Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/303

 is a developed play. Despite its apparent unreality the dream retains its relation to the great interests of life; it seeks to supply what is lacking through a regressive detour of hallucinations; and it owes its existence solely to the strong need for sleep during the night. Wit, on the other hand, seeks to draw a small amount of pleasure from the free and unencumbered activities of our psychic apparatus, and later to seize this pleasure as an incidental gain. It thus secondarily reaches to important functions relative to the outer world. The dream serves preponderately to guard from pain while wit serves to acquire pleasure; in these two aims all our psychic activities meet.