Interpretation of facts in dream We learn facts in life from books or from experience, and we remember them. If later we ascertain a new fact about the same subject or phenomenon that contradicts the first impression, we can't erase that first fact, but we keep both facts with the ability to distinguish between them clearly, in consciousness.

For example Pluto used to be the 9th planet however is no longer.
But if in a dream one tells someone tha Pluto is in fact the 9th planet, does this mean that there is inconsistency between the id, ego and superego?

Can we link this to slips of the tongue/mind or silly mistakes to which we later feel "oh I still knew it, I did that mistake"
Freud's psychic apparatus is pure theoretical psychology, which isn't cognition's best friend.

It's really hard to think how one could map the 3 construct to cognition (perhaps id is the easiest - primal brain, instinct). But even if you could, suggesting an inconsistency between 3 brain mega-systems to explain dreams is a bit of a stretch (albeit not completely unfounded - consider phantom limbs).

So as far as cognition goes, dreams have a few key characteristics:


Recency - they involve things that you have experienced since you've last slept.
Saliency - they involve things that are of subjective importance.
Randomness - random combinations and often incoherent flow.


If you try to infer anything from dreams, your best shot is that whatever you dreamt of was either recent, salient or random.

I know it may not be exciting like Freud's theories, but it is by far more founded on empirical evidence.