The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter.
Often, one’s true feelings are unable to find a voice or a place in their daily material lives and hence, according to Freud, they get expressed through dreams. A person may have too many pressures in life (work, family, society, etc.) for them to have time to mull over their thoughts and feelings which get repressed and may take the form of dreams.
The dream-thoughts and the dream-content lie before us like two versions of the same content in two different languages, or rather, the dream-content looks to us like a translation of the dream-thoughts into another mode of expression, and we are supposed to get to know its signs and laws of grammatical construction by comparing the original and the translation
Dreams show people their dream thoughts but in a pictorial representation. Dreams are heavy on symbolism and each thought is replaced by an image. Hence, it can be difficult to interpret as it does not directly say what the dream thought is. The only way to understand it is to decipher the dream thought behind the image. For example, an apple appearing in one’s dream could indicate hunger or depending on the context could be referring to the poisoned apple and hence referring to a sin. A person can interpret the dream content based on their own life.
Dream-displacement and dream-condensation are the two foremen in charge of the dream-work, and we may put the shaping of our dreams down mainly to their activity.
Dreams are shaped in two distinct ways. One is condensation in which a number of elements or themes or thoughts from one’s dream are combined into one object or representation to make the dream more compact. The other way is Displacement. This is one of the methods by which the repressed thoughts return in hidden ways. It replaces the main element of a dream by a well-hidden reference to it and serves the purpose of shifting the emphasis from an important thought or element to a less important one. According to Freud, these are the main ways in which dreams are shaped.
What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.
Dreams usually show one’s most deep and innermost desires that they are unable to express. Wishes regarding such as sexuality or desire which are considered taboo are expressed through dreams without having to fear others’ judgement. In short, dreams are a form of wish fulfillment.
