From this point onward the train of thought is subjected to a series of transformations which we no longer recognize as normal psychic processes, and which give a result that we find strange, a psychopathological formation. Let us now emphasize and bring together these transformations:

1. The intensities of the individual ideas become capable of discharge in their entirety, and pass from one idea to another, so that individual ideas are formed which are endowed with great intensity. Through the repeated occurrence of this process, the intensity of an entire train of thought may ultimately be concentrated in a single conceptual unit. This is the fact of compression or condensation with which we become acquainted when investigating the dream-work. It is condensation that is mainly responsible for the strange impression produced by dreams, for we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic life that is accessible to consciousness. We get here, too, ideas which are of great psychic significance as nodal points or as end-results of whole chains of thought, but this value is not expressed by any character actually manifest for our internal perception; what is represented in it is not in any way made more intensive. In the process of condensation the whole set of psychic connections becomes transformed into the intensity of the idea-content. The situation is the same as when, in the case of a book, I italicize or print in heavy type any word to which I attach outstanding value for the understanding of the text. In speech, I should pronounce the same word loudly, and deliberately, and with emphasis. The first simile points immediately to one of the examples which were given of the dream-work (trimethylamine in the dream of Irma's injection). Historians of art call our attention to the fact that the most ancient sculptures known to history follow a similar principle, in expressing the rank of the persons represented by the size of the statues. The king is made two or three times as tall as his retinue or his vanquished enemies. But a work of art of the Roman period makes use of more subtle means to accomplish the same end. The figure of the Emperor is placed in the centre, erect and in his full height, and special care is bestowed on the modelling of this figure; his enemies are seen cowering at his feet; but he is no longer made to seem a giant among dwarfs. At the same time, in the bowing of the subordinate to his superior, even in our own day, we have an echo of this ancient principle of representation.

The direction followed by the condensations of the dream is prescribed on the one hand by the true preconscious relations of the dream-thoughts, and, on the other hand, by the attraction of the visual memories in the unconscious. The success of the condensation-work produces those intensities which are required for penetration to the perception-system.

2. By the free transference of intensities, and in the service of the condensation, intermediary ideas- compromises, as it were- are formed (cf. the numerous examples). This, also, is something unheard of in the normal movement of our ideas, where what is of most importance is the selection and the retention of the right conceptual material. On the other hand, composite and compromise formations occur with extraordinary frequency when we are trying to find verbal expression for preconscious thoughts; these are considered slips of the tongue.

3. The ideas which transfer their intensities to one another are very loosely connected, and are joined together by such forms of association as are disdained by our serious thinking, and left to be exploited solely by wit. In particular, assonances and punning associations are treated as equal in value to any other associations.

4. Contradictory thoughts do not try to eliminate one another, but continue side by side, and often combine to form condensation- products, as though no contradiction existed; or they form compromises for which we should never forgive our thought, but which we frequently sanction in our action.

These are some of the most conspicuous abnormal processes to which the dream-thoughts which have previously been rationally formed are subjected in the course of the dream-work. As the main feature of these processes, we may see that the greatest importance is attached to rendering the cathecting energy mobile and capable of discharge; the content and the intrinsic significance of the psychic elements to which these cathexes adhere become matters of secondary importance. One might perhaps assume that condensation and compromise-formation are effected only in the service of regression, when the