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The manifest content of a dream is the actual literal content and storyline of the dream. This is usually contrasted with what is referred to as the latent content or hidden meaning of the dream.
For example, imagine that you have a very vivid dream that you fly out your bedroom window and soar around your city. The sights, sounds, and storyline of the dream are the manifest content. A dream interpreter might suggest that your dream reveals a hidden desire to seek freedom from your day-to-day life. This symbolic meaning behind the literal content of the dream is known as thelatent content.
Two Types of Dream Content
According to the psychoanalystSigmund Freud, the manifest content of a dream includes the actual images, thoughts, and content contained within the dream. The manifest content is the elements of the dream that you remember upon awakening.
In his bookThe Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud suggested that the content of dreams is related to wish fulfillment. Freud believed that the manifest content of a dream, or the actual imagery and events of the dream, served to disguise the latent content or the unconscious wishes of the dreamer.
Understanding Your Dreams
Unconscious Thoughts
As you recall, Freud believed that dreams served as a form of wish fulfillment. Since we cannot act on our unconscious desires in our waking life, we can explore these feelings in dreams. However, we tend to do this in hidden, symbolic forms. According to Freud, the mind uses a number of different strategies to censor the latent content of a dream.
For example, imagine a new person just started working at your office. Everyone else seems to like this person, but you still feel a strange sense of ambivalence. One night, you dream that the new co-worker hates you and is going out of their way to sabotage your efforts and work with the goal of getting you fired.
In the dream, they spread untrue gossip about you throughout the office and even starts taking credit for your work. While the dream is obviously stressful, it does not really reflect the actions of this co-worker. The events of the dream represent the manifest content, but there is clearly something else behind this strange and rather frightening dream.
By censoring the unconscious wishes and disguising them in the manifest content, we can explore our hidden thoughts and memories in a way that protects the ego from anxiety.
So you instead project these feelings onto the co-worker, dreaming that she hates you when it is actually the other way around. By doing this, you can explore your unconscious feelings in a way that seems more acceptable. Some other common ways that the mind censors latent content include displacement, symbolization, rationalization, and condensation.
Press Play for Advice On Dream Interpretation
1 SourceVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Zhang W, Guo B.Freud’s Dream Interpretation: A Different Perspective Based on the Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming.Front Psychol.2018;9:1553. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01553Additional ReadingFreud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams.
1 Source
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Zhang W, Guo B.Freud’s Dream Interpretation: A Different Perspective Based on the Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming.Front Psychol.2018;9:1553. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01553Additional ReadingFreud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Zhang W, Guo B.Freud’s Dream Interpretation: A Different Perspective Based on the Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming.Front Psychol.2018;9:1553. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01553
Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams.
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