ABSTRACT
It is a scientific misfortune that so much psychoanalytic work is therapeutic in its aim rather than primarily investigative. This is, of course, inevitable: few people can be found ready to sacrifice time, money and personal comfort in the interest of psychology. Naturally, then, the vast bulk of dream analysis is carried on with the definite object of unearthing the hidden tendencies, which are causing the patient's symptoms, not with the hope of discovering laws concerning the structure of dreams. Every analyst has daily opportunity to verify the fundamental claims of Freud as to dream mechanisms—the "dream work"; but he is forced by consideration of the patient's need to forgo the pleasure of reconstructing the dream after it has been analysed, since this is largely of academic interest. Again, we have all of us the constant experience of confining ourselves to one chapter, one act of the dream, or one dream of a number presented in one night. If we should attempt to run to earth every detail in a long panoramic dream, we would find ourselves spending days, even weeks, with the productions of one night, and taking little account of the progress of the patient's nocturnal autistic life.
