ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the activity and processes that underpin the mental 'gear change' and how it is activated in interactions with architecture. Dreams, like buildings, are symbolic in nature, and therefore their meaning cannot be conveyed directly in literal terms. In Sigmund Freud's account the unconscious employs four methods or procedures to construct its dream-like thoughts: condensation, displacement, representation, and secondary revision. The unconscious thinks with non-direction by binding to a person's perception of things an array of images, feelings, memories, and sensations. Unconscious work, Henri Poincare asserts, is fruitful only 'if it is on the one hand preceded and on the other hand followed by a period of conscious work'. The unconscious draws upon a reservoir of experiences available to it in its designs and construction work. The creative thinking of the unconscious and the insights it gives rise to be facilitated by an architecture that incites curiosity and a desire to discover and explore its hidden features.
