ABSTRACT
A comprehensive definition of dreams, as conceived by Freud, should cover the total phenomenon of which the latent dream content, the dream-work and the manifest dream are the several, component parts. Freud's conceptualization of dreams must be seen in contrast to earlier and current medical theories about dreams. He referred to dreams as transient psychoses 'A Mythological Parallel to a Visual Obsession', neurotic symptoms in themselves. To concern one with dreams is not merely unpractical and uncalled-for, it is positively disgraceful. It brings with it the odium of being unscientific and rouses the suspicion of a personal inclination to mysticism. Dreams are things which get rid of psychical stimuli disturbing the sleep, by the method of hallucinatory satisfaction. It has a double function; on the one hand it is ego-syntonic, since, by getting rid of the stimuli which are interfering with sleep, it serves the wish to sleep.
