The image, the vision of a sunset on a summer's evening in the mountains, is a first object that gives me access to the second, which can only be apprehended through the first. A gap dissipates. A link is forged between two worlds that seemed separate or opposed. A unity emerges. A simple idea lies at the heart of the symbolic process: there is this object in front of me, present, visible, manifest, known; and everything happens as if it refers to another object, absent, invisible, latent, unknown. One object can hide another... In the same way, we're more attentive to what makes sense of nighttime dreams. And we've become more curious about the meanings of symbols, about what's hidden and revealed in pictorial creations, archaic myths, ritual traditions... Symbols have always been present in all cultures. It is active everywhere in our lives. Throughout our days and nights, in our language, our gestures, our dreams, whether we realize it or not, we all use symbols: dreamers, mystics, scientists...