ABSTRACT
Latent dream-thoughts are the term used by Freud to describe preconscious thoughts which the dream makes use of as material for its construction. The latent dream-thoughts as such do not form part of the manifest dream but are only part of preconscious reflection. Freud made it clear that the 'latent dream-thoughts' must be distinguished from the 'manifest content of the dream'. In contrast to the manifest content the latent dream-thoughts themselves have no pictorial character; they acquire it through the activity of the dream work, along 'the path that leads from thoughts to perceptual images, or, from the region of thought-structures to that of sensory perceptions. The interpretations of the latent dream-thoughts first reveal the preconscious dream-wish which resulted from the cathexis of preconscious thoughts or wishes by an unconscious wish. The analysis of a dream only gives the content of the latent dream-thoughts, not however, an immediate indication of whether it is based on real or imaginary events.
