—I at once called in Dr. M., and he repeated the examination and confirmed it....Dr. M. looked quite different from usual; he was very pale, he walked with a limp and his chin was clean-shaven....My friend Otto was now standing beside her as well, and my friend Leopold was percussing her through her bodice and saying: ‘She has a dull area low down on the left.’ He also indicated that a portion of the skin on the left shoulder was infiltrated. (I noticed this, just as he did, in spite of her dress.)....M. said: ‘There’s no doubt it’s an infection, but no matter; dysentery will supervene and the toxin will be eliminated.’...We were directly aware, too, of the origin of her infection. Not long before, when she was feeling unwell, my friend Otto had given her an injection of a preparation of prop yl, 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 probably the syringe had not been clean.

This is James Strachey's translation, which differs from A.A. Brill's in one respect, which turns out to be of some importance. When Freud tells Irma that her problems are her own fault, she lists her symptoms and ends by saying "it is choking me." in Strachey's translation, but "they are choking me" in Brill's. In the original German, Freud uses es, which would argue that Strachey is more correct.

There is another important divergence between the two men. It relates to the moment when Freud looks at Irma and finds: "She looked pale and puffy." Both translate gedunsen as puffy here, but the word leads each to contradict the other in the analysis portion of Freud's discussion.

The original German reads, "…und als einmal eine besonders gute Zeit hatte, war sie gedunsen." Strachey translates this as "…and once, while she had been in specially good health, she had looked puffy." Brill's translation has her being not in good health when she looked puffy. Strachey would seem to be more correct, except for the word gedunsen, which as far as I can tell is never used in association with good health; its meaning is closer to swollen.