Ekstein suggests that playing and dreaming are intimately connected. Just as one may consider a child's play to be his or her major form of dreaming, one may consider an adult's dream his or her major form of playing with thoughts. Both have as their aim the resolution of inner conflict. The dreams of the child, which seem to reflect developmental lines quite accurately, also resemble fairy tales in their symbolic form and in their functions as wish-fulfillments, as ways to resolve inner conflicts and developmental dilemmas, and as ways of performing developmental tasks. Thus, analysis of children's dreams leads equally to understanding of the child's unconscious mental life and of his developmental reality.