An interobject is a dream phenomenon of an object intermediate or in between two other known objects.

Mark J. Blechner coined the term in his study, The Dream Frontier. Interobjects differ from typical dream condensations in which two objects are fused into one. Instead, the condensation is incomplete. Some examples from the literature on dreams include "a piece of hardware, something like the lock of a door or perhaps a pair of paint-frozen hinges"^[1] and "something between a record player and a balance scale."^[2] Interobjects are new creations derived from partially fused blends of other objects.

Interobjects, like disjunctive cognitions, which would seem bizarre if encountered in waking life, are accepted by most people as commonplace in dreams. They have implications for both the theory of dreaming and categorization. Interobjects show the dreaming mind grouping items together whose connection may not be apparent to the waking mind. "Something between an aqueduct or a swimming pool"^[3] reveals the category of "large man-made architectural objects that contain water." "Something between a cellphone and a baby"^[4] shows a category combining a relatively new piece of technology and a live infant: both make noise when you don't expect it, are held close to your body, and can give you a feeling of connectedness.

Scientists do not know if interobjects occur only in dreams or if they may occur as unconscious categorizations during waking life. Freud^[5] called interobjects "intermediate and composite structures." He thought they were inferior mental constructions and were scrupulously avoided in waking life.

Adults tend to regularize interobjects when recounting dreams in waking life. Children are better able to sustain interobjects in their original form. One boy described to his father a dream in which the former was in trouble at sea when a seal rescued his group: "They thought it was just a seal, but [...] it was a whole boat." His father, less comfortable with ambiguity, responded that it was a boat. "So, it was a big, safe boat." The boy, holding fast to the integrity of the dream, responded that it was both. This child had not yet learned to regularize his perceptions to fit how the world works. Adults may learn to reject interobjects in waking life but retain them in their dreams.^[6]

Interobjects may have an elementary function in human thought. By transgressing the normal mental categories described by Eleanor Rosch, interobjects may be the origin of new ideas that would be harder to come by using only fully formed, secondary process formations. They may be one example of "Oneiric Darwinism"^[7] in which new thought mutations are created during dream life and rejected or retained in waking life, depending on their usefulness.