I seemed to be looking at a post-card which a lady was showing me. I read: "It's all over. Mrs.------."

I understood that the lady who wrote the post-card was leaving her position, and felt gratified.

At the time this dream occurred I was collecting data relative to the dream-life of the feeble-minded. I had asked various persons to aid me, and it seemed that all co-operated except one lady. Being anxious to complete the work, I transiently reflected as to how the difficulty could be remedied. I thought that the lady who seemed to be negligent might leave her position; in such a case a new employe might take more interest and obtain the data I sought. Other possibilities presented themselves. We see, again, that the dream fulfilled a wish, - not exactly that the lady should leave her employment, but that the desired data might be secured.

Many other dreams besides those mentioned could be described, as those of the man-servant, quoted by Rade-stock, who, a boot-black by day, gratified his unfulfilled desire for military glory by commanding a regiment at night; dreams like that of Charles Lamb,1 in which a heart's desire, never to be realized actually, finds temporary realization; dreams of famous persons talking to us confidentially, dining with us, implying our desire for their friendship. Usually it is not conscious wishes, or wishes expressly made that are brought to fulfilment by dreams; an exception must be made in the case of young children, at least those under four years of age. Unconscious wishes, or wishes that have flitted through the mind, are favoured. Moreover, it matters not how old or how young the wish may be, nor how agreeable or disagreeable. Childhood desires appear frequently, and frequently, also, the dream reveals to us repulsive wishes which we have entertained, maybe for only a moment.

Wish fulfilment is not peculiar to night-dreams. Daydreams are practically always the imaginary fulfilments of desires. Further, even fabricated or artificial dreams often show their wish content plainly. A fabricated dream is one that a person makes up, stating, apparently at random, such thoughts as come to mind. Many of us think that our thoughts follow no definite laws. However, nothing happens in the physical world without some cause, and the same is true of the psychical world. Thoughts which are termed random, which seem to be of conscious make-up, are thoughts which are really influenced by unconscious processes. Naturally, when we are engaged in directive thinking, the solution of a problem in arithmetic, to take a simple example, we keep out of mind (consciousness) thoughts which seem to have nothing to do with the solution of the problem. When the mental tension is relaxed, however, as when we are "thinking of nothing in particular," many "random" thoughts have an opportunity for entering consciousness. These random thoughts may be called forth, unconsciously, by the various impressions made on the senses; for instance, we may see some one who reminds (the unconscious mind) us of a person we once knew, and we think of this person, unaware of the fact that the reminiscence came up involuntarily. When the impressions made by somatic and external stimuli are feeble, and the mental tension is relaxed, thoughts which have to do with our desires, hopes, ambitions, anticipations tend to rush into consciousness. These are on the top of the mental barrel, so to speak, the painful thoughts being covered by them, just as a barrel of apples is apt to have the best apples uppermost. Our minds are charged with pleasing anticipations; and when the hoop (mental tension) of the barrel, to continue the metaphor, is released, these tend to thrust themselves into consciousness. Sometimes an unhappy anticipation may appear, but, when we are awake, this is usually discarded. Sometimes, too, the thoughts may be erratic, and seemingly of no psychic importance, but we will find, as a rule, that thoughts which, if fulfilled, would make us happy, are more often present.

1 Chapter on Dream Children in Essays of Elia.

The following are simple examples of fabricated dreams of a normal adult.

I think I am in a large city and am a model for gowns in a large and beautiful store. Everybody compliments me, and the manager gives me a lovely dress as a present.

I think I am in a wonderful house thai belongs to me. My husband is very attentive, and I am pleading with him not to work any more. When one refers to the fulfilment of wishes by dreams, the name of Freud, the Austrian psychologist, comes to mind. Freud's work on dreams1 has been revolutionary, and he is probably the most discussed psychologist of the day. According to Freud, dreams are not disordered, meaningless thoughts, but follow rigorous psychic laws and are replete with information of great psychological importance. He considers that somatic or external stimuli may enter into the complex machinery of dream formation, but only insofar as they stir up some important repressed element (wish) buried in the dreamer's unconscious mind. The dream as remembered (the manifest content) is merely a condensation of a number of hidden dream thoughts (the latent con-tent). The latent content can be discovered only by an exhaustive analysis of the dream as remembered. When this analysis is carried out, it will be found that for such a transition from latent to manifest content to have occurred a great amount of work must have been performed by the dream (the dream work). The dream work has made use of various processes, the most important of which are condensation, displacement, dramatization, secondary elaboration. Condensation is the fusion of the attributes of two or more familiar persons, places, or things, resulting in the formation of a new, unrecognized, composite person, place, or thing, the object of which is to express a similarity, or brevity. This composition is often expressed by saying that each of the factors involved are over-determined, that is, caused by a number of factors rather than by one. Displacement consists in a change whereby an apparently trivial element, which is really of great significance in the life of the dreamer, is given a minor place in the dream; and incidents which are really trivial stand out prominently; the object is the hiding of unpleasant material. Dramatization occurs because the dream must be presented visually, incidents must be acted out, and hence we have a sort of theatrical performance. Secondary elaboration is the dream's respect for intelligibility, whereby it makes use of interpolations and alterations, distortions and maskings of unacceptable ideas.