DREAM DICTIONARY

The Dream Mechanism-2-Dream Psychology

The stuff of dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application. There must be one or more common factors.
The dream work proceeds like Francis galton with his family photographs. The different elements are put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other.

This process of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses uncertainty, as to either-or read and, taking each section of the apparent alternatives as a seperate outlet for a series of impressions. 

When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream work takes the trouble to create somethung, in order to make a common presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making such a change in the actual impressiosof one idea as will meet a slight responsive recasting in the form of the other idea.

The process is analogous to that of rhyme, when consonace supplies the desired common factor. A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give rise to them.

In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I struck upon the thought: I should like to have something for nothing. But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced by another one: "I should like to enjoy something free of cost." the word "kost" (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table D'hote; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the dream.

At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "just taste it." That the dream work should un hesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the occurence is quite usual.

Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's thought and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an inexaustable profusion.

Everyone knows such images in his /her own dreams; manifold are the origins. I can build up a person by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can visualize one person , but place him in a position which has occured to another.

There is a meaning in all these cases , when different persons are amalgamated into one sub stitute. Such cases denote an "and," a"just like," a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view, a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule, however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the "combined" person .

The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rule for its solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents, examples of which I need scarcely adduce.

Their strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember they represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination . Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says simply: All these things have an "X" in common. The decomposition of these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest wayto an interpretation of the dream.

Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with on e of my formaer un iversity tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a comnation of lecture-rrom and a moving staircase. I will not pursue the further result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on my lap an object shape like a top-hat,which, however was made of transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: "He who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land."

By a slight turn the glass hat reminded me of Auer's light, and I knew that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman,Dr. Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaing in Vienna. In the dream I was travelling with my invention, with the, it is true, rather akward glass top-hat.

The dream work is peculiarly adept at representing teo contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms resembling camellias ( contrast with chastiry: La dame aux Camelias).

Reference: Sigmund Freud.Dream Psychology