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According to Freud, dreams have two types of content, each of which contains different meanings to the dreams. One of these type of content is latent content, which is the underlying, more hidden, but true meaning of a dream (as opposed to the manifest content).

Freud believed that the latent content was somehow censored by the subconscious which was a way to protect us from the real meanings of the dreams. This was necessary because the dream content may be difficult for people to deal with, so people disguise the real meaning. However, Freud believed that when people were in conflict, if he could uncover or get to the latent content, then he could identify the person's problem and resolve their conflict.