it afterwards, and which, therefore, is no dream of delirium, always has a meaning; why, it cannot be otherwise! For that which is in contradiction to itself can never be combined into a whole. The fact that time and space are often thoroughly shaken up, detracts not at all from the real content of the dream, because both are without any significance whatever for its essential content. We often do the same thing in waking life; think of fairy-tales, of so many bold and pregnant creations of fantasy, of which only a foolish person would say: 'That is nonsense! For it isn't possible.'"

"If only it were always possible to interpret dreams correctly, as you have just done with mine!" said the friend.

"That is certainly not an easy task, but with a little attention it must always be possible to the dreamer. You ask why it is generally impossible? In your case there seems to be something veiled in your dreams, something unchaste in a special and exalted fashion, a certain secrecy in your nature, which it is difficult to fathom; and that is why your dreams so often seem to be without meaning, or even nonsensical. But in the profoundest sense, this is by no means the case; indeed it cannot be, for a man is always the same person, whether he wakes or dreams."

The manner in which the factors of displacement, condensation and over-determination interact with one another in dream-formation- which is the ruling factor and which the subordinate one- all this will be reserved as a subject for later investigation. In the meantime, we may state, is a second condition which the elements that find their way into the dream must satisfy, that they must be withdrawn from the resistance of the censorship. But henceforth, in the interpretation of dreams, we shall reckon with dream-displacement as an unquestionable fact.

C. The Means of Representation in Dreams

Besides the two factors of condensation and displacement in dreams, which we have found to be at work in the transformation of the latent dream-material into the manifest dream-content, we shall, in the course of this investigation, come upon two further conditions which exercise an unquestionable influence over the selection of the material that eventually appears in the dream. But first, even at the risk of seeming to interrupt our progress, I shall take a preliminary glance at the processes by which the interpretation of dreams is accomplished. I do not deny that the best way of explaining them, and of convincing the critic of their reliability, would be to take a single dream as an example, to detail its interpretation, as I did (in Chapter II) in the case of the dream of Irma's injection, but then to assemble the dream-thoughts which I had discovered, and from them to reconstruct the formation of the dream- that is to say, to supplement dream-analysis by dream-synthesis. I have done this with several specimens for my own instruction; but I cannot undertake to do it here, as I am prevented by a number of considerations (relating to the psychic material necessary for such a demonstration) such as any right-thinking person would approve. In the analysis of dreams these considerations present less difficulty, for an analysis may be incomplete and still retain its value, even if it leads only a little way into the structure of the dream. I do not see how a synthesis, to be convincing, could be anything short of complete. I could give a complete synthesis only of the dreams of such persons as are unknown to the reading public. Since, however, neurotic patients are the only persons who furnish me with the means of making such a synthesis, this part of the description of dreams must be postponed until I can carry the psychological explanation of the neuroses far enough to demonstrate their relation to our subject. * This will be done elsewhere.

* I have since given the complete analysis and synthesis of two dreams in the Bruchstuck einer Hysterieanalyse, (1905) (Ges. Schriften, Vol. VIII). "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria," translated by Strachey, Collected Papers, Vol III, (Hogarth Press, London). O. Rank's analysis, Ein Traum der sich selbst deutet, deserves mention as the most complete interpretation of a comparatively long dream.

From my attempts to construct dreams synthetically from their dream-thoughts, I know that the material which is yielded by interpretation varies in value. Part of it consists of the essential dream-thoughts, which would completely replace the dream and would in themselves be a sufficient substitute for it, were