Sigmund Freud proposed that dreams are the disguised expressions of unconscious desires. According to his theory, dreams provide a platform for wish fulfillment, allowing individuals to satisfy their repressed and unconscious desires in a safe environment. He believed that dreams functioned through the latent and manifest content, where the manifest content consists of the actual images and events that occur in the dream, and the latent content represents the hidden and symbolic meanings underlying those images. Freud also introduced the idea of dream analysis, a method to uncover the underlying unconscious desires and conflicts through the interpretation of dream symbols and associations. Additionally, he argued that dreams were influenced by childhood experiences and the Oedipus complex, suggesting that dreams often revolve around unconscious sexual and aggressive impulses. Lastly, Freud proposed that dreams possess a censoring mechanism that distorts and disguises the true desires, which allows the individual to still experience satisfaction while adhering to the restrictions of society and personal morality.
