A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis Part 9

A noteworthy symbol of the female genital is also the _jewel-casket_; _jewels_ and _treasure_ are also representatives of the beloved person in the dream; _sweets_ frequently occur as representatives of s.e.xual delights. The satisfaction in one's own genital is suggested by all types of _play_, in which may be included _piano-playing_. Exquisite symbolic representations of _onanism_ are _sliding_ and _coasting_ as well as _tearing off a branch_. A particularly remarkable dream symbol is that of having _one's_ _teeth fall out_, or _having them pulled_.

Certainly its most immediate interpretation is castration as a punishment for onanism. Special representations for the relations of the s.e.xes are less numerous in the dream than we might have expected from the foregoing. Rhythmic activities, such as _dancing_, _riding_ and _climbing_ may be mentioned, also harrowing experiences, such as _being run over_. One may include certain _manual activities_, and, of course, _being threatened with weapons_.

You must not imagine that either the use or the translation of these symbols is entirely simple. All manner of unexpected things are continually happening. For example, it seems hardly believable that in these symbolic representations the s.e.x differences are not always sharply distinguished. Many symbols represent a genital in general, regardless of whether male or female, e.g., the _little child_, the _small son_ or _daughter_. It sometimes occurs that a predominantly male symbol is used for a female genital, or vice versa. This is not understood until one has acquired an insight into the development of the s.e.xual representations of mankind. In many instances this double meaning of symbols may be only apparent; the most striking of the symbols, such as _weapons_, _pockets_ and _boxes_ are excluded from this bis.e.xual usage.

I should now like to give a summary, from the point of view of the symbols rather than of the thing represented, of the field out of which the s.e.x symbols are for the most part taken, and then to make a few remarks about the symbols which have points in common that are not understood. An obscure symbol of this type is the _hat_, perhaps headdress on the whole, and is usually employed as a male representation, though at times as a female. In the same way the _cloak_ represents a man, perhaps not always the genital aspect. You are at liberty to ask, why? The _cravat_, which is suspended and is not worn by women, is an unmistakable male symbol. _White laundry_, all _linen_, in fact, is female. _Dresses_, _uniforms_ are, as we have already seen, subst.i.tutes for nakedness, for body-formation; the _shoe_ or _slipper_ is a female genital. _Tables_ and _wood_ have already been mentioned as puzzling but undoubtedly female symbols. _Ladders_, _ascents_, _steps_ in relation to their mounting, are certainly symbols of s.e.xual intercourse. On closer consideration we see that they have the rhythm of walking as a common characteristic; perhaps, too, the heightening of excitement and the shortening of the breath, the higher one mounts.

We have already spoken of _natural scenery_ as a representation of the female genitals. _Mountains_ and _cliffs_ are symbols of the male organ; the _garden_ a frequent symbol of the female genitals. _Fruit_ does not stand for the child, but for the b.r.e.a.s.t.s. _Wild animals_ signify sensually aroused persons, or further, base impulses, pa.s.sions.

_Blossoms_ and _flowers_ represent the female genitals, or more particularly, virginity. Do not forget that the blossoms are really the genitals of the plants.

We already know the _room_ as a symbol. The representation may be extended in that the windows, entrances and exits of the room take on the meaning of the body openings. Whether the room is _open_ or _closed_ is a part of this symbolism, and the _key_ that opens it is an unmistakable male symbol.

This is the material of dream symbolism. It is not complete and might be deepened as well as extended. But I am of the opinion it will seem more than enough to you, perhaps will make you reluctant. You will ask, "Do I really live in the midst of s.e.x symbols? Are all the objects that surround me, all the clothes I put on, all the things that I touch, always s.e.x symbols, and nothing else?" There really are sufficient grounds for such questions, and the first is, "Where, in fact, are we to find the meaning of these dream symbols if the dreamer himself can give no information concerning them, or at best can give only incomplete information?"

My answer is: "From many widely different sources, from fairy tales and myths, jokes and farces, from folklore, that is, the knowledge of the customs, usages, sayings and songs of peoples, from the poetic and vulgar language. Everywhere we find the same symbolism and in many of these instances we understand them without further information. If we follow up each of these sources separately we shall find so many parallels to the dream symbolism that we must believe in the correctness of our interpretations."

