Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/320

308 construction of them showed close resemblances to that of the neurotic symptoms. In both cases the material examined proved to be an allegorical expression of deeper mental processes, and in both cases these deeper processes were unconscious, and had in reaching expression undergone distortion by the endopsychic censor. The mechanisms by means of which this distortion is brought about is very similar in the two cases, the chief difference being that representation by visual pictures is much more characteristic of dreams. In both cases the unconscious mental processes always arise in early childhood and constitute a repressed wish, as do all unconscious processes, and the symptom or dream represents the imaginary fulfilment of that wish in a form in which is also fused the fulfilment of the opposing wish.

Dreams differ from psycho-neurotic symptoms in that the opposing wish is always of the same kind, namely the wish to sleep. A dream is thus the guardian of sleep, and its function is to satisfy the activity of unconscious mental processes that otherwise would disturb sleep. The fact that sometimes a horrid dream may not only disturb sleep, but may actually wake the sleeper, in no way vitiates this conclusion. In such cases the activity of the endopsychic censor, which is diminished during sleep, is insufficient to keep from consciousness the dream thoughts, or to compel such distortion of them as to render them unrecognisable, and recourse has to be had to the acces>ion of energy that the censor is capable of exerting in the waking state; metaphorically expressed, the watchman guarding the sleeping household is overpowered, and has to wake it in calling for help.

Freud couples with his discussion of dream problems a penetrating enquiry into many allied topics, such as the nature of the unconscious and the function of consciousness, that cannot here be even touched upon. I would conclude this imperfect sketch of his theory of dreams by quoting a remark of his to the effect that "Die Traumdeutung ist die Via Regia zur Kenntniss des Unbewussten im Seelenleben"