Page:The theory of psychoanalysis (IA theoryofpsychoan00jungiala).pdf/122

 thing is to be said about dreams. Their prospective function has been valued only by superstitious peoples and times, but probably there is much truth in their view. Not that we pretend that dreams have any prophetic foreboding, but we suggest, that there might be a possibility of discovering in their unconscious material those future combinations which are subliminal just because they have not reached the distinctiveness or the intensity which consciousness requires. Here I am thinking of those indistinct presentments of the future which we sometimes have, which are nothing else than subliminal combinations, the objective value of which we are not able to apperceive. The future tendencies of the patient are elaborated by this indirect analysis, and, if this work is successful, the convalescent passes out of treatment and out of his half-infantile state of transference into life, which has been inwardly carefully prepared for, which has been chosen by himself, and to which, after many deliberations, he has at last made up his mind.