The human body, we have said, is, according to Scherner, frequently symbolized in the dream by the house. Continuing this representation, the windows, doors and entrances are the entrances into the body cavities, the facades are smooth or provided with balconies and projections to which to hold. The same symbolism is to be found in our daily speech when we greet a good friend as "_old house_" or when we say of someone, "We'll hit him in the _belfry_," or maintain of another that he's not quite right in the _upper story_. In anatomy the body openings are sometimes called the _body-portals_.

The fact that we meet our parents in the dream as imperial or royal persons is at first surprising. But it has its parallel in the fairy tale. Doesn't it begin to dawn upon us that the many fairy tales which begin "Once upon a time there was a _king_ and a _queen_" intend nothing else than, "Once there was a _father_ and a _mother_?" In our families we refer to our children as _princes_, the eldest as the _crown-prince_.

The king usually calls himself the _father of the country_. We playfully designate little children as _worms_, and say, sympathetically, "_poor little worm_."

Let us return to the symbolism of the house. When we use the projections of the house to hold ourselves on to in the dream, are we not reminded of the familiar colloquialism about persons with well-developed b.r.e.a.s.t.s: "She has something to _hold onto_"? The folk express this in still another way when it says, "there's lots of _wood in front of her house_"; as though it wished to come to the aid of our interpretation that wood is a feminine, maternal symbol.

In addition to wood there are others. We might not understand how this material has come to be a subst.i.tute for the maternal, the feminine.

Here our comparison of languages may be helpful. The German word _Holz_ (wood) is said to be from the same stem as the Greek word, ???, which means stuff, raw material. This is an example of the case, not entirely unusual, where a general word for material finally is exclusively used for some special material. There is an island in the ocean, known by the name of Madeira. The Portuguese gave it this name at the time of its discovery because it was at that time entirely covered with forests, for in the language of the Portuguese, Madeira means _wood_. You will recognize, however, that Madeira, is nothing else than the slightly changed Latin word _materia_ which again has the general meaning of _material_ Material is derived from _mater_, mother. The material out of which something is made, is at the same time its mother-part. In the symbolic use of wood for woman, mother, this ancient conception still lives.

Birth is regularly expressed in dreams by some connection with water; one plunges into the water, or comes out of the water, which means one gives birth to, or is born. Now let us not forget that this symbol may refer in two ways to the truths of evolutionary history. Not alone have all land-mammals, including the ancestors of man, developed out of water animals--this is the ultimate fact--but every single mammal, every human being, lived the first part of his existence in the water--namely, lived in the body of his mother as an embryo in the amniotic fluid and came out of the water at the time of his birth. I do not wish to maintain that the dreamer knows this, on the contrary I hold that he does not have to know. The dreamer very likely knows some things because of the fact that he was told about them in his childhood, and for that very reason I maintain that this knowledge has played no part in the construction of his symbols. He was told in childhood that the stork brought him--but where did it get him? Out of a lake, out of the well--again, out of the water. One of my patients to whom such information had been given, a little count, disappeared for a whole afternoon. Finally he was discovered lying at the edge of the palace lake, his little face bent above the water and earnestly peering into it to see if he could not see the little children at the bottom.

In the myths of the birth of the hero, which O. Rank submitted to comparative examination,--the oldest is that of King Sargon of Agade, about 2800 B.C.--exposure in the water and rescue from water play a predominating role. Rank has recognized that these are representations of birth, a.n.a.logous to those customary in dreams. When a person in his dream rescues another from the water, the latter becomes his mother, or just plainly mother; in the myth a person who rescues a child out of the water professes herself as the real mother of the child. In a well-known joke the intelligent Jewish boy is asked who was the mother of Moses. He answered without hesitation, the Princess. But no, he is told, she only took him out of the water. "That's what _she says_," is his reply, and thereby he shows that he has found the correct interpretation of the myth.

Leaving on a trip represents death in the dream. Likewise it is the custom in the nursery when a child asks where someone who has died, and whom he misses, may be, to say to him that the absent one has taken a trip. Again I should like to deny the truth of the belief that the dream symbol originates in this evasion used for the benefit of children. The poet makes use of the same symbol when he speaks of the Hereafter as "that undiscovered bourne from which no _traveler_ returns." Even in everyday speech it is customary to refer to the last journey. Every person acquainted with ancient rite knows how seriously, for example, the Egyptians considered the portrayal of a journey to the land of the dead. There still exist many copies of the "death book" which was given to the mummy for this journey as a sort of Baedeker. Since the burial places have been separated from the living quarters, the last journey of the dead person has become a reality.

