Condensation

In psychology, a condensation (from the German Verdichtung) is when a single idea (an image, memory, or thought) appropriates the whole charge of libido of at least two other ideas. The charges are displaced from the originating ideas to the receiving one, where they merge and "condense" together.

In the 1950s the concept was used by linguist Roman Jakobson in his influential lecture on metaphor and metonymy. Jakobson's lecture led Lacan to say that the unconscious is structured like a language.