“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”Sigmund Freud · The Interpretation of Dreams · 1899
Dreams are symbolic expressions of unconscious desires and fears.
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg: only a small part shows above the surface as conscious thought, while a much bigger part stays hidden below. He believed that, at night, that hidden part finds a way to speak, disguised in strange symbols the dreamer must decode the next morning.
Why it matters The idea of a partly hidden mind remains influential, even though many of Freud's methods are disputed today.