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In 1909, Freud introduced his well-known metaphor, ‘royal road’, to the second edition of The Interpretation of Dreams (SE, vol. V, pp. 608, 608 n. 1). He was describing the opportunities for gathering information about unconscious mechanisms of the mind. His method of studying and interpreting dreams was felt to be a powerful instrument of discovery: ‘The interpretation of Dreams is the via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind (italicized in the original German edition and in the translation by James Strachey).
Via regia, royal road, is a striking metaphor and Freud's use of Latin instead of German is noteworthy. However, Freud's use of Latin here has been lost to the readers of the Standard Edition because of James Strachey's translation of via regia as ‘royal road’, as Riccardo Steiner adroitly pointed out (1988, p. 416 n. 2).
In the same year, 1909, not I think by chance, Freud used this metaphor in the third of five lectures that he gave on his famous visit to introduce psychoanalysis to the United States of America, at Clark University:
It seemed to me almost indecent in a country devoted to practical aims to make my appearance as a ‘dream interpreter’, before you would possibly know the importance that can attach to that antiquated and derided art. The interpretation of dreams is in fact the via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious. (Freud 1910, p. 33)
Via regia is again translated as ‘royal road’ in the Standard Edition; the original via regia is restored in Rosenzweig's translation, 1994 [1992], p. 419.