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A "[[joke]]" is an incongruous or tendentious [[verbal ]] [[message]], which, by discharging its [[psychic ]] [[energy]], gives the listener [[pleasure]]. Characteristically a joke is not fabricated (manufactured); rather it emerges as a spontaneous, involuntary [[idea ]] (Einfall) and briefly returns the person to an [[infantile ]] mode of cognition. Wit is, according to [[Freud]], "the most [[social ]] of activities, designed to provide pleasure through the simple and disinterested [[activity ]] of the psychic [[apparatus]]" (1905c).

Freud devoted an important [[work]], Der [[Witz ]] und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Jokes and Their Relation to the [[Unconscious]], SE, 8), to jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1905c). Published five years after The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams ]] (1900a), this essay confirmed the usefulness of the principal [[processes ]] it described, such as the transformation of [[thoughts ]] into [[images ]] ([[metaphor]]), [[condensation]], and [[displacement]]. Like The [[Psychopathology ]] of Everyday [[Life ]] (1901b), the book marks the extension of [[psychoanalysis ]] beyond the field of psychopathology, without using the method of [[analysis]], but yet offering [[another ]] area where it could be rediscovered. This interest in [[word ]] play is found in some of Freud's later work (the contradictory [[meanings ]] of [[primitive ]] [[words]], dreams in folklore, [[language]], and [[schizophrenia]]), though not in respect to work on [[literature ]] or the [[development ]] of [[civilization]].

The [[concept ]] analysis of wit is important because it allows a description of psychic processes and thus delineates the development of pleasure from a [[topographical]], [[economic]], and [[dynamic ]] perspective. [[Thought ]] processes in The [[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology ]] (1950c [1895]) are here approached from a different angle, thus going beyond that found in The [[Interpretation of Dreams]]. Every successful joke indicates a victory against the [[inhibition ]] that critical [[reason ]] imposes on thought in the normal waking psychic [[state]]. Unlike dreams, there is no [[need ]] for secondary elaboration or disguise to escape [[censorship]]. However, the joke must occur in a [[situation ]] when the play of words or nonsense presents itself in a [[form ]] "that is both admissible [a joke] and ingenious [wit] by virtue of the multiple meanings of words and the infinite variety of [[negative ]] relations" (1905c).

Technically, the joke is related to the [[dream ]] but it must take into account its audience and the listener's ability to correct the distortions (displacements, condensations) through which [[sense ]] is communicated through non-sense. The goals of dreams and jokes should not be confused. The first tends to express a [[desire ]] by eliminating [[unpleasure]], while the second is an extension of the [[game ]] that seeks to obtain some additional pleasure.

Considered from the economic viewpoint, the joke is also similar to the dream (condensation) through its conciseness and, consequently, its psychic [[economy]]. This conciseness is not the result of [[conscious ]] effort but the consequence of unconscious processes' effect on [[preconscious ]] thought, which is then recovered in [[consciousness]]. This development consists in letting certain elements fall by the wayside and overdetermining [[others ]] that will remain, thereby obtaining much greater impact.

Freud's work on jokes has largely been misunderstood, although it introduces new perspectives on [[aggression]], the thought [[process]], the production of pleasure, and infantile [[mental ]] activity (see [[Three ]] Essays on the [[Theory ]] of [[Sexuality]], 1905d). It wasn't until Donald [[Winnicott ]] that [[theoretical ]] work on [[children]]'s jokes and their connection to [[creativity ]] was taken up again, a prospect foreseen by Freud in these [[terms]]: "In doing so they come across pleasurable effects, which arise from a [[repetition ]] of what is similar, a rediscovery of what is familiar, similarity of sound, etc., and which are to be explained as unsuspected economies in [[psychical ]] expenditure" (1905c). [[Games ]] with words and thoughts serve as the point of departure not only for the pleasure of jokes but the "pleasure of [[thinking]]" (Mijolla-Mellor, 1990), which includes critical reason in its scope but escapes its inhibitory effect through the creative process that is set in motion.

See also: [[Children's play]]; Condensation; [[Formations ]] of the unconscious; [[Humor]]; [[Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious]]; Pleasure/unpleasure [[principle]]; Repetition; Sense/nonsense; [[Signifier]]/signified; Sudden involuntary idea; Work (as a [[psychoanalytic ]] [[notion]])[[Bibliography]]

Further [[Reading]]