“No one sleeps in this room without the dream of a common language.”

Dreams in the Common Language

Laurel Ruhlen

To hear Freud tell it, our souls go into hiding during daylight hours only to resurface during the time that we lie in bed, unconscious. In the confusing thoughts and images that come to the surface during R.E.M. sleep, our most heavily censored desires take the shape of innocuous everyday people and objects. The unconscious, then, is not only a master of disguise, but is also a remarkably adept and concise narrator. As anyone who has ever tried to relate a dream understands, even the simplest element serves as a nexus for several different meanings. Lacan takes Freud’s general framework