Here we will insist only on the first feature, which is related to the free associations method.

So dreams are interpreted starting from the associations of the dreamer. What are these associations?

Working with his patients, Freud invented the method of free associations in order to explore their unconscious. The same method, with a few minor modifications, also applies to the interpretation of dreams. The modification consists in the fact that the associations are no longer free and spontaneous, but connected to the themes that form the content of the dreams. But even in this case the dreamer has to allow him/herself to be led by his/her associations without deliberately interfering in their course, without selecting or choosing something special.

Let's take an example. Somebody dreamed a trip to the mountains with a lot of sun and blue sky. Suddenly he woke up alone in a hotel room watching a horror movie telling himself: "things cannot go on like this forever".

In order to interpret this dream Freud asks us, first of all, to break it in small pieces, then to make associations for each separate element (theme), one at a time. The first step - break the dream in small pieces:

- the trip to the mountain;

- the sun and the blue sky;

- alone in the hotel room;

- I watch a horror movie;

- I say: "things cannot go on like this forever".

The second step - find free associations for each element (theme), one at a time:

- the trip to the mountain - I like to take trips to the mountain, especially to C. [a mountain holiday resort]. I go there every time I have the chance and I feel wonderful, I live a marvelous experience. Especially at C. I feel relaxed...

- the sun and the blue sky - it is not my favorite weather. Generally speaking the summer sun producing a powerful light makes me feel annoyed and depressed. I also remember a conversation I had yesterday when I suggested somebody that the sun is a symbol for a megalomaniac, psychotic individual, one who thinks himself to be God.

- alone in the hotel room - when I spend my holidays to the mountain or to the seaside, I do not like spending too much time in the hotel room. There was a time when I lived alone in a hotel - it is not such a pleasant memory.

- I watch a horror movie - my wife does not like these movies - but I do. She prefers comedies and in order to please her I agree to watch them. Now I am discovering I do not have the chance to see my favorite movies anymore.

- I say: "things cannot go on like this forever" - I think about the fact that things do not stay the same, friends, life situations, even our passions, everything changes. If you take a distant look at things you see the fluctuation of events.

After finishing the associations, the dreamer also remembers he did not always like going to the mountain, that the mountain became his passion after somebody convinced him. This "somebody" developed a psychosis afterwards. A true case for psychoanalysis.

Of course these associations will augment because other memories that initially are not present will appear, memories that help us extend the covering area of the dream to more complex events, which also include the childhood of the dreamer.