tion is based upon a misunderstanding, upon the failure to substitute the real meaning of the dream for its apparent content. Further objection may be made to Robert's doctrine: If it were really the duty of the dream, by means of a special psychic activity, to rid our memory of the "slag" of the recollections of the day, our sleep would have to be more troubled and employed in a more strained effort than we may suppose it to be from our waking life. For the number of indifferent impressions received during the day, against which we should have to protect our memory, is obviously infinitely large; the night would not be long enough to accomplish the task. It is very much more probable that the forgetting of indifferent impressions takes place without any active interference on the part of our psychic powers.
Still something cautions us against taking leave of Robert's idea without further consideration. We have left unexplained the fact that one of the indifferent day-impressions—one from the previous day indeed—regularly furnished a contribution to the dream-content. Relations between this impression and the real source of the dream do not always exist from the beginning; as we have seen, they are established only subsequently, in the course of the dream-work, as though in order to serve the purpose of the intended displacement. There must, therefore, be some necessity to form connections in this particular direction, of the recent, although indifferent impression; the latter must have special fitness for this purpose because of some property. Otherwise it would be just as easy for the dream thoughts to transfer their accent to some inessential member of their own series of associations.
The following experiences will lead us to an explanation. If a day has brought two or more experiences which are fitted to stimulate a dream, then the dream fuses the mention of both into a single whole; it obeys an impulse to fashion a whole out of them; for instance: One summer afternoon I entered a railroad compartment, in which I met two friends who were unknown to each other. One of them was an influential colleague, the other a member of a distinguished family, whose physician I was; I made the two gentlemen acquainted with each other; but during the long ride I was the go-between
