hing of
the sort; we can only ask ourself wonderingly: "What brought that into
my head?" To the third group those dreams belong which are void of both
meaning and intelligibility; they are _incoherent, complicated, and
meaningless_. The overwhelming number of our dreams partake of this
character, and this has given rise to the contemptuous attitude towards
dreams and the medical theory of their limited psychical activity. It is
especially in the longer and more complicated dream-plots that signs of
incoherence are seldom missing.

The contrast between manifest and latent dream-content is clearly only
of value for the dreams of the second and more especially for those of
the third class. Here are problems which are only solved when the
manifest dream is replaced by its latent content; it was an example of
this kind, a complicated and unintelligible dream, that we subjected to
analysis. Against our expectation we, however, struck upon reasons which
prevented a complete cognizance of the latent dream thought. On the
repetition of this same experience we were forced to the supposition
that there is an _intimate bond, with laws of its own, between the
unintelligible and complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties
attending communication of the thoughts connected with the dream_.
Before investigating the nature of this bond, it will be advantageous to
turn our attention to the more readily intelligible dreams of the first
class where, the manifest and latent content being identical, the dream
work seems to be omitted.

The investigation of these dreams is also advisable from another
standpoint. The dreams of _children_ are of this nature; they have a
meaning, and are not bizarre. This, by the way, is a further objection
to reducing dreams to a dissociation of cerebral activity in sleep, for
why should such a lowering of psychical functions belong to the nature
of sleep in adults, but not in children? We are, however, fully
justified in expecting that the explanation of psychical processes in
children, essentially simplified as they may be, should serve as an
indispensable preparation towards the psychology of the adult.

I shall therefore cite some examples of dreams which I have gathered
from children. A girl of nineteen months was made to go without food
for a day because she had been sick in the morning, and, according to
nurse, had made herself ill through eating strawberries. During the
night, after her day o