the dream content discloses nothing but some indifferent
impression as instigating the dream, analysis ever indicates some
significant event, which has been replaced by something indifferent
with which it has entered into abundant associations. Where the dream is
concerned with uninteresting and unimportant conceptions, analysis
reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with
the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual. _It is only
the action of displacement if what is indifferent obtains recognition in
the dream content instead of those impressions which are really the
stimulus, or instead of the things of real interest_. In answering the
question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the
dream, in the daily troubles, we must say, in terms of the insight given
us by replacing the manifest latent dream content: _The dream does never
trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our concern
during the day, and trivialities which do not trouble us during the day
have no power to pursue us whilst asleep_.

What provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed? The
really unimportant event, that a friend invited me to a _free ride in
his cab_. The table d'hote scene in the dream contains an allusion to
this indifferent motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi
parallel with the table d'hote. But I can indicate the important event
which has as its substitute the trivial one. A few days before I had
disbursed a large sum of money for a member of my family who is very
dear to me. Small wonder, says the dream thought, if this person is
grateful to me for this--this love is not cost-free. But love that shall
cost nothing is one of the prime thoughts of the dream. The fact that
shortly before this I had had several _drives_ with the relative in
question puts the one drive with my friend in a position to recall the
connection with the other person. The indifferent impression which, by
such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another
condition which is not true of the real source of the dream--the
impression must be a recent one, everything arising from the day of the
dream.

I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the
consideration of a remarkable process in the formation of dreams in
which condensation and displacement work together towards one end. In
condensation we have already considered the case where two conc