ABSTRACT
Representability refers to one of the aspects of the dream-work. It serves the function of modifying thoughts and impulses in such a manner that they are capable of being represented as part of the manifest dream, at the same time serving the interests of the censorship and condensation. Freud regards considerations of representability as the third important factor of the dream-work responsible for the transformation and distortion of the dream-thoughts into the manifest dream-content. The psychical material which dreams make use of is, for the purposes of representability, reduced to the most succinct and unified expression possible. Pictorial representation in dreams is intimately connected with the regression to perception which the state of sleep necessitates. In the process of topographical regression which takes place in the course of the formation of dreams the fabric of the latent dream-thoughts is resolved into its raw material. The latent dream-thoughts are thus transformed into a collection of sensory images and visual scenes.
