Sublimation literally means to change state without passing through another state. The best example of this is how the ice on your windshield in the morning becomes vapor without becoming water. In psychology we use that word to represent the way that individuals will take a desire and modify it so that it can exist in a socially acceptable way. Before we look at this in greater detail, I will give you a brief primer on Fruedian psychology.

Frued divided the psyche into the id, ego, and super ego. The id is the place that defines what you want in the rawist form. The id never considers anything else besides itself, it only cares about the things it craves. Fortunately for humankind, few humans live based on their id alone, instead they consult their superego and their notions of morality and reality. Most humans act in ways that are at least somewhat considerate of other individuals, that try to act within the limits of the social environment that they exist in. Any society has exceptions to people living within it's reality, but most societies tend to label such people negatively, calling them psychopaths, criminals, or deviants. The ego tends to preform an essential function in keeping people within the society they live in.

There are many things we would like to do, but we never actually do. We are limited by our social location, morality, social control, and a number of other factors. Frued once noted that there are many responses for such a conflict, the most promising of them is what he termed sublimation. Sublimation is the process of taking a desire and modifying it to be socially acceptable and compatible with your environment. This offers a way to acknowledge your desires and see how they fit with you as an individual.

If we don't deny at least some of our desires and wants, we will quickly end up becoming in conflict with greater society. For example, you like to drive fast, but driving 80 MPH in downtown Albany will inevitably lead to an accident and disrupt the urban environment. So you have to deny yourself the ability to speed through cities, repressing or suppressing that desire. Doing this inevitably leads to some kind of conflict between your desire and what you believe is right.

Living without denial of desire is a path towards greater health and a better self. To live a life of sublimation is to live a life where you are yourself, and not a product of society. When we decide to sublimate our desires, we get a better understanding of ourselves. Instead of repressing, you act more free and keep with your conscience and the law. You are living a life of greater pleasure and you are a happier indiivudal.

We see sublimation all the time in society, and in many cases it has proven helpful to many people. Some of our most brave fireman, who rush into burning buildings to save people, do there job because they like fire. Instead of setting buildings on fire, they choose to help people escape fire and injury, and they help meet their own desires. It seems in this case, sublimation is a win-win policy.

Sublimation might take other forms. You might not like a certain group such as African Americans, so you move to a town without such people around. Promulgating racism might not be a desirable thing, but at least if you can find a way to avoid a situation, where your beliefs would come into conflict. You aren't denying your racism, instead you are finding a way that your racism can exist in a world that it is otherwise incompatible with it.

Another example would be the gun culture and militias. As an urbanite, you can't collect lots of firearms, without scaring or upseting others. But if you choose to live in a cult or other group far away from other people, you can keep your desire without being incompatible with others. Or you can change your love for guns into a love of hunting or other activities.

Or if you like to drive really fast, you could become a race car driver. Certainly those who are race car drivers have a need for speed. Another possibility is to get a field car and race around your backyard. Or just get a sports car and drive 'hard' on rural roads away from cops, accelerating hard and taking the curves quickly—but not so fast that you end up getting in an accident or getting a ticket for speeding or reckless driving.

Sublimation offers some promise for allowing the individual to exist as he wants to be, without compromising himself and his own personality. It is a policy of pleasure, in which in most cases everybody wins. By subliming a desire you make it so people can agree with you, and you feel as though your doing what you truly enjoy doing.