"The nature of the relation between dream-content [Trauminhalt] and dream-thoughts [Traumgedanken] thus becomes visible. Not only are the elements of a dream determined by the dream-thoughts many times over, but the individual dream-thoughts are represented [vertreten] in the dream by several elements. Associative paths lead from one element of the dream to several dream-thoughts, and from one dream-thought to several elements of the dream. Thus a dream is not constructed by each individual dream-thought, or group of dream-thoughts, finding (in abbreviated form) separate representation [Vertretung] in the content of the dream—in the kind of way in which an electorate chooses parliamentary representatives [Volksvertreter]; a dream is constructed, rather, by the whole mass of dream-thoughts being submitted to a sort of manipulative process in which those elements which have the most numerous and strongest supports acquire the right of entry into the dream-content—in a manner analogous to election by scrutin de liste." (Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams. SE IV. 284)
「夢の内容と夢の思考のあいだの関係の性質はこうして可視的になる。夢の思考によって夢の要素が何度も決定されるだけではない。個々の夢の思考は、夢のなかでは、いくつもの要素によって表象されるのである。連想の道は、夢のひとつの要素からいくつもの夢の思考に通じており、ひとつの夢の思考は夢のいくつもの要素に通じている。したがって、夢は、個々の夢の思考ないしは一連の夢の思考によって形成されるわけではないし、夢の内容のにおいて（省略的なやりかたで）個別に表象されるわけでもない。選挙民が議員を選ぶようなやりかたではないのだ。むしろ、夢の思想の一切合切がある種の処理プロセスに送られ、そこで、最多数の強力な支援を受けた要素が夢の内容に参入する権利を獲得するというようなかたちで、夢は形成される。比例代表選挙に似たやりかたである。」（フロイト『夢解釈』スタンダード・エディション4巻284頁）
Three implications of "Überdeterminierung": 1) in the process of the dream-work [Traumarbeit], dream elements are transformed not once but multiple times (temporal-diachronic), 2) we're not likely to find one to one connection in the dream-content, for a dream image is composed of not single but multiple elements that are being associated with each other and then tangled up by the censorial dream-work (spatial-synchronic), and 3) this process is akin not to aesthetic/theatrical production, but to politics--how one person can speak for multiple groups and how diverse sets of people can select one single person as their common spokesperson (as Spivak points out in, I think, the chapter on history in A Critique of Political Reason, the German word for "represent" here is neither "vorstellen" nor "darstellen," but "vertreten.") (one-multiple, one-collective, representatives-voters, leader-mass)
Two more notes:1) what is criticized here is, it seems to me, the theory of essence and causality as is found in Hegel. There is no one single essence out of which springs a whole dream. Things are related each other and their entanglements are not simply hierarchical and vertical but, if I may say so, rhizomic and transversal. 2) We cannot predict what kinds of dreams we're going to have, for every dream is unique and arrives at us as an inevitable event, even though we can explicate its mechanism of production in an abstract manner. This situation might be comparable to a sport game, where we know very well how a game is played by what kinds of players and could even make some guess about what's going on in a game, but its ultimate end as well as its minute details are always unpredictable and unforeseeable. The interpretation of dreams is in essence a retrospective practice, an analysis of what has already happened. It enables us to make meaningful our past from the present point of view, but can't be projected toward the future, or what to come uncertainly but wishfully.
