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But before taking leave of infantile dreams with their undisguised wish-fulfilments, I must not omit to mention one principal feature of dreams, which has long been evident and which emerges particularly clearly precisely in this group. Every one of these dreams can be replaced by an optative clause: ‘Oh, if only the trip on the lake had lasted longer!’ - ‘If only I were already washed and dressed!’ - ‘If only I could have kept the cherries instead of giving them to Uncle!’ But dreams give us more than such optative clauses. They show us the wish as already fulfilled; they represent its fulfilment as real and present; and the material employed in dream-representation consists principally, though not exclusively, of situations and of sensory images, mostly of a visual character. Thus, even in this infantile group, a species of transformation, which deserves to be described as dream-work, is not completely absent: a thought expressed in the optative has been replaced by a representation in the present tense.