Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/299

Rh fusion of traits belonging to more than one actual person, and is then called a "collective person" (Sammelperson). This may occur either by the fusion of some traits belonging to one person with some belonging to another, or by making prominent the traits common to the two and neglecting those not common to them; the latter process produces a result analogous to a Gal ton's composite photograph. The same process frequently occurs with names: thus Freud mentions a dream in which the person seemed to be called Norekdal, which had been formed from the names of two of Ibsen's characters, Nora and Ekdal; I have seen the name Magua formed by fusing Maggie and Edna, and similar instances are common enough. The neologism thus produced closely resembles those met with in the psychoses, particularly in dementia praecox, and like these may refer to things as well as to persons. . Lastly in this, connection it should be remarked that certain of the elements in the manifest content are especially rich in associations, as if they formed particular points of junction (Knotenpunkte); they are in other words the "bestdetermined" elements. These are intimately related to the most significant elements in the underlying dream thoughts, and frequently show the greatest sensorial vividness in the manifest content.

Condensation subserves more than one function. In the first place it is the mechanism by means of which similarity, agreement or identity between two elements in the latent content is expressed in the manifest content; the two elements simply become fused into one, thus forming a new unity. If this fusion has already taken place in the latent content the process is termed Identification, if it takes place during the construction of the dream itself the process is termed Composition (Mischbildung}; the former process rarely concerns things, chiefly persons and places. In the process of identification a person in the dream enters into situations that really are proper to some other person, or behaves in a way characteristic of this second person. In the process of composition the fusion is revealed-in the manifest content in other ways; thus a given person may appear in the dream, but bearing the name of some second one, or the figure in the dream may be composed of traits taken some from the first, others from the second person. The existence of a resemblance between two persons or places may thus be. expressed in the dream by the appearance of a composite person or place built up in the way just mentioned; the important feature that the two have in common, which in this case is the essential constituent in the latent content, need not be present in the manifest content, and indeed usually is not. It is clear that by this means a