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The author has developed a new model of dream formation by connecting two fields of current interest: 1) He believes that sleep-dream research leads us to conclude that the dream must have a vital function in adaptation and survival which is not adequately explained by current analytic theory. 2) In studying the mind as an information-processing system (reading backwards from computer research attempts to duplicate the human mind), the author concludes that information processing must represent an important and constant task of the psyche, consuming much psychic time and energy. It is precisely in the ever-present dream-sleep cycle that this important adaptive function is performed, he believes.
Thus, it is in the dream itself (or in dream formation) that past and present experiences are matched, sifted and stored in appropriate places in the “Memory Tree.” From this it follows that, according to the author, the role of wish fulfillment as central to dream formation must be discarded in favor of the need to create an organized long-term memory structure.
Palombo, himself an analyst of the Washington School, finds a place for the familiar clinical discoveries made via the dream and its usual place in analytic procedure. This is explained by the fact that the dream has defensive as well as adaptive elements. The defensive elements are introduced by the censorship, which impedes the flow of information through the projective apparatus. He suggests, in fact, that dream construction can become a battleground between adaptive and defensive mechanisms. Thus, he sees condensation as an adaptive function, serving the purpose of matching past and present experiences for purposes of information processing and memory storage, while displacement is seen as a product of the defensive need to impede and distort information processing.
As the dream or at least its interpretation enters the awareness of the dreamer, it can become itself part of the information processing procedure and