So long and thanks for all the fish.

Naturally, if we ask someone why he had such and such a dream, what are the secret thoughts expressed in it, he cannot tell us. He will say that he had eaten too much in the evening, that he was lying on his back, that he had seen or heard this or that the day before — in short, all the things we can read in the numerous scientific books about dreams. As for the dream-thought, he does not and he cannot know it for, according to Freud, the thought is repressed because it is too disagreeable. So, if anyone solemnly assures us that he has never found in his own dreams any of the things Freud talks about, we can hardly suppress a smile, he has been straining to see things it is impossible to see directly. The dream disguises the repressed complex to prevent it from being recognized. By changing Faust into the King of Thule, Gretchen renders the situation inoffensive. Freud calls this mechanism, which prevents the repressed thought from showing itself clearly, the censor. The censor is nothing but the resistance which also prevents us, in the daytime, from following a line of reasoning right to the end. The censor will not allow the thought to pass until it is so disguised that the dreamer is unable to recognize it. If we try to acquaint the dreamer with the thought behind his dream, he will always oppose to us the same resistance that he opposes to his repressed complex.