In the same manner the genital symbolism is just as little peculiar to the dream alone. Every one of you has perhaps at some time or other been so unkind as to call some woman an "_old casket_" without perhaps being aware that he was using a genital symbol. In the New Testament one may read "Woman is a weak _vessel_." The Holy Scriptures of the Jews, so nearly poetic in their style, are filled with s.e.x-symbolic expressions which have not always been correctly understood, and the true construction of which, in the _Song of Songs_, for example, has led to many misunderstandings. In the later Hebraic literature the representation of woman as a house, the door taking the place of the s.e.x opening, is very widespread. The man complains, for instance, when he discovers a lack of virginity, that he has found _the door open_. The symbol of the table for woman is also known to this literature. The woman says of her husband, "I set the table for him, _but he upset it_."

Lame children are supposed to result from the fact that the man has _overturned the table_. I take these examples from a work by L. Levy of Brunn, _The s.e.xual Symbolism of the Bible and the Talmud_.

That s.h.i.+ps, too, represent women in dreams is a belief derived from the etymologists, who maintain "s.h.i.+p" was originally the name of an earthen vessel and is the same word as _Schaff_ (to create). The Greek myth of Periander of Corinth and his wife Melissa is proof that the stove or oven is a woman, and a womb. When, according to Herodotus, the tyrant entreated the shade of his beloved wife, whom, however, he had murdered in a fit of jealousy, for some sign of its ident.i.ty, the deceased identified herself by the reminder that he, _Periander_, _had thrust his bread into a cold oven_, as a disguise for an occurrence that could have been known to no other person. In the _Anthropophyteia_ published by F.

S. Krauss, an indispensable source book for everything that has to do with the s.e.x life of nations, we read that in a certain German region it is commonly said of a woman who has just been delivered of a child, "_Her oven has caved in_." The making of a fire and everything connected therewith is filled through and through with s.e.x symbolism. The flame is always the male genital, the fireplace, the hearth, is the womb of the woman.

If you have often wondered why it is that landscapes are so often used to represent the female genitals in the dream, then let the mythologist teach you the role Mother Earth has played in the symbolisms and cults of ancient times. You may be tempted to say that a room represents a woman in the dream because of the German colloquialism which uses the term _Frauenzimmer_ instead of _Frau_, in other words, it subst.i.tutes for the human person the idea of that room that is set aside for her exclusive use. In like manner we speak of the _Sublime Porte_, and mean the Sultan and his government; furthermore, the name of the ancient Egyptian ruler, Pharaoh, means nothing other than "great court room."

(In the ancient Orient the court yards between the double gates of the town were the gathering places of the people, in the same manner as the market place was in the cla.s.sical world.) What I mean is, this derivation is far too superficial. It seems more probable to me that the room, as the s.p.a.ce surrounding man, came to be the symbol of woman. We have seen that the house is used in such a representation; from mythology and poetry we may take the _city_, _fortress_, _palace_, _citadel_, as further symbols of woman. The question may easily be decided by the dreams of those persons who do not speak German and do not understand it. In the last few years my patients have been predominantly foreign-language speaking, and I think I can recall that in their dreams as well the room represents woman, even where they had no a.n.a.logous usages in their languages. There are still other signs which show that the symbolization is not limited by the bounds of language, a fact that even the old dream investigator, Schubert (1862) maintained. Since none of my dreamers were totally ignorant of German I must leave this differentiation to those psychoa.n.a.lysts who can gather examples in other lands where the people speak but one language.

Among the symbol-representations of the male genital there is scarcely one that does not recur in jokes or in vulgar or poetical usage, especially among the old cla.s.sical poets. Not alone do those symbols commonly met with in dreams appeal here, but also new ones, e.g., the working materials of various performances, foremost of which is the incantation. Furthermore, we approach in the symbolic representation of the male a very extended and much discussed province, which we shall avoid for economic reasons. I should like to make a few remarks, however, about one of the uncla.s.sified symbols--the figure 3. Whether or not this figure derives its holiness from its symbolic meaning may remain undecided. But it appears certain that many objects which occur in nature as three-part things derive their use as coats-of-arms and emblems from such symbolic meaning, e.g., the clover, likewise the three-part French lily, (fleur-de-lys), and the extraordinary coats-of-arms of two such widely separated islands as Sicily and the Isle of Man, where the Triskeles (three partly bended knees, emerging from a central point) are merely said to be the portrayal in a different form of the male genitals. Copies of the male member were used in antiquity as the most powerful charms (_Apotropaea_) against evil influences, and this is connected with the fact that the lucky amulets of our own time may one and all be recognized as genital or s.e.x-symbols.

