which we analyzed somewhat thoroughly, did give us
occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis
brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table, and that I
did not like it; in the dream itself _exactly the opposite_ occurs, for
the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention. But
can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than
that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dream has it?
The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have never had anything for
nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream:
"You have always had such beautiful eyes." Some portion of the
opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be
therefore derived from the realization of a wish.

Another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have
in common is still more noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the
number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dream, if
written down, with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis, and of which
but a trace can be refound in the dream itself. There can be no doubt
that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or
_condensation_. It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the
extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis,
the more deeply you are impressed by it. There will be found no factor
in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or
more directions, no scene which has not been pieced together out of two
or more impressions and events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind
of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions;
at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the
bathers as if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one, made up
out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two
pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream. The two
pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the
Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an
Italian master. The little incident was that I once witnessed a lady,
who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men's hour, being helped
out of the water by the swimming-master. The scene in the dream which
was selected for analysis led to a whole group of reminiscences, each
one of which had contributed to the dream c