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We shall be taking every experience into account if we say that a dream is invariably an attempt to get rid of a disturbance of sleep by means of a wish-fulfillment, so that the dream is a guardian of sleep. (pg. 46; Freud, 1938/1949)

Does it seem reasonable to say that all dreams are wish fulfillment? Certainly some dreams clearly fulfill our wishes and desires, at least through fantasy. Such dreams do not require any analysis. Other dreams, however, seem to make no sense at all. The id and the unconscious mind are not logical at all, contradictory ideas easily coexist side by side, and Freud even referred to the unconscious mind as the “Realm of the Illogical” (pg. 43; Freud 1938/1949). As these latent impulses are transformed into manifest content, it can be very difficult to separate them and make sense of a given dream. The dream-work itself, the very process of distorting or transforming the latent content into the manifest content in order to disguise the meaning of our dreams, involves a variety of factors, including: condensation , displacement , the use of symbolic representation , and secondary elaboration (Freud, 1900/1995).

According to Freud, condensation refers to the tendency to create unity out of a variety of dream elements that we would keep separate if we were awake. So, a single element of the manifest content of a dream might represent a number of latent thoughts. Thus, the analysis of a dream could be much longer than the dream itself. Displacement is not unrelated to condensation according to Freud, and refers to the switching of libidinal energy from one object to another, such that the important object of a dream might seem inconsequential, and vice versa. In other words, the apparent focus of the dream is probably not the actual focus of the dream. This does not simply suggest that we might substitute one person for another in a dream, it also happens that we might represent various elements through symbols. Once again, these symbols are employed by dreams to disguise the representation of latent content. As important as Freud considered symbols to be in a dream, he did not support the idea that dream dictionaries can identify universal meanings of dream symbols. It is only through the associations relevant to a specific dreamer that we can make sense of a dream’s symbolism (Freud, 1938/1949). Finally, as the dream is actually presented to the conscious mind, the ego ensures that the material is acceptable by performing what Freud termed the secondary elaboration. As with any perception, the ego fills in gaps and connections, but also misunderstands the true nature of the dream. As a result the secondary elaboration can offer little more than a smooth façade for the dream. Also, the secondary elaboration may only be partial, or even absent (Freud, 1933/1965). All of these processes together form the manifest content of the dream, resulting in something that might be difficult to understand, but which is within the reach of a determined psychoanalyst.

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Source:  OpenStax, Personality theory in a cultural context. OpenStax CNX. Nov 04, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11901/1.1
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