FREUD’S DREAM ABOUT “AUF GESERES”On account of something that is happening in Rome it is necessary to let the children flee, and this they do. The scene is then laid before a gate, a double gate, in ancient style (the Porta Romano in Siena, as I realize while I am dreaming). I am sitting on the edge of a well and am greatly depressed; I am almost weeping. A woman—a nurse, a nun—brings out the two boys and hands them over to their father who is not myself. The elder is distinctly my eldest son, but I do not see the face of the other boy. The woman asks the elder boy for a parting kiss. She is remarkable for her red nose. The boy refuses her the kiss, but says to her, extending his hand in parting, “Auf Geseres,” and to both of us (or to one of us) “Auf Ungeseres.” I have the idea that this latter indicates a preference.159 FREUD’S INTERPRETATIONThis dream is built on a tangle of thoughts induced by a play I saw at the theatre, called “Das Neue Ghetto” (the new Ghetto). The Jewish question, anxiety as to the future of my children, who cannot be given a fatherland, anxiety as to educating them so that they may enjoy the privilege of citizens—all these features may be easily recognized in the accompanying dream-thoughts. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. Siena, like Rome, is famous for its beautiful fountains. An association to a co-religionist who has to give up the position in a state asylum which he secured with great effort. Geseres is a Hebrew word and means ordained sufferings, doom…. Ungeseres is a word I coined myself and at first I am at a loss regarding it. The brief observation at the end of the dream—that Ungeseres indicates an advantage over Geseres—opens the way to the associations and therewith to understanding. This relation holds good in the case of caviar; the unsalted kind is more highly prized than the salted. Caviar for the people—“noble passions.”… But a connecting link is wanting between the pair, salted and unsalted and Geseres-Ungeseres. This is found in gesaeuert and ungesaeuret (leavened and unleavened). In their flight-like exodus from Egypt the children of Israel had not time to allow their dough to become leavened, and in commemoration of this event they eat unleavened bread at Easter [sic!] to this day.160 VELIKOVSKY’S INTERPRETATIONDo I perform an act of grace for my children if I let them “flee,” if I make bigoted people of them (double gate—bigate), Catholics (“Rome”), “refugees,” choose a godfather for them (“hand them over to their father who is not myself ”), let them enact the kissing ceremonials of the church? I should “not be a father anymore for my children.” Do not children who grow up in the Christian faith become estranged from their Jewish father? Would my children, thus torn, not become neurotics? (red nose—nez rose—Neurose—Neurosis). But this will not happen. The older boy already seems to show a national or Jewish-religious attitude. In the eyes of Freud this latter would be a neurosis. |