Now in this we are following the path of the ancient method of dream-interpretation, which has given us, besides much that is useless, many a valuable example of interpretation upon which we ourselves could not improve. I will tell you a dream of historic importance which is related in slightly different versions by Plutarch and Artemidorus of Daldis, the dreamer being Alexander the Great. When he was laying siege to the city of Tyre, which was putting up an obstinate resistance (B.C. 322), he dreamt one night that he saw a dancing satyr. The dream-interpreter Aristandros, who accompanied the army on its campaigns, interpreted this dream by dividing the word “satyros” into σὰ Τύρος (“Tyre is thine”), and prophesied from this the king’s victory over the city. This interpretation decided Alexander to continue the siege and eventually the city fell. The interpretation, factitious as it seems, was undoubtedly the right one. 3. I can well imagine that you will be especially impressed on being told that even people who have long studied the interpretation of dreams in the course of their work as psycho-analysts have raised objections to our conception of dreams. It would indeed have been exceptional if so excellent an opportunity for new mistakes had been let slip; and so assertions have been made, due to confusion of ideas and based on unjustifiable generalizations, which are hardly less incorrect than the medical conception of dreams. One of these statements you know already: that dreams deal with attempts at adaptation to the situation at the moment and with the solution of future problems; in other words, that they pursue a “prospective tendency” or aim (A. Maeder). We have already demonstrated that this statement rests upon a confusion between dreams and the latent dream-thoughts and ignores the process of dream-work. If those who speak of this “prospective tendency” mean thereby to characterize the unconscious mental activity to which the latent thoughts belong, then, on the one hand, they tell us nothing new and, on the other hand, the description is not exhaustive; for unconscious mental activity occupies itself with many other things besides preparation for the future. There seems to be a much worse confusion behind the assurance that the “death clause” may be found underlying every dream; I am not quite clear what this formula is intended to mean, but I suspect that behind it the dream is confounded with the whole personality of the dreamer.