I have dwelt at length on that example to show a few of the pitfalls which threaten the careless interpreter of dreams. The second rule I would formulate is this: Do not try to interpret one dream. Wait until you have collected a large number of dreams, let us say, twenty or thirty of them. Then classify them according to their character as follows: Pleasant and unpleasant dreams. Healthy and morbid. Masochistic and sadistic. Childish or adult. Regressive, static or progressive. Positive or negative. Varied or recurrent. Personal or typical. Hypnogogic and hypnapagogic visions, etc. Care must be taken then to note all the words and thoughts which appear most frequently in many dreams and which are likely to refer to important complexes. Whenever possible two versions of each dream should be studied. The subject should write down his dreams as soon as he wakes up, either in the morning or right after an anxiety dream which may have disturbed him in the course of the night. The version of almost any important dream which the subject tells the analyst will be found quite at variance with the version written immediately after awakening. Here is a dream reported orally to me by a patient. "I saw you through a restaurant window, having lunch with your wife." Here is the same dream as I found it in the patient notes: "You were to deliver a lecture in a park. There was a number of good looking girls there. One especially attracted my attention. As there was quite a little mud in the park she wore rubber boots. You were late in appearing and I went to look for you. I saw you sitting at a table in a restaurant with your wife, waving to some acquaintance on the side walk." The discrepancy between the two versions is quite amusing. After that preparatory work of classification and comparison, the actual work of interpretation can begin. Hebbel once wrote: "If a man could make up his mind TO WRITE DOWN ALL HIS DREAMS, WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTIONS OR RESERVATIONS, TRUTHFULLY AND WITHOUT OMITTING ANY DETAILS, TOGETHER WITH A RUNNING COMMENTARY CONTAINING ALL THE EXPLANATIONS OF HIS DREAMS WHICH HE COULD DERIVE FROM HIS LIFE MEMORIES AND FROM HIS READING, he would make to mankind a present of inestimable value. But as long as mankind is what it is, no one is likely to do that." The technique of dream interpretation could not have been described more accurately nor more aptly. The person whose dreams are to be analysed should relax completely, stretched out on a couch in a quiet room, listening for a while to some monotonous noise such as the buzzing of a fan or of an inductor, his mind concentrated on the story of the dream.