the process of displacement in the dream-work by resorting to grammar: after all,
this is why a dream seems so “unreal.”Let us now attempt to analyze in detail the way in which metaphor and metonymy
operate in the unconscious and, more precisely, how they generate newsignifica-
tion—and thus indirectly also the combinative laws of grammar that structure
conscious language.
It is initially correct to state that self-consciousness corresponds to the signified
whose continuous metonymic flow can be depicted as one straight diachronic
chain that accompanies the individual subject from the mythical utterance (or
hearing) of his first signified to his death as the definitive loss of self-consciousness.
In parallel, it is correct to maintain that the unconscious is made up of signifiers
that form multiple synchronic chains due to metaphoric substitution. Such a clear-
cut dichotomy between two distinct scenes or topoimust, however, be supple-
mented with a more complex explanation: on its own it would fail to explain how
the unconscious is related to self-consciousness. As we have seen, their actual con-
nection is an empirical fact witnessed by the existence of the formations of the un-
conscious, such as symptoms, jokes, and slips of the tongue. In other words, on a
closer inspection, one should observe how, for Lacan, it is also the case that con-
sciouslanguage itself is composed of both the signified andthe signifier: this is
precisely the discovery of the structural linguists. As I have already pointed out,
Lacan fully accepts this common cornerstone of their otherwise often divergent
theories. Structural linguistics teaches us that, in conscious language, any given
signified (e.g. “thesis”) is related to a signifier (e.g. 'θi:sIs) thanks to the
(metaphoric/“vertical”) notion of linguistic value. Conversely and more impor-
tantly, according to Lacan, the unconscious can be considered as a “potential” sig-
nified. It is the unconscious that is ultimately responsible for the process of
signification tout court.But the signified produced by signification can only be con-
scious. As we have just seen, in the unconscious there is no “privileged” chain of
signifiers, no “straight” diachronic chain. The necessary link between the un-
conscious and self-consciousness (as different topoi)—that is, the actualization of
unconscious meaning (sens) in conscious signification (signification)—is provided by
the formations of the unconscious. Unconscious meaning is therefore nothing but
signification in potentia.^68 The formations of the unconscious both actualize uncon-
scious meaning (in consciousness) and, at the same time, their linguistic modus
operandi—metonymic combination and metaphoric substitution—shows how
conscious signifiers (to simplify, the sounds that we utter or hear) have wider
repercussions in the unconscious. The formations of the unconscious are newthe unconscious structured like a language