12 



DISCOVERY 



a conscious guiding idea. Freud claims that when this 

 occurs, unconscious directive tendencies take over the 

 function of guiding our thoughts, and that in this way. 

 by " freely associating " from any part of the manifest 

 content of our dream, we can discover the tmdcrlying 

 latent material of which it is the representative in our 

 consciousness. In this way we can pass from the 

 manifest to the latent content of the dream. 



The transformation of the latent content of the 

 dream into its manifest content is called the dream- 

 work. This dream-work is not carried out during the 

 occurrence of the dream, but according to P'rcud goes 

 on incessantly both in our waking and sleeping life. 

 The dream he compares to a firework which, though 

 its display lasts only for a few seconds, may require 

 many hours for its preparation. 



What is the function of this dream-work ? It is to 

 distort or transform the latent content into a shape 

 in which it is acceptable to our consciousness. And 

 here we enter upon a part of the theory which can only 

 be inadequately sketched in this short essay. It is 

 well known that the activity of consciousness is always 

 selective, that any thought temporarily in consciousness 

 is simply the apex of a pyramid of memories associated 

 with it. If that thought be allowed to develop, some 

 of those memories will emerge into consciousness, 

 while others will not. 



Freud believes that one of the most important 

 functions of consciousness — that which he pictorially 

 terms the censorship — is to shield the mind as far as 

 possible from experiences which would be unacceptable 

 to it. In waking life the function of this censorship is 

 usually to repress certain thoughts and desires, the 

 dim premonitory shadows cast by the coming events 

 being sufficient to ensure a refusal to admit them to 

 consciousness. In sleep, however, the vigUance of the 

 censorship being relaxed, the forbidden thoughts- 

 banned because of their painful, immoral, or ugly nature 

 — may clamour for admittance. The dream, according 

 to Freud, is a compromise by means of which these 

 thoughts or desires are allowed to enter consciousness, 

 but in a disguised form. This distortion allows them 

 to pass the relaxed censorship, and at the same time 

 permits the sleeper to continue sleeping : for, Freud 

 beUeves, had the banned material entered the sleep 

 consciousness in its undisguised form, it would prob- 

 ably have wakened the sleeper in the form of a fear- 

 dream. According to this theory, then, the dream is a 

 preserver, not a disturber, of sleep. The sole exception 

 occurs in the case of the fear-dream. 



The processes of the dream-work which Freud has 

 described are of intense interest to psychologists, for 

 even if his theory of their function prove to be incor- 

 rect or inadequate, there appears to be ample evidence 

 confirming the accuracy of his description of them. 



The evidence, indeed, makes it extremely probable 

 that these processes are active, not only in fashioning 

 dreams, but in the work of the waking consciousness 

 of creative imagination, of literature, poetry, and art, 

 the relation of which to the dream many before Freud 

 have already suspected, though none have discovered 

 or explained. 



In the dreams of ordinary people, the scenery and 

 the actors arc usually fashioned out of visual images, 

 of " pictures in the mind's eye." It is therefore 

 natural that the dream should be essentially symbolic. 

 But, according to this theory, not only may each 

 person or thing in a dream, but any part of them, any 

 dream-word heard or seen, be symbolic of a whole 

 mass of meaning, which is represented by this complex 

 symbol or condensation. 



Thus in one of the \vriter's dreams which was 

 analysed in detail ,> the stage and scenery proved to be 

 composed of two city squares, four restaurants, two 

 lantern-screens, two laboratories, and two manuscript 

 papers, while even the speech heard was a condensa- 

 tion of two such sentences. Moreover, each of these 

 visual symbols represented extremely rich meanings 

 in the dreamer's life, all of which were strictly relevant 

 to the theme of the dream — the temptation to break 

 a promise already given. Even in every-day life, how- 

 ever, symbolism often exhibits condensation, as any- 

 one can see who cares to examine the badge of the 

 Royal Army Medical Corps, or the Union Jack. 



The next process of the dream-work, that of 

 Displacement, follows inevitably from symbolism and 

 condensation. To employ once more our example 

 of the Member of Parliament, there must be many 

 Members of the present Coalition Government who 

 act as symbols for a very closely packed condensation 

 of the heterogeneous desires of their constituents. It 

 therefore comes about that some of those desires are 

 not fully represented by the subsequent behaviour of 

 the person who was elected to represent them. So it 

 is with the dream ; the formation of a compromise- 

 symbol will inevitably involve a displacement of the 

 relative importance of the several desires represented 

 by it, and therefore the part of the manifest dream 

 which appears to be most important for the dreamer 

 will, on examination of the latent content, often prove 

 to be less so. Freud, however, regards such displace- 

 ment (together with other mechanisms which cannot 

 be discussed in this short article) as further devices to 

 evade the censorship of consciousness. 



What, then, is Freud's view of the meaning of the 

 dream ? It is that the dream is the disguised fulfilment 

 of a wish, which, being unacceptable to the censorship 

 of consciousness, has been repressed into unconscious- 

 ness. It is no part of this essay to criticize this inter- 



» British Journal of Psychology, 1914, vol. \i, pp. 292-302. 



