Subliminal Cues: Psychoanalysis and Entropy in Pynchon's Novels (Thomas Pynchon) (Critical Essay‪)‬

I In one of Robert Gernhardt's humorous sketches, a man calls on Sigmund Freud to consult him and tells him about a strange dream. In this dream, his id expressed libidinal urges which the superego tried to repress and the ego finally sublimated. Freud claims that the interpretation of the dream is quite simple: the man's id was repressed by the superego when it expressed libidinal urges which the ego finally sublimated. The patient rejects this interpretation, declaring that it is not an interpretation but the dream itself. Freud gets upset and sends away the patient, who is thenceforth tormented by a terrible inferiority complex (140-41).