Every concept in our conscious mind, in short, has its own psychic associations....

Every concept in our conscious mind, in short, has its own psychic associations. While such associations may vary in intensity {according to relative importance of the concept to our whole personality, or according to the other ideas and even complexes to which it is associated in our unconscious}, they are capable of changing the "normal" character of that concept. It may even become something quite different as it drifts below the level of consciousness.
These subliminal aspects of everything that happens to us may seem to play very little part in our daily lives. But in dream analysis, where the psychologist is dealing with expressions of the unconscious, they are very relevant, for they are the almost invisible roots of our conscious thoughts. That is why commonplace objects or ideas can assume such powerful psychic significance in a dream that we may awake seriously disturbed, in spite of having dreamed of nothing worse than a locked room or a missed train.
The images produced in dreams are much more picturesque and vivid than the concepts and experiences that are their waking counterparts. One of the reasons for this is that, in a dream, such concepts can express their unconscious meaning. In our conscious thoughts, we restrain ourselves within the limits of rational statements-statements that are much less colorful because we have stripped them of most of their psychic associations.