i.The dream serves a communicative function—directly in terms of introjected objects, and indirectly in relation to the external world. Both clinical data and theoretical considerations are adduced in support of this proposition. Sleep is not a phenomenon of primary but rather of secondary narcissism, at least after early infancy, and the sleeper shares his slumbers with an introjected object.

ii.The language of the dream, as an expression of this fact, may be traced regressively from the spoken word to identifications and the sensorimotor interchanges at the ego boundaries. Archaically, dream imagery serves to regulate the latter through control of the sphincters, which are represented in the censorship.1