Furthermore, the expectation will be cherished that the sensory
intensity (vividness) of individual dream images has a relation to the
psychic intensity of the elements corresponding to them in the
dream-thoughts. In the latter intensity is identical with psychic value;
the most intense elements are in fact the most significant, and these
are the central point of the dream. We know, however, that it is just
these elements which are usually not accepted in the dream content owing
to the censor. But still it might be possible that the elements
immediately following these and representing them might show a higher
degree of intensity, without, however, for that reason constituting the
centre of the dream representation. This expectation is also destroyed
by a comparison of the dream and the dream material. The intensity of
the elements in the one has nothing to do with the intensity of the
elements in the other; a complete “transvaluation of all psychic values”
takes place between the dream-material and the dream. The very element
which is transient and hazy and which is pushed into the background by
more vigorous images is often the single and only element in which may
be traced any direct derivative from the subject which entirely
dominated the dream-thoughts.
The intensity of the elements of the dream shows itself to be determined
in a different manner—that is, by two factors which are independent of
each other. It is easy to see at the outset that those elements by means
of which the wish-fulfilment is expressed are most distinctly
represented. But then analysis also teaches us that from the most vivid
elements of the dream, the greatest number of trains of thought start,
and that the most vivid are at the same time those which are best
determined. No change of sense is involved if we express the latter
empirical thesis in the following form: the greatest intensity is shown
by those elements of the dream for which the most abundant condensation
activity was required. We may therefore expect that this condition and
the others imposed by the wish-fulfilment can be expressed in a single
formula.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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