steps in this unknown territory. The scheme which we have formulated not
only from a study of dreams is, it is true, already somewhat
complicated, but we cannot find any simpler one that will suffice. We
hold that our psychical apparatus contains two procedures for the
construction of thoughts. The second one has the advantage that its
products find an open path to consciousness, whilst the activity of the
first procedure is unknown to itself, and can only arrive at
consciousness through the second one. At the borderland of these two
procedures, where the first passes over into the second, a censorship
is established which only passes what pleases it, keeping back
everything else. That which is rejected by the censorship is, according
to our definition, in a state of repression. Under certain conditions,
one of which is the sleeping state, the balance of power between the two
procedures is so changed that what is repressed can no longer be kept
back. In the sleeping state this may possibly occur through the
negligence of the censor; what has been hitherto repressed will now
succeed in finding its way to consciousness. But as the censorship is
never absent, but merely off guard, certain alterations must be conceded
so as to placate it. It is a compromise which becomes conscious in this
case--a compromise between what one procedure has in view and the
demands of the other. _Repression, laxity of the censor,
compromise_--this is the foundation for the origin of many another
psychological process, just as it is for the dream. In such compromises
we can observe the processes of condensation, of displacement, the
acceptance of superficial associations, which we have found in the dream
work.

It is not for us to deny the demonic element which has played a part in
constructing our explanation of dream work. The impression left is that
the formation of obscure dreams proceeds as if a person had something