Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

by Sigmund Freud

of dream interpretation, are straightway derived: 1. What the dream seems to say, whether it be sensible or absurd, clear or confused is not our concern, since it can under no condition be that unconscious content we are seeking. Later we shall have to observe an obvious limitation of this rule. 2. The awakening of substitute formations for each element shall be the sole object of our work. We shall not reflect on these, test their suitability or trouble how far they lead away from the element of the dream. 3. We shall wait until the hidden unconscious we are seeking appears of itself, as the missing word Monaco in the experiment which we have described. Now we can understand, too, how unimportant it is how much, how little, above all, how accurately or how indifferently the dream is remembered. For