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Bartels sees Freud's method of dream interpretation as essentially hermeneutic: the awakened dreamer, motivated by his interest in restoring the unitary meaning of his life and in preserving his identity, seeks to integrate the alien dream experience into his self-understanding. The "meaning" of the dream, constituted in the dream report, is realized in the extension of the dreamer's self-understanding and in the re-establishment of his identity, which are brought about and validated in the interpretive dialogue. The truth of the interpretation lies in its biographically efficacious application. Yet Freud inquires not merely about the meaning of the dream, but also about its function; he adds a functional psychological explanation to the interpretation. The critical departure from the direct understanding of dreams and waking life, the skeptical devaluation of the manifest dream content in favor of the interpreted latent dream thought, and the emphasis on the resistance to interpretation, rather than the wish to interpret—all of these appear as inconsistencies within the hermeneutic program and as compromises with (nonpsychological) scientific conceptions.