Freud's Framework of Dreams The purpose of dreams is to sleep. Dreams also represent wish fulfillment. A dream is the result of a mediation or compromise between these two opposing forces. Freud defines the manifest content of dreams as that which an individual is dreaming in a particular dream, its primarily apparent subject matter. In contradistinction to manifest dreams Freud differentiates latent dream content, the elements composing the true purpose or meaning of a dream. Through dream analysis one can unravel the manifest dream content in order to arrive at the dream's meaning, which is embodied in t