In dreams, ideas or images may represent the nodal point at which several chains of associations or concepts cross each other. Thus, we can define it as a condensation So, learn more about this subject, in this post we made for you.

When does it occur?

Condensation occurs when dislocations merge or condense. Freud said that one aspect of manifest content is the representation of a series of latent elements (and vice versa). Through a process called condensation.

Freud proposed that condensation in dreams caused several themes or concepts to be combined into one symbol. A greater amount of displaced concepts reduce and condense into one symbol.

Condensation and displacement for Freud

It is one of the essential modes of operation of the unconscious processes (opposite and complementary to displacement). It is a single representation that itself represents several associative chains. In addition, the intersection is found.

From the economic point of view, it is characterized by energies that, together with these different chains, add up to it. The intervention of condensation is seen in the symptom and often in the various formations of the unconscious.

In Dreams

In dreams, it is where condensation is most evident (it is one of the main mechanisms of "dream work"). The story that is shown is much smaller, compared to the latent content. It is actually a kind of abbreviated translation.

But it should not be considered just a summary. That is, if each manifest is determined by several latent meanings, the reverse is also the case. Each latent meaning is found in several elements.

Freud and condensation

Condensation was first said by Freud (1900). It can be produced in several ways, the element (person) being preserved only by being present in different thoughts of the dream.

Several elements can come together in a disharmonic unity. Or, the condensation of several images can make the characteristics that do not coincide disappear, maintaining or reinforcing the common characteristics.

The mechanism

In "The joke and its relation to the unconscious" Freud speaks of condensation as a compound formation, and meaning arises from the non-meaning.

The famous example of "famillionario" (formed by "family member" and "millionaire"). How is it? You can see in it an effect of censorship and a way to escape from it. The condensation makes it difficult to read the manifest narrative.

But the dream functions by condensation not only to avoid censorship, for it is a characteristic of unconscious thought.

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In fact, like displacement, condensation is a process that is based on the economic hypothesis. At the crossroads of representation, energies have shifted along the different associative chains and are added together.

If some images (especially in dreams) acquire great vividness, this occurs to the extent that, being the product of condensation, they are strongly characterized.

For Lacan

Lacan thinks that the unconscious structured as a language. For him the metaphor would refer to what Freud called condensation is metonymy to displacement.

After all, it is one of the essential modes of operation of the unconscious processes (opposite and complementary to displacement). It is a single representation that itself represents several associative chains. The intersection being found.

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Defense mechanisms: what they are and their 2 most important types

Defense mechanisms are procedures that unconsciously contain the psychological balance. They face the anguish or anxiety associated with the conscious expression of a pulsional representation (sexual or aggressive). And not only that, but also to the transgression of the moral code or to a real danger from outside.

Condensation

It is a mechanism by which certain things from the unconscious (latent content) unite into a single image or object in sleep. It is also the concentration of several meanings into a single symbol.

The process makes the narrative of the manifest content much shorter than the description of the latent content. It is a word that arises from psychoanalytic explanations of dream creation.

Projection

It is the tendency of people to give their own thoughts, motives, or feelings toward another person. The most common projections can be aggressive behavior. They cause a feeling of guilt and socially unacceptable sexual thoughts or fantasies.

For example, a girl hates her roommate, but the superego tells her that this is unacceptable. She can solve the problem by thinking that it is the other person who hates her.

Denial

It is the mechanism by which a person blocks out events from outside so that they don't become part of his or her thinking, and therefore treats obvious aspects of reality as if they don't exist.

For example, a smoker who denies that smoking can cause serious health problems. By denying these harmful effects of tobacco, you can better tolerate your habit by naturalizing it.

Regression

It is any regression to situations or habits from before. In other words, it is a return to childhood behavior patterns. For example, a teenager who can't spend a weekend at a friend's house, and therefore reacts with tantrums and yells in front of his parents, as if he were a child.

Reactive Training

The impulses are not only repressed, but also controlled by exaggerating a different behavior. That is, having a painful thought is interrupted and is replaced by a nicer one. For example, a person who is very angry with a friend, but tells him that everything is all right to avoid a fight.

Insulation

Ultimately, it is a mechanism by which memories divorce themselves from feelings, as a way to better bear and tolerate facts and reality.

An idea for the self is separate from the emotions it produces, so it stays in consciousness weakly. For example, reporting a traumatic episode with total normality. Without attention, as if talking about the weather or any other normal subject.

Final considerations

As we have seen, in dreams this occurs. They are something present in the latent dream are conjugated and united into one thing. They can be fragments of images, phrases, or pieces of ideas.

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After all, these experiences will always be united in some way by common elements. An example of this occurs when we dream of a person who has characteristics of different people. Also, sometimes he appears as a specific person and suddenly becomes someone else.

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