5° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
more searching and profound. Freud, however, goes far beyond the 
fundamental—and, as I believe, undeniable—proposition that dream- 
Imagery is largely symbolic. He holds that behind the symbolism of 
dreams there lies ultimately a wish; he believes, moreover, that this 
wish tends to be really of more or less sexual character, and, further, 
that it is tinged by elements that go back to the dreamer’s infantile 
days. As Freud views the mechanism of dreams, it is far from exhibit- 
ing mere disordered mental activity, but is (much as he has also argued 
hysteria to be) the outcome of a desire, which is driven back by a kind 
of inhibition or censure (i. ¢., that kind of moral check which is still 
more alert in the waking state) and is seeking new forms of expression. 
There is first in the dream the process of what Freud calls condensation 
(Verdichtung), a process which is that fusion of strange elements which 
must be recognized at the outset of every discussion of dreaming, but 
Freud maintains that in this fusion all the elements have a point in 
common, and overlie one another like the pictures in a Galtonian com- 
posite photograph. ‘Then there comes the process of displacement or 
transference( Verschrebung), a process by which the really central and 
emotional basis of the dream is concealed beneath trifles. Then there is 
the process of dramatization or transformation into a concrete situation 
of which the elements have a symbolic value. Thus, as Maeder puts 
it,t° summarizing Freud’s views, “ behind the apparently insignificant 
events of the day utilized in the dream there is always an important 
idea or event hidden. We only dream of things that are worth while. 
What at first sight seems to be a trifle is a gray wall which hides a great 
palace. The significance of the dream is not so much held in the dream 
itself as in that substratum of it which has not passed the threshold 
and which analysis alone can bring to light.” 
“We only dream of things that are worth while.” That is the 
point at which many of us are no longer able to follow Freud. That 
dreams of the type studied by Freud do actually occur may be accepted ; 
it may even be considered proved. But to assert that all dreams must 
be made to fit into this one formula is to make far too large a demand. 
As regards the presentative element in dreams—the element that is 
April, 1907; as also by Ernest Jones, “ Freud’s Theory of Dreams,” Review of 
Neurology and Psychiatry, March, 1910, and American Journal of Psychology, 
April, 1910. For Freud’s general psychological doctrine, see Brill’s translation 
of “ Freud’s Selected Papers on Hysteria,” 1909. There have been many serious 
criticisms of Freud’s methods. As an example of such criticism, accompanying 
an exposition of the methods reference may be made to Max Isserlin’s “ Die 
Psychoanalytische Methode Freuds,” Zeitschrift fiir die Gesamte Neurologie 
und Psychiatrie, Bd. I., Heft 1, 1910. A judicious and qualified criticism of 
Freud’s psychotherapeutic methods is given by Liwenfeld, “ Zum gegenwirtigen 
Stande der Psychotherapeutie,” Miimchener medizinische Wochenschrift, Nos. 3 
and 4, 1910. 
16 Loc, cit., p. 374. 
