ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud wrote that his work on dreams might stand or fall on one small detail: The reporting of dreams is so faulty. Freud made a similar point in his paper "Negation": The Unconscious knows only wishes, no negations or even partials. In the uppermost layers of the ego, mental functioning occurs mainly in the form of words and concepts that is in deeper layers as imagery. Freud accepted Herbert Silberer's concept of "threshold symbolism", which is applicable in this connection. The deeper, more primitive ego activities more nearly approach the primary process mode of thought. In the voluntary regression of sleep, the "border traffic" between id and ego, which goes on all the time anyway, may become observable. The interpretation of dreams is the most important aspect of psychoanalytic psychology, dreams being the paradigm of this discipline. That observation places memory and recall in the total framework or context of emotional dynamics.
