This paper presents clearly and briefly the main principles enunciated by Freud as to the psychology of dreams.

The contents of dreams, instead of being the product of accidental and senseless associations, or founded entirely on somatic sensations during sleep, are actually definite products of mental activity and acces sible to a systematic analysis. The organic sensations are not the cause of the dream but only play a secondary rôle, and merely furnish the material for the psychic experience. The dream has its antecedent chains of associations and its own significance like every complex psychic product or volitional act. The apparently obscure and confused images of the dream are the curtains behind which is the essential idea or latent content of the experience. The dream has, therefore, something in dividual conforming to the psychological disposition of the subject, such disposition being itself the result of the previous psychic life.