Chapter 6, Part 2 Summary

In Chapter 6, Part 2, Freud resumes his discussion of dream work and interpretation, continuing with a discussion of representability. The author first reiterates the nature of dreams as compressed items in which the intensity of elements is displaced. This displacement, he repeats, is carried out as 1) replacement of one idea for another, 2) having relevance to the dreamer's associations, and 3) a facilitator of the condensing. He then adds another kind of displacement, one he says is discovered by analysis: the exchange of verbal content for mental content.

The concern here, Freud says, is the disguise of the dream as it translates abstract dream thoughts into colors and images. This method is beneficial, he says, as the conveying of thoughts would be difficult for the dream work, whereas expressions in condensed imagery are not so difficult. One thought is represented and extended through the...