Let us study such a collection, worn in the form of little silver pendants: the four-leaf clover, a pig, a mushroom, a horse-shoe, a ladder, a chimney-sweep. The four-leaf clover, it seems, has usurped the place of the three-leaf clover, which is really more suitable as a symbol; the pig is an ancient symbol of fertility; the mushroom is an unquestionable p.e.n.i.s symbol--there are mushrooms that derive their systematic names from their unmistakable similarity to the male member (Phallus impudicus); the horseshoe recalls the contour of the female genital opening; and the chimney sweep who carries a ladder belongs in this company because he carries on that trade with which the s.e.x-intercourse is vulgarly compared (_cf._ the _Anthropophyteia_). We have already become acquainted with his ladder as a s.e.x symbol in the dream; the German usage is helpful here, it shows us how the verb "to mount"[30] is made use of in an exquisite s.e.xual sense. We use the expressions "_to run after women_," which literally translated would be "_to climb after women_," and "_an old climber_."[31] In French, where "_step_" is "_la marche_" we find that the a.n.a.logous expression for a man about town is "_un vieux marcheur_." It is apparently not unknown in this connection that the s.e.xual intercourse of many of the larger animals requires a mounting, _a climbing upon_ the female.

The tearing off of a branch as the symbolic representation of onanism is not alone in keeping with the vulgar representation of the fact of onanism, but has far-reaching mythological parallels. Especially noteworthy, however, is the representation of onanism, or rather the punishment therefor, castration, by the falling out or pulling out of teeth, because there is a parallel in folk-lore which is probably known to the fewest dreamers. It does not seem at all questionable to me that the practice of circ.u.mcision common among so many peoples is an equivalent and a subst.i.tute for castration. And now we are informed that in Australia certain primitive tribes practice circ.u.mcision as a rite of p.u.b.erty (the ceremony in honor of the boy's coming of age), while others, living quite near, have subst.i.tuted for this act the striking out of a tooth.

I end my exposition with these examples. They are only examples. We know more about these matters, and you may well imagine how much richer and how much more interesting such a collection would appear if made, not by amateurs like ourselves, but by real experts in mythology, anthropology, philology and folk-lore. We are compelled to draw a few conclusions which cannot be exhaustive, but which give us much food for thought.

In the first place, we are faced by the fact that the dreamer has at his disposal a symbolic means of expression of which he is unconscious while awake, and does not recognize when he sees. That is as remarkable as if you should make the discovery that your chambermaid understands Sanskrit, although you know she was born in a Bohemian village and never learned the language. It is not easy to harmonize this fact with our psychological views. We can only say that the dreamer's knowledge of symbolism is unconscious, that it is a part of his unconscious mental life. We make no progress with this a.s.sumption. Until now it was only necessary to admit of unconscious impulses, those about which one knew nothing, either for a period of time or at all times. But now we deal with something more; indeed, with unknown knowledge, with thought relations.h.i.+ps, comparisons between unlike objects which lead to this, that one constant may be subst.i.tuted for another. These comparisons are not made anew each time, but they lie ready, they are complete for all time. That is to be concluded from the fact of their agreement in different persons, agreement despite differences in language.

But whence comes the knowledge of these symbol-relations.h.i.+ps? The usages of language cover only a small part of them. The dreamer is for the most part unacquainted with the numerous parallels from other sources; we ourselves must first laboriously gather them together.

Secondly, these symbolic representations are peculiar neither to the dreamer nor to the dream work by means of which they become expressed.

We have learned that mythology and fairy-tales make use of the same symbolism, as well as do the people in their sayings and songs, the ordinary language of every day, and poetic phantasy. The field of symbolism is an extraordinarily large one, and dream symbolism is but a small part thereof. It is not even expedient to approach the whole problem from the dream side. Many of the symbols that are used in other places do not occur in the dream at all, or at best only very seldom.

Many of the dream symbols are to be found in other fields only very rarely, as you have seen. One gets the impression that he is here confronted with an ancient but no longer existent method of expression, of which various phases, however, continue in different fields, one here, one there, a third, perhaps in a slightly altered form, in several fields. I am reminded of the phantasy of an interesting mental defective, who had imagined a fundamental language, of which all these symbolic representations were the remains.

