Secondary Revision

Secondary Revision

Secondary revision is Sigmund Freud‘s expression for what he regarded as the final stage of dream production. Freud’s basic understanding of dreams was that they provide an arena within which our often frustrated desires and urges can find expression in fantasy. In most dreams, however, the true meaning of the urge being expressed is disguised from our conscious mind so that the emotions associated with a strong desire do not disturb our sleep. Freud referred to the transforming and disguising process as the dreamwork and identified five mechanisms by which the unconscious mind accomplishes this transformation: displacement, condensation, symbolization, projection, and secondary revision. After undergoing one or more of the other operations, the secondary processes of the ego reorganize the otherwise bizarre components of a dream so that it has a comprehensible surface meaning—a superficial significance that it would otherwise lack.