ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the 'telescope' as a viable metaphor. The merits of the 'telescope' model are only relative to other graphical and verbal descriptions. The topography of the 'telescope' is thus replaced by an account of how energy affects the structure of the psyche. The Interpretation of Dreams is a radical and innovative work because, in it, Sigmund Freud takes seriously the playfulness of the soul. Dreams—like visions, hallucinations and symptoms—reveal unconscious processes, but only in the mischievous disguise of the rebus, or picture-puzzle. The dream of the Autodidasker consists of two parts. First of all, the actual word 'Autodidasker' and, secondly, a fantasy from the day before it was dreamt. Freud's hypothesis is that dreams like 'the burning child' have a 'regressive' character. 'Judgement' between perceptual-signs and memory-pictures stops only when 'identity' has been attained, which somehow constitutes a biological 'signal'—distinct, in Freud's semiotics, from a sign.
