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The term "Nirvana," first suggested by Barbara Low and acknowledged and used by [[Freud]], is intimately connected with the [[development ]] of the [[concepts ]] of the [[pleasure]]/unpleasure [[principle]]. The [[concept ]] has a long [[history]], and contributed to Freud's [[understanding ]] of the [[infantile ]] [[wish]]-fulfilling [[character ]] of [[dreams]].

In Chapter Seven of The [[Interpretation ]] of Dreams(1900a), in which Freud conceptualized the [[mental ]] [[apparatus]], he suggested that, to begin with, the apparatus is directed towards keeping itself as free from stimuli as possible in accordance with the "[[Principle of Constancy]]." This principle was already a basic assumption, and had appeared as such in many of Freud's earlier writings—for example in a [[letter ]] to Josef [[Breuer ]] (June 29, [1892] 1960a) and in various sections of Part One of the [[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology ]] (1950c [1895]), through in quasi-neurological [[terms]]. But as Freud indicated in a footnote added in 1914 to the [[dream ]] book, the concept is explored more fully in his paper on "The Two Principles of Mental Functioning" (1911b).

The Lust/Unlust-pleasure/pain principle is described there as the governing [[purpose ]] of the primary [[process]]. There is a continued striving towards gaining pleasure, and a retreat from anything that might arouse unpleasurable [[affect]]. It is precisely the latter that dreams seek to avoid: when the [[state ]] of rest is disturbed by [[internal ]] [[needs]], an attempt is made to achieve [[satisfaction ]] in a [[hallucinatory ]] manner.

With the emergence of the [[secondary process]], [[reality ]] is at least recognized, even when disagreeable; and the [[individual ]] now must seek pleasure in accordance with what is possible in the circumstances in which they find themselves. To put the matter in energic terms: [[unpleasure ]] was associated with a rise in excitation; pleasure with its reduction and discharge, and, with the acquisition of the [[reality principle]], this discharge of excitation, once sought as a peremptory [[demand ]] under the influence of the [[pleasure principle]], now has to wait until reality presents the necessary [[conditions ]] or until those conditions can be brought [[about]]. (Pleasure can, of course, always be expressed in [[fantasy ]] and day dreams, whatever the circumstances.) The [[search ]] for pleasure, it will be observed, is related to, but not identical with, the "Principle of Constancy" referred to above.

Already, especially in the paper [[Instincts ]] and their Vicissitudes (1915c), Freud had stated that the relation existing between pleasure and unpleasure on the one hand, and the rise and the "fluctuations of the amounts of stimuli affecting mental [[life]]," on the [[other]], was no simple matter, and that the relations were many, various, and in [[need ]] of elucidation.

In Beyond the [[Pleasure Principle ]] (1920g) Freud reformulated his two classes of instincts and opposed the one, [[Eros ]] or the Life [[Instinct]], with the destructive or [[Death ]] Instinct. The aim of the [[Death Instinct ]] was to get rid of life through the running down of the organism, and therefore of the tensions within it. This "dominating tendency of mental life"—"to reduce, to keep constant or to remove internal tensions due to stimuli"—was called the "Nirvana principle," a term suggested by Barbara Low and here adopted by Freud.

The difficulties and anomalies inherent in these formulations were reconsidered by Freud in The [[Economic ]] Problem of [[Masochism ]] (1924c). Re-affirming his adoption of the Nirvana principle, he pointed out that, if the pleasure principle were identical with it, that principle would be "in the service of the death instincts" and would act as a warning against the [[demands ]] of the life instincts that threatened to disturb the intended course of life. But that view, said Freud, could not be correct. Furthermore, in the series of tensions and their increase and decrease, there were pleasurable tensions (for example, [[sexual ]] excitation) and unpleasurable relaxations of tensions. Pleasure and unpleasure could not depend on some quantitative factor alone, but on some qualitative characteristics. It might be "the rhythm, the [[temporal ]] sequence of changes, rises and falls in the quantity of stimulus." Freud added: "We do not [[know]]." Whatever the [[truth ]] of the matter, the Nirvana principle had undergone a modification in [[living ]] organisms through which it had become the pleasure principle. "Henceforward," he continued, "we shall avoid regarding the two principles as one." And he concluded by saying that the Nirvana principle expressed the trend of the [[death instinct]]; the pleasure principle represented the demands of the [[libido]]; and the modification of the latter principle, the reality principle, represented the influence of the [[external ]] [[world]].

It may be worth adding that an optimum level of tension normally gives life its [[sense ]] of vividness and alertness. Reduction of tension to zero, unless transient, is often pathological, and found, for example, in states of [[depression]], some kinds of [[depersonalization]], and in the anergic forms of [[schizophrenia]].

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. Part II. SE, 5: 339-625.

# ——. (1920g). [[Beyond the pleasure principle]]. SE, 18: 1-64.

# ——. (1960a [1873-1939]). Letters of [[Sigmund Freud]], 1873-1939 (Ernst L. Freud, Ed.]]