ABSTRACT
The dream-work is the psychical process which transforms the latent dream content into the manifest content. The modes of transformation are the condensation of the material, the displacement of its cathexes, and its modification into pictorial form and dramatized situations. The formation of the dream-wish through the agency of the dream-work necessitates the reversal of progressive excitations so that they pursue a retrogressive course through the system unconscious to the perceptual system which then forces itself upon consciousness. This topographical regression also involves a return to the primitive level of hallucinatory wish-fulfillment. The obscuration of the repressed material, which otherwise would not be admissible to consciousness, thus takes place through the dream-work. Freud also dealt with the question as to the timing of the various aspects of the dream-work in the formation of dreams.
