content is obscure or intricate, I should hit upon dream thoughts which
call for secrecy. If, however, I continue the analysis for myself,
without regard to those others, for whom, indeed, so personal an event
as my dream cannot matter, I arrive finally at ideas which surprise me,
which I have not known to be mine, which not only appear _foreign_ to
me, but which are _unpleasant_, and which I would like to oppose
vehemently, whilst the chain of ideas running through the analysis
intrudes upon me inexorably. I can only take these circumstances into
account by admitting that these thoughts are actually part of my
psychical life, possessing a certain psychical intensity or energy.
However, by virtue of a particular psychological condition, the
_thoughts could not become conscious to me_. I call this particular
condition "_Repression_." It is therefore impossible for me not to
recognize some casual relationship between the obscurity of the dream
content and this state of repression--this _incapacity of
consciousness_. Whence I conclude that the cause of the obscurity is
_the desire to conceal these thoughts_. Thus I arrive at the conception
of the _dream distortion_ as the deed of the dream work, and of
_displacement_ serving to disguise this object.

I will test this in my own dream, and ask myself, What is the thought
which, quite innocuous in its distorted form, provokes my liveliest
opposition in its real form? I remember that the free drive reminded me
of the last expensive drive with a member of my family, the
interpretation of the dream being: I should for once like to experience
affection for which I should not have to pay, and that shortly before
the dream I had to make a heavy disbursement for this very person. In
this connection, I cannot get away from the thought _that I regret this
disbursement_. It is only when I acknowledge this feeling that there is
any sense in my wishing in the dream for an affection that should entail