It might be supposed that a difference of opinion on this point is a matter of no great moment, if there is agreement on all others. Cannot we be satisfied with having discovered the meaning of dreams and the ways by which we can find out the meaning? We surely go back on the advance we have made if we try to limit this meaning too strictly. But this is not so. A misunderstanding on this head touches what is essential to our knowledge of dreams and imperils its value for the understanding of neuroses. Moreover, that readiness to “oblige the other party” which has its value in business life is not only out of place but actually harmful in scientific matters. My first answer to the question why dreams should not be many-sided in their meaning is the usual one in such a case: I do not know why they should not be so, and should have no objection if they were. As far as I am concerned, they can be so! But there is just one trifling obstacle in the way of this wider and more convenient conception of dreams—that as a matter of fact they are not so. My second answer would emphasize the point that to assume that dreams represent manifold modes of thought and intellectual operations is by no means a novel idea to myself: once, in the history of a pathological case, I recorded a dream which occurred three nights running and never again; and gave it as my explanation that this dream corresponded to a resolution, the repetition of which became unnecessary as soon as that resolution was carried out. Later on, I published a dream which represented a confession. How is it possible for me then to contradict myself and assert that dreams are always and only wish-fulfilments?