Because of the importance of the matter I ask you to pay special attention to this. When I ask a man to say what comes to his mind about any given element in a dream, I require him to give himself up to the process of FREE ASSOCIATION _which follows when he keeps in mind the original idea_. This necessitates a peculiar attitude of the attention, something quite different from reflection, indeed, precluding it. Many people adopt this attitude without any difficulty, but others when they attempt to do so display an incredible inaptitude. There is a still higher degree of freedom in association which appears when I dispense with any particular stimulus-idea and perhaps only describe the kind and species of association that I want; for example, ask someone to let a proper name or a number occur to him. An association of this sort should, one would say, be even more subject to choice and unaccountable than the kind used in our technique. Nevertheless, it can be shown that in every instance it will be strictly determined by important inner attitudes of mind, which are unknown to us at the moment when they operate, just as much unknown as are the disturbing tendencies which cause errors, and those tendencies which bring about so-called “chance” actions. I myself and many after me have repeatedly made an examination of names and numbers called up without any particular idea as a starting-point; some of these experiments have been published. The method is this: a train of associations is stirred up by the name which occurred, and these associations, as you see, are no longer quite free, but are attached just so far as the associations to the different elements of the dream are attached; this train of associations is then kept up until the thoughts arising from the impulse have been exhausted. By that time, however, you will have explained the motivation and significance of the free association with a name. The experiments yield the same result again and again; the information they give us often includes a wealth of material and necessitates going far afield into its ramifications. The associations to numbers that arise spontaneously are perhaps the most demonstrative; they follow upon one another so swiftly and make for a hidden goal with such astounding certainty that one is really quite taken aback. I will give you just one example of a name-analysis of this sort, because it happens to be one which does not involve the handling of a great mass of material.