In the first part of this essay Winibert Segers discusses Derrida’s opinion on translation as described in ‘Freud et la scène de l’écriture’, a text on the metaphors of the psyche. The first approach is simplistic: dream interpretation is a secret code that can be deciphered by those that hold the phallic key. The dreamer, however, may draw from a collective well, but organizes the dream images in an idiosyncratic way. The next obstacle is the poetic character of the dream: the letter, the body has to be respected. Generally, the translator is expected to transfer the signified, and largely ignore the signifier. Derrida questions the despotism of the signified. Next to these ‘topical’ approaches, translation can also be viewed from a more dynamic energetic perspective. The spaces of the unconscious, preconscious and conscious are inseparable. Transfer wipes out the original text, the source is lost for ever. In the second part, Segers muses on the (un)translatability of letters, referring to pictures by Antonin Artaud, accompanying Derrida’s Forcener le subjectile.