Feminism, Colonialism, now this? Oh My!

After everything we have learned up to this point I am left to wonder why were were given this specific reading. However after what we did this past Tuesday with the Shakesphere the reading makes some sense. Sigmund Freud's "Dream Work" exerpt was difficult to pick though but after looking it over over the break I decided to do the following paragraph:

The first achivement of the dream-work is condensation By that way we understand the fact that the manifest dream has a smaller content than the latent one, and is thus an abbreviated translation of it. Condensation can be on occasion be absent; as a rule it is present, and very often is enormous. It is never changed into the reverse; that is to say, we never find that the manifest dream is greater in extent or content than the latent one. Condensation is brought about (1) by the total omission of certain latent elements (2)by only a fragment of some complexes in the latent dream passing over into the manifest one and(3) By latent elements which have something in common being combined and fused into a single unity in the manifest dream

When asked what this specific paragraph may have to do with the idea of literature and Freud I had to really sit down with this. First I decided to examine the word condensation. Condensation is defined as, when something ie: a thought or something physical is made smaller or summed up. The other definition of condensation I recall based on my on my outside knowledge is what occur es when a room is too hot and the inside walls sweat. However keeping in mind the idea of condensation according to Freud he defines this as "a manifest dream that has smaller content than the latent one" Latent dreams already exist but have not yet been realized.Tying Frueds thinking in with what we did on Tuesday, could this be saying that the fathers visit to Hamlet or Hamlet's mother committing suicide was forshadowed, based on what we learned so far? I think Freud's Ideas concerning literature and the general idea of Dream-works is correct to some extent but not completely. I usually wouldn't agree with his thories but this one actually holds up in the discussion. He also mentions that condensed dreams cannot be changed into the reverse I disagree with this. Not to be entirely off topic here, but generally speaking about dreams, what's to say that just because you have a small idea or dream it cant become something bigger. Yes it is true that bigger dremas can become small over time because of distraction or loss of interest but this doesnt make them any less important. Going back to the idea of condensation, in terms of literature this idea can be compared to the novel and the short story. One is obviously longer than the other so you are going to have more time to say more and develoup more, whereas short stories force you to flush out your ideas and characters early. Freud's Idea of dream-work leads back to this. Condensation and expanding of dreams even if it is done on purpose or unconsciously still means that the person involved has to on some level acknolege what they want or desire eventually.