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Freud hinted at the possibility that dreams convey messages. Spotnitz and Meadow (1976) have expanded the idea that the manifest dream content carries a message from the preverbal unconscious to the conscious while the associations carry the message from a later period.
One could ask why the message is conveyed in an unintelligible form. There are good reasons. It is as if the id would say: “Take me or leave me. I come in disguise, by dream, so that you (the ego) can decide whether you want to decode my message or push it back into oblivion.” The outcome depends on whether the dreamer needs to keep his neurosis and its secondary gain or is ready to grow out of it. The message from the unconscious may be deciphered in cooperation with the dream analyst if doing so will resolve a resistance.
If a withdrawn person dreams: “I saw a group of hilarious people and felt bitter envy,” the question it raises in the analyst's mind is, “Why not join them?”
A man in middle age felt rejected everywhere but denied his