f real forces in the psychic life?
Should we take lightly the ethical significance of the suppressed wishes
which, as they now create dreams, may some day create other things?

I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not thought
further upon this side of the dream problem. I believe, however, that at
all events the Roman Emperor was in the wrong who ordered one of his
subjects executed because the latter dreamt that he had killed the
Emperor. He should first have endeavored to discover the significance of
the dream; most probably it was not what it seemed to be. And even if a
dream of different content had the significance of this offense against
majesty, it would still have been in place to remember the words of
Plato, that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which
the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that
it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any reality is to be
attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not
prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be denied to all
transition--and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the
unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we
should still do well to remember that more than one single form of
existence must be ascribed to the psychic reality. Action and the
conscious expression of thought mostly suffice for the practical need
of judging a man's character. Action, above all, merits to be placed in
the first rank; for many of the impulses penetrating consciousness are
neutralized by real forces of the psychic life before they are converted
into action; indeed, the reason why they frequently do not encounter any
psychic obstacle on their way is because the unconscious is certain of
their meeting with resistances later. In any case it is instructive to
become familiar with the much raked-up soil from which our virtues
proudly arise. For the complication of human character moving
dynamically in all directions very rarely accommodates itself to
adjustment through a simple alternative, as our antiquated moral
philosophy would have it.

And how about the value of the dream for a knowledge of the future?
That, of course, we cannot consider. One feels inclined to substitute:
"for a knowledge of the past." For the dream originates from the past in
every sense. To be sure the ancient belief that the dream reveals the
future is not entirely devoid of truth. By