the interpretation of dreams, since by the aid of a knowledge of this
symbolism it is possible to understand the meaning of the elements of a
dream, or parts of a dream, occasionally even the whole dream itself,
without having to question the dreamer as to his own ideas. We thus come
near to the popular idea of an interpretation of dreams, and, on the
other hand, possess again the technique of the ancients, among whom the
interpretation of dreams was identical with their explanation through
symbolism.

Though the study of dream symbolism is far removed from finality, we now
possess a series of general statements and of particular observations
which are quite certain. There are symbols which practically always have
the same meaning: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) always mean the
parents; room, a woman[2], and so on. The sexes are represented by a
great variety of symbols, many of which would be at first quite
incomprehensible had not the clews to the meaning been often obtained
through other channels.

There are symbols of universal circulation, found in all dreamers, of
one range of speech and culture; there are others of the narrowest
individual significance which an individual has built up out of his own
material. In the first class those can be differentiated whose claim can
be at once recognized by the replacement of sexual things in common
speech (those, for instance, arising from agriculture, as reproduction,
seed) from others whose sexual references appear to reach back to the
earliest times and to the obscurest depths of our image-building. The
power of building symbols in both these special forms of symbols has not
died out. Recently discovered things, like the airship, are at once
brought into universal use as sex symbols.