georges didi huberman, confronti... - lensbased.net

Image as Rend 151comparing, hence of representing to oneself, hence of knowing distinctlysomething of the resemblance that, simply, right there, presentsitself. Such will be the consequence imposed in the dream by the‘‘tendency toward condensation’’ that Freud invokes to explain thefact that ‘‘the common element that justifies, or rather causes, thecombination of the two persons may be represented in the dream ormay be omitted from it’’:As a rule the identification or construction of a compositeperson takes place for the very purpose of avoiding the representationof the common element. Instead of saying: ‘‘A hashostile feelings towards me and so has B,’’ I make a compositefigure out of A and B in the dream, or I imagine A performingan act of some other kind which is characteristic ofB. The dream-figure thus constructed appears in the dreamin some quite new connection, and the circumstance that itrepresents both A and B justifies me in inserting at the appropriatepoint in the interpretation the element which is commonto both of them, namely a hostile attitude towards me.It is often possible in this way to achieve quite a remarkableamount of condensation in the content of a dream; I do notneed to make a direct representation of a complicated set ofcircumstances relating to a person, if I have found someoneelse to associate with him who has the same claim on someof those circumstances. It is easy to see, too, how well thismethod of presentation by means of identification [Darstellungdurch Identifizierung] can serve to circumvent the censorshipset up by resistance, which imposes such severeconditions on the dream-work. 28Good sense told us, finally, that resemblance was meant to establishbetween two terms something like a reconciliation of the same;the dream-work will rend the serenity of such reconciliations fromwithin. When this same is represented, Freud tells us, ‘‘it is usually ahint for us to look for another, concealed common element whosefiguration has been made impossible by the censorship. A displace-