How far the dream can really be understood can be determined only by practice and experience. My opinion is, that that is very far indeed, and the comparison of results which correctly trained analysts have gathered confirms my view. The lay public, even that part of the lay public which is interested in science, likes, in the face of the difficulties and uncertainties of a scientific task, to make what I consider an unjust show of its superior scepticism. Perhaps not all of you are acquainted with the fact that a similar situation arose in the history of the deciphering of the Babylonian-Assyrian inscriptions. There was a period then when public opinion went far in declaring the decipherors of cuneiform writing to be visionaries and the whole research a "fraud." But in the year 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society made a decisive test. It challenged the four most distinguished decipherors of cuneiform writing, Rawlinson, Hincks, Fox Talbot and Oppert, each to send to it in a sealed envelope his independent translation of a newly discovered inscription, and the Society was then able to testify, after having made a comparison of the four readings, that their agreement was sufficiently marked to justify confidence in what already had been accomplished, and faith in further progress. At this the mockery of the learned lay world gradually came to an end and the confidence in the reading of cuneiform documents has grown appreciably since then. 2. A second series of objections is firmly grounded in the impression from which you too probably are not free, that a number of the solutions of dream interpretations which we find it necessary to make seem forced, artificial, far-fetched, in other words, violent or even comical or jocose. These comments are so frequent that I shall choose at random the latest example which has come to my attention. Recently, in free Switzerland, the director of a boarding-school was relieved of his position on account of his active interest in psychoanalysis. He raised objections and a Berne newspaper made public the judgment of the school authorities. I quote from that article some sentences which apply to psychoanalysis: "Moreover, we are surprised at the many far-fetched and artificial examples as found in the aforementioned book of Dr. Pfister of Zurich.... Thus, it certainly is a cause of surprise when the director of a boarding-school so uncritically accepts all these assertions and apparent proofs." These observations are offered as the decisions of "one who judges calmly." I rather think this calm is "artificial." Let us examine these remarks more closely in the hope that a little reflection and knowledge of the subject can be no detriment to calm judgment.