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INTRODUCTION: THE CRITICAL METHOD 9 
fictional than any of the others. I suspect that we are to assume a single
dreamer, since the same obsessions inform all the themes narrated by the
different voices. The different speaking voices may therefore represent different
personae of the dreamer relating different versions of the same event. For
example, since a single dreamer can be a father, a son, and a brother all
at once, he can play out an Oedipal drama in his dream, in which he takes
the parts of Laius, Oedipus, and Creon all at once. In this way he can express
many conflicting feelings simultaneously. I speculate that it makes no difference
whether one supposes a single long dream, with constant repetition of the
same theme, or a group of serial dreams, each dealing with the same theme.
It seems plausible to suppose that the dreamer is male, since the major conflicts
appear to afflict male figures. But sex, like everything else, is mutable
in dreams. The question "Who is the dreamer?" is a question properly addressed
not to the reader but to the dreamer himself, who discovers in the dream
that he is by no means who he thinks he is.