In sleep, the ego is weakened and the unconscious mind tries to break through into our consciousness. In order to satisfy these unconscious desires we dream, this is known as wish fulfilment (e.g. being able to eat all the ice cream you want).

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Freud believed that dreams act as wish fulfilment. People often cannot fulfil their deepest desires and so they are dreamt about instead. This becomes a way of realising some of the anxiety around these urges.

 

For example, an individual may be angry at their boss and consequently want to verbally attack them. However, they do not want to be seen to lose control as they made lose their job, and so this urge is repressed. Instead, they may have a dream about arguing with their boss and this then partly fulfils their wish, meaning they have a way of dealing with a potentially difficult situation.

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