Thirdly, you must have noticed that symbolism in these other fields is by no means s.e.x symbolism solely, while in the dream the symbols are used almost entirely to express s.e.xual objects and processes. Nor is this easily explained. Is it possible that symbols originally s.e.xual in their meaning later came to have other uses, and that this was the reason perhaps for the weakening of the symbolic representation to one of another nature? These questions are admittedly unanswerable if one has dealt only with dream-symbolism. One can only adhere to the supposition that there is an especially intimate connection between true symbols and things s.e.xual.

An important indication of this has been given us recently. A philologist, H. Sperber (Upsala) who works independently of psychoa.n.a.lysis, advanced the theory that s.e.xual needs have played the largest part in the origin and development of languages. The first sounds served as means of communication, and called the s.e.xual partner; the further development of the roots of speech accompanied the performance of the primitive man's work. This work was communal and progressed to the accompaniment of rhythmically repeated word sounds. In that way a s.e.xual interest was transferred to the work. The primitive man made work acceptable at the same time that he used it as an equivalent and subst.i.tute for s.e.x-activity. The word thus called forth by the common labor had two meanings, designating the s.e.x-act as well as the equivalent labor-activity. In time the word became disa.s.sociated from its s.e.xual significance and became fixed on this work. Generations later the same thing happened to a new word that once had s.e.xual significance and came to be used for a new type of work. In this manner a number of word-roots were formed, all of s.e.xual origin, and all of which had lost their s.e.xual significance. If the description sketched here approximates the truth, it opens up the possibility for an understanding of the dream symbolism. We can understand how it is that in the dream, which preserves something of these most ancient conditions, there are so extraordinarily many symbols for the s.e.xual, and why, in general, weapons and implements always stand for the male, materials and things manufactured, for the female. Symbolic relations.h.i.+ps would be the remnants of the old word-ident.i.ty; things which once were called by the same names as the genitals can now appear in the dream as symbols for them.

From our parallels to dream symbolization you may also learn to appreciate what is the character of psychoa.n.a.lysis which makes it a subject of general interest, which is true of neither psychology nor psychiatry. Psychoa.n.a.lytic work connects with so many other scientific subjects, the investigation of which promises the most pertinent discoveries, with mythology, with folk-lore, with racial psychology and with religion. You will understand how a journal can have grown on psychoa.n.a.lytic soil, the sole purpose of which is the furtherance of these relations.h.i.+ps. This is the _Imago_ founded in 1912 and edited by Hanns Sachs and Otto Rank. In all of these relations, psychoa.n.a.lysis is first and foremost the giving, less often the receiving, part. Indeed it derives benefit from the fact that its unusual teachings are substantiated by their recurrence in other fields, but on the whole it is psychoa.n.a.lysis that provides the technical procedure and the point of view, the use of which will prove fruitful in those other fields. The psychic life of the human individual provides us, upon psychoa.n.a.lytic investigation, with explanations with which we are able to solve many riddles in the life of humanity, or at least show these riddles in their proper light.

Furthermore, I have not even told you under what conditions we are able to get the deepest insight into that suppositious "fundamental language," or from which field we gain the most information. So long as you do not know this you cannot appreciate the entire significance of the subject. This field is the neurotic, its materials, the symptoms and other expressions of the nervous patient, for the explanation and treatment of which psychoa.n.a.lysis was devised.

My fourth point of view returns to our premise and connects up with our prescribed course. We said, even if there were no such thing as dream censors.h.i.+p, the dream would still be hard to understand, for we would then be confronted with the task of translating the symbol-language of the dream into the thought of our waking hours. Symbolism is a second and independent item of dream distortion, in addition to dream censors.h.i.+p. It is not a far cry to suppose that it is convenient for the dream censors.h.i.+p to make use of symbolism since both lead to the same end, to making the dream strange and incomprehensible.

Whether or not in the further study of the dream we shall hit upon a new item that influences dream distortion, remains to be seen. I should not like to leave the subject of dream symbolism without once more touching upon the curious fact that it arouses such strong opposition in the case of educated persons, in spite of the fact that symbolism in myth, religion, art and speech is undoubtedly so prevalent. Is not this again because of its relations.h.i.+p to s.e.xuality?

ELEVENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

_The Dream-Work_

If you have mastered dream censors.h.i.+p and symbolic representation, you are, to be sure, not yet adept in dream distortion, but you are nevertheless in a position to understand most dreams. For this you employ two mutually supplementary methods, call up the a.s.sociations of the dreamer until you have penetrated from the subst.i.tute to the actual, and from your own knowledge supply the meaning for the symbol. Later we shall discuss certain uncertainties which show themselves in this process.

