The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud (1900)

the procedure perhaps be as follows? The dream-forming factors, the efforts at condensation, the necessity of evading the censorship, and the
regard for representability by the psychic means of the dream first of all create from the dream-material a provisional dream-content, which is
subsequently modified until it satisfies as far as possible the exactions of a secondary agency. No, this is hardly probable. We must rather assume
that the requirements of this agency constitute from the very first one of the conditions which the dream must satisfy, and that this condition, as
well as the conditions of condensation, the opposing censorship, and representability, simultaneously influence, in an inductive and selective
manner, the whole mass of material in the dream-thoughts. But of the four conditions necessary for dream-formation, the last recognized is that
whose exactions appear to be least binding upon the dream. The following consideration makes it seem very probable that this psychic function,
which undertakes the so-called secondary elaboration of the dream-content, is identical with the work of our waking thought: Our waking
(preconscious) thought behaves towards any given perceptual material precisely as the function in question behaves towards the dream-content. It
is natural to our waking thought to create order in such material, to construct relations, and to subject it to the requirements of an intelligible
coherence. Indeed, we go rather too far in this respect; the tricks of conjurers befool us by taking advantage of this intellectual habit of ours. In the
effort to combine in an intelligible manner the sensory impressions which present themselves we often commit the most curious mistakes, and
even distort the truth of the material before us. The proofs of this fact are so familiar that we need not give them further consideration here. We
overlook errors which make nonsense of a printed page because we imagine the proper words. The editor of a widely read French journal is said
to have made a bet that he could print the words from in front or from behind in every sentence of a long article without any of his readers
noticing it. He won his bet. Years ago I came across a comical example of false association in a newspaper. After the session of the French
Chamber in which Dupuy quelled the panic, caused by the explosion of a bomb thrown by an anarchist, with the courageous words, "La seance
continue,"[105] the visitors in the gallery were asked to testify as to their impressions of the outrage. Among them were two provincials. One of
these said that immediately after the end of a speech he had heard a detonation, but that he had thought that it was the parliamentary custom to
fire a shot whenever a speaker had finished. The other, who had apparently already listened to several speakers, had got hold of the same idea, but
with this variation, that he supposed the shooting to be a sign of appreciation following a specially successful speech.
Thus, the psychic agency which approaches the dream-content with the demand that it must be intelligible, which subjects it to a first
interpretation, and in doing so leads to the complete misunderstanding of it, is none other than our normal thought. In our interpretation the rule
will be, in every case, to disregard the apparent coherence of the dream as being of suspicious origin and, whether the elements are confused or
clear, to follow the same regressive path to the dream-material.
At the same time, we note those factors upon which the above-mentioned (chapter VI., C) scale of quality in dreams - from confusion to clearness
- is essentially independent. Those parts of the dream seem to us clear in which the secondary elaboration has been able to accomplish something;
those seem confused where the powers of this performance have failed. Since the confused parts of the dream are often likewise those which are
less vividly presented, we may conclude that the secondary dream-work is responsible also for a contribution to the plastic intensity of the
individual dream-structures.
If I seek an object of comparison for the definitive formation of the dream, as it manifests itself with the assistance of normal thinking, I can think
of none better than those mysterious inscriptions with which Die Fliegende Blatter has so long amused its readers. In a certain sentence which, for
the sake of contrast, is in dialect, and whose significance is as scurrilous as possible, the reader is led to expect a Latin inscription. For this
purpose the letters of the words are taken out of their syllabic groupings, and are rearranged. Here and there a genuine Latin word results; at other
points, on the assumption that letters have been obliterated by weathering, or omitted, we allow ourselves to be deluded about the significance of
certain isolated and meaningless letters. If we do not wish to be fooled we must give up looking for an inscription, must take the letters as they
stand, and combine them, disregarding their arrangement, into words of our mother tongue.
The secondary elaboration is that factor of the dream-work which has been observed by most of the writers on dreams, and whose importance has
been duly appreciated. Havelock Ellis gives an amusing allegorical description of its performances: "As a matter of fact, we might even imagine
the sleeping consciousness as saying to itself: 'Here comes our master, Waking Consciousness, who attaches such mighty importance to reason
and logic and so forth. Quick! gather things up, put them in order - any order will do - before he enters to take possession.'"[106]
The identity of this mode of operation with that of waking thought is very clearly stated by Delacroix in his Sur la structure logique du reve (p.
526): "Cette fonction d'interpretation n'est pas particuliere au reve; c'est le meme travail de coordination logique que nous faisons sur nos
sensations pendant la veille."[107]
J. Sully is of the same opinion; and so is Tobowolska: "Sur ces successions incoherentes d'hallucinations, l'esprit s'efforce de faire le meme travail
de coordination logique qu'il fait pendant le veille sur les sensations. Il relie entre elles par un lien imaginaire toutes ces images decousues et
bouche les ecarts trop grands qui se trouvaient entre elles"[108] (p. 93).
Some authors maintain that this ordering and interpreting activity begins even in the dream and is continued in the waking state. Thus Paulhan (p.
547): "Cependant j'ai souvent pense qu'il pouvait y avoir une certain deformation, ou plutot reformation du reve dans le souvenir.... La tendence
systematisante de l'imagination pourrait fort bien achever apres le reveil ce qu'elle a ebauche pendant le sommeil. De la sorte, la rapidite reelle de
la pensee serait augmentee en apparence par les perfectionnements dus a l'imagination eveillee."[109]