Latent Content

Freud stated that the manifest content was ‘meagre’ compared with the ‘richness and variety’ of latent content. If one succeeds in touching the feelings and memories usually connected with a dream image, this becomes apparent because of the depth of insight and experience that arise. Freud felt that the unconscious mind actively suppresses what can be revealed from the latent content in order to protect the individual from primitive feelings that are particularly difficult to cope with. See Freud

 Jung saw things very differently, he felt dream symbols were not as an attempt to veil or hide inner content, but an attempt to elucidate and express it. He saw dreams as a way of transformation where what was formless, non verbal and unconscious moves towards form and becoming known. In this way dreams ‘show us the unvarnished natural truth.’ This becomes understandable when we realise that dream arise from a preverbal level of our being, and attempt to express to our largely verbal conscious self. To manage this it uses images and drama which has links via associations with our self aware personality. See Jung; How it Flows