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Reviewing the different, more recent dream theories, the author notices a current trend to understand the manifest dream content as an important indicator of the patient's specific state of mind. The structure of the manifest dream can be seen as a microcosm in which the dreamer's current excitatory processes are experienced within specific regulatory patterns. The author analyzes the material following certain cognitive criteria.
Departing from research findings on children's visual attention and dreams, Moser differentiates between a “where-system” (spatial orientation) and a “what-system” (features, attributes, or components of the objects). Both systems are activated in dreams as well as in perceptions. The “where-system” might be expressed in different forms: “distancing” of the dreamer, including forgetting and not telling the dream; emotional distance, e.g., by talking in the dream or by giving the dreamer the place of a spectator instead of an active participant, as well as the well-known metaphor of the dream as theater on a stage, or Lewin's theory of the dream screen onto which the dream is projected. The “what” of the dream always requires a location, “where” it takes place. Thus, the dream is part of a shaped inner space, linking it to Winnicott's potential space.
As a form of “basic knowledge” with which to understand dreams, the author develops a model representing the essential