6. That dreams are brought about by a wish and that the content of the dream expresses this wish is one main characteristic of dreams. The other equally constant feature is that the dream does not merely give expression to a thought, but represents this wish as fulfilled, in the form of an hallucinatory experience. “I should like to sail on the lake,” runs the wish which gives rise to the dream; the content of the dream itself is: “I am sailing on the lake.” So that even in these simple dreams belonging to childhood there is still a difference between the latent and the manifest dream, and still a distortion of the latent dream-thought, _in the translation of the thought into an experience_. In interpreting a dream, we must first of all undo this process of alteration. If this is to be regarded as one of the most universal characteristics of all dreams, we then know how to translate the dream-fragment I quoted before: “I see my brother digging” does not mean “my brother _is_ retrenching,” but “I wish my brother would retrench, he _is to_ retrench.” Of the two universal characteristics here mentioned the second is obviously more likely to be acknowledged without opposition than the first. It is only by extensive investigations that we can make sure that what produces the dream must always be a _wish_ and cannot sometimes be a preoccupation, a purpose, or reproach; but the other characteristic remains unaffected, namely, that the dream does not merely reproduce this stimulus, but, by a kind of living it through, removes it, sets it aside, relieves it. 7. In connection with these characteristics of dreams we may take up again our comparison between dreams and errors. In the latter we distinguished between a disturbing tendency and one which is disturbed, the error being a compromise between the two. Dreams fall into the same category; the disturbed tendency can only, of course, be the tendency to sleep, while the disturbing tendency resolves itself into the mental stimulus which we may call the wish (clamouring for gratification), since at present we know of no other mental stimulus disturbing sleep. Here again the dream is the result of a compromise; we sleep, and yet we experience the satisfaction of a wish; we gratify a wish and at the same time continue to sleep. Each achieves part-success and part-failure.