The interpretation of these words is important for understanding the meaning of in Aristotle. For here, exceptionally, it has been taken to refer to sense-perceptions rather than images.

I quote the Oxford translation of 462a15–24 (by J. I. Beare): ‘From all this, then, the conclusion to be drawn is that the dream is a sort of presentation (), and, more particularly, one which occurs in sleep; since the phantoms just mentioned are not dreams, nor is any other a dream which presents itself when the sense-perceptions are in a state of freedom. Nor is every presentation which occurs in sleep necessarily a dream.