ABSTRACT
The term 'latent dream content' refers to all parts of a dream which are not manifest but are only discovered through the work of interpretation, including dynamically unconscious wishes, preconscious material, and sensory or somatic stimuli. Freud uses the terms interchangeably this is a purely terminological inconsistency and does not reflect any confusion on his part with regard to the conception of the various latent elements which are to be discovered by the interpretation of the manifest dream. A psycho-analyst can characterize as dreams only the products of the dream-work: in spite of the fact that the latent dream-thoughts are only arrived at from the interpretation of the dream, he cannot reckon them as part of the dream, but only as part of preconscious reflection. Such interpretative work leads to current preoccupations of waking life which, although they may be descriptively unconscious, are dynamically preconscious.
