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The authors attempt to show that the mental operations involved in dream production can be simulated by a computational program. Attention was focused on that part of the oneiric work which can be described as the production of a “masked idiosyncratic metaphor.” In the dream that served as the basis for our work (the dream of “the uncle with the yellow beard”) Freud indicated that the latent proposition “Mr. R is a simpleton” was transformed by the oneiric work into the overt content proposition “Mr. R has a yellow beard and an oblong face.” This result was obtained by means of “free associations” concerning Freud's father: He pronounced the phrase “Uncle Josef is a simpleton.”
We propose that the masking oneiric activity has substituted the proposition “Mister R has a yellow beard and an oblong face” for the proposition “Mister R is a simpleton like uncle Josef.” This
Research financed by CNR grant 82.02931.88 (international project).
Dr. Battacchi is Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy.
Dr. Marano is Contract Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Padua, Italy.
proposition is false for Mr. R and true for uncle Josef in the real world situation. In our view the basis for the simulation of this type of oneiric activity must be a submodule for metaphor production operating upon a “knowledge base” incorporating a corpus of “idiosyncratic” information derived from the dreamer's inner world.