ABSTRACT
Most people would attest that dreams are not merely nocturnal reruns of waking events. Connections between dreams and waking are typically veiled and indirect. Fragments of familiar and unfamiliar events coalesce to create images which are at once intimate and obtuse. Although the preceding studies are suggestive rather than definitive, dreams do seem to echo of things past; they commonly draw from a repertoire of both recent and remote personal memories. Contemporary theories of memory describe the processes by which memories are elaborated on and reorganized rather than merely retrieved or recalled. Condensation is a process by which memory elements are compared and matched. Displacement also may be given an articulation that reveals the process of memory comparison during dreaming. The hypotheses about dream formation and dream function have certain implications for the effects of reflection on dreams during waking, and they help clarify dreams' potential contribution to self-knowledge.
