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Later on we shall learn to recognize the momentous nature of this hypothesis regarding the unruliness of repressed impulses. For the present let us follow out the situation which occurs in dream-formation.

The possibility mentioned above - that some of the preconscious thoughts of the day may also prove resistant and retain a part of their cathexis - must be recognized as a second breach in narcissism. At bottom, the two cases may be identical. The resistance of the day’s residues may originate in a link with unconscious impulses which is already in existence during waking life; or the process may be somewhat less simple, and the day’s residues which have not been wholly emptied of cathexis may establish a connection with the repressed material only after the state of sleep has set in, thanks to the easing of communication between the Pcs. and the Ucs. In both cases there follows the same decisive step in dream-formation: the preconscious dream-wish is formed, which gives expression to the unconscious impulse in the material of the preconscious day’s residues. This dream-wish must be sharply distinguished from the day’s residues; it need not have existed in waking life and it may already display the irrational character possessed by everything that is unconscious when we translate it into the conscious. Again, the dream-wish must not be confused with the wishful impulses which may have been present, though they certainly need not necessarily be present, amongst the preconscious (latent) dream-thoughts. If, however, there were any such preconscious wishes, the dream-wish associates itself with them, as a most effective reinforcement of them.