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288 displacement as an unquestionable fact in the interpretation of dreams.

(c) Means of Representation in the Dream

Besides the two factors of dream condensation and dream displacement which we have found to be active in the transformation of the latent dream material into the manifest content, we shall come in the course of this investigation upon two other conditions which exercise an unquestionable influence upon the selection of the material which gets into the dream. Even at the risk of seeming to stop our progress, I should like to glance at the processes by which the interpretation of dreams is accomplished. I do not deny that I should succeed best in making them clear, and in showing that they are sufficiently reliable to insure them against attack, by taking a single dream as a paradigm and developing its interpretation, as I have done in Chapter II. in the dream of "Irma's Injection," and then putting together the dream thoughts which I have discovered, and reconstructing the formation of the dream from them—that is to say, by supplementing the analysis of dreams by a synthesis of them. I have accomplished this with several specimens for my own instruction; but I cannot undertake to do it here because I am prevented by considerations, which every right-minded person must approve of, relative to the psychic material necessary for such a demonstration. 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 short way into the thought labyrinth of the dream. I do not see how a synthesis could be anything short of complete in order to be convincing. I could give a complete synthesis only of the dreams of such persons as are unknown to the reading public. Since, however, only neurotic patients furnish me with the means for doing this, this part of the description of the dream must be postponed until I can carry the psychological explanation of neuroses far enough—elsewhere—to be able to show their connection with the subject matter under consideration.