Concept
Condensation
Several ideas or images fused into a single element.
- Broader concept
- Dream-work
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 3
- Related
- Metaphor
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1900 In Die Traumdeutung Freud names condensation (Verdichtung) as the first operation of the dream-work: the manifest dream is brief and meagre beside the wealth of latent thoughts it compresses, so that each of its elements is overdetermined, standing for several dream-thoughts at once.
developed by
- Sigmund Freud 1905 Applies condensation in a clinical dream analysis: in the Dora case he treats the jewel-case of her first dream as a product of condensation and displacement and a compromise between opposed currents.
reworked by
- Jacques Lacan 1957 Reads condensation as the superimposition of signifiers in which metaphor has its field, and displacement as metonymy (‘L’instance de la lettre dans l’inconscient’, 1957). In Seminar XI (1964) he restates condensation as a signifying operation with the effect of metaphor and refers back to that article.