We are now in a position to resume work which we attempted, with very insufficient means at an earlier stage, when we studied the relation between the manifest dream elements and their latent actualities, and in so doing established four such main relations.h.i.+ps: that of a part of the whole, that of approach or allusion, the symbolic relations.h.i.+p and plastic word representation. We shall now attempt the same on a larger scale, by comparing the manifest dream content as a whole, with the latent dream which we found by interpretation.

I hope you will never again confuse these two. If you have achieved this, you have probably accomplished more in the understanding of the dream than the majority of the readers of my _Interpretation of Dreams_.

Let me remind you once more that this process, which changes the latent into the manifest dream, is called _dream-work_. Work which proceeds in the opposite direction, from the manifest dream to the latent, is our _work of interpretation_. The work of interpretation attempts to undo the dream-work. Infantile dreams that are recognized as evident wish fulfillments nevertheless have undergone some dream-work, namely, the transformation of the wish into reality, and generally, too, of thoughts into visual pictures. Here we need no interpretation, but only a retracing of these transformations. Whatever dream-work has been added to other dreams, we call _dream distortion_, and this can be annulled by our work of interpretation.

The comparison of many dream interpretations has rendered it possible for me to give you a coherent representation of what the dream-work does with the material of the latent dream. I beg of you, however, not to expect to understand too much of this. It is a piece of description that should be listened to with calm attention.

The first process of the dream-work is _condensation_. By this we understand that the manifest dream has a smaller content than the latent one, that is, it is a sort of abbreviated translation of the latter.

Condensation may occasionally be absent, but as a rule it is present, often to a very high degree. The opposite is never true, that is, it never occurs that the manifest dream is more extensive in scope and content than the latent. Condensation occurs in the following ways: 1.

Certain latent elements are entirely omitted; 2. only a fragment of the many complexes of the latent dream is carried over into the manifest dream; 3. latent elements that have something in common are collected for the manifest dream and are fused into a whole.

If you wish, you may reserve the term "condensation" for this last process alone. Its effects are particularly easy to demonstrate. From your own dreams you will doubtless recall the fusion of several persons into one. Such a compound person probably looks like A., is dressed like B., does something that one remembers of C., but in spite of this one is conscious that he is really D. By means of this compound formation something common to all four people is especially emphasized. One can make a compound formation of events and of places in the same way as of people, provided always that the single events and localities have something in common which the latent dream emphasizes. It is a sort of new and fleeting concept of formation, with the common element as its kernel. This jumble of details that has been fused together regularly results in a vague indistinct picture, as though you had taken several pictures on the same film.

The shaping of such compound formations must be of great importance to the dream-work, for we can prove, (by the choice of a verbal expression for a thought, for instance) that the common elements mentioned above are purposely manufactured where they originally do not exist. We have already become acquainted with such condensation and compound formations; they played an important part in the origin of certain cases of slips of the tongue. You recall the young man who wished to _inscort_ a woman. Furthermore, there are jokes whose technique may be traced to such a condensation. But entirely aside from this, one may maintain that this appearance of something quite unknown in the dream finds its counterpart in many of the creations of our imagination which fuse together component parts that do not belong together in experience, as for example the centaurs, and the fabulous animals of old mythology or of Boecklin's pictures. For creative imagination can invent nothing new whatsoever, it can only put together certain details normally alien to one another. The peculiar thing, however, about the procedure of the dream-work is the following: The material at the disposal of the dream-work consists of thoughts, thoughts which may be offensive and unacceptable, but which are nevertheless correctly formed and expressed.

These thoughts are transformed into something else by the dream-work, and it is remarkable and incomprehensible that this translation, this rendering, as it were, into another script or language, employs the methods of condensation and combination. For a translation usually strives to respect the discriminations expressed in the text, and to differentiate similar things. The dream-work, on the contrary, tries to fuse two different thoughts by looking, just as the joke does, for an ambiguous word which shall act as a connecting link between the two thoughts. One need not attempt to understand this feature of the case at once, but it may become significant for the conception of the dream-work.

Although condensation renders the dream opaque, one does not get the impression that it is an effect of dream censors.h.i.+p. One prefers to trace it back to mechanical or economic conditions; but censors.h.i.+p undoubtedly has a share in the process.

The results of condensation may be quite extraordinary. With its help, it becomes possible at times to collect quite unrelated latent thought processes into one manifest dream, so that one can arrive at an apparently adequate interpretation, and at the same time conceive a possible further interpretation.