The Interpretation of Dreams. Sigmund Freud
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be regaled with foot-hills and a waterfall, he was disappointed and became discontented. The dream compensated him for this. I tried to learn some details of the dream; they were scanty. "Steps must be climbed for six hours," as he had heard.
On this excursion wishes, destined to be satisfied only in dreams, had arisen also in the mind of the girl of eight and a half years. We had taken with us to Halstatt the twelve-year-old boy of our neighbour—an accomplished cavalier, who, it seems to me, already enjoyed the full sympathy of the little woman. The next morning, then, she related the following dream: " Just think, I dreamt that Emil was one of us, that he said papa and mamma to you, and slept at our house in the big room like our boys. Then mamma came into the room and threw a large handful of chocolate bars under our beds." The brothers of the girl, who evidently had not inherited a familiarity with dream interpretation, declared just like the authors: "That dream is nonsense." The girl defended at least a part of the dream, and it is worth while, from the point of view of the theory of neuroses, to know which part: "That about Emil belonging to us is nonsense, but that about the bars of chocolate is not." It was just this latter part that was obscure to me. For this mamma furnished me the explanation. On the way home from the railway station the children had stopped in front of a slot machine, and had desired exactly such chocolate bars wrapped in paper with a metallic lustre, as the machine, according to their experience, had for sale. But the mother had rightly thought that the day had brought enough wish-fulfilment, and had left this wish to be satisfied in dreams. This little scene had escaped me. I at once understood that portion of the dream which had been condemned by my daughter. I had myself heard the well-behaved guest enjoining the children to wait until papa or mamma had come up. For the little one the dream made a lasting adoption based on this temporary relation of the boy to us. Her tender nature was as yet unacquainted with any form of being together except those mentioned in the dream, which are taken from her brothers. Why the chocolate bars were thrown under the bed could not, of course, be explained without questioning the child.
From a friend I have learnt of a dream very similar to that of my boy. It concerned an eight-year-old girl. The father had undertaken a walk to Dornbach with the children, intending to visit the Rohrerhütte, but turned back because it had grown too late, and promised the children to make up for their disappointment some other time. On the way back, they passed a sign which showed the way to the Hameau. The children now asked to be taken to that place also, but had to be content, for the same reason, with a postponement to another day. The next morning, the eight-year-old girl came to the father, satisfied, saying: "Papa, I dreamt last night that you were with us at the Rohrerhütte and on the Hameau." Her impatience had thus in the dream anticipated the fulfilment of the promise made by her father.
Another dream, which the picturesque beauty of the Aussee inspired in my daughter, at that time three and a quarter years old, is equally straightforward. The little one had crossed the lake for the first time, and the trip had passed too quickly for her. She did not want to leave the boat at the landing, and cried bitterly. The next morning she told us: "Last night I was sailing on the lake." Let us hope that the duration of this dream ride was more satisfactory to her.
My eldest boy, at that time eight years of age, was already dreaming of the realisation of his fancies. He had been riding in a chariot with Achilles, with Diomed as charioteer. He had, of course, on the previous day shown a lively interest in the Myths of Greece, which had been given to his elder sister.
If it be granted that the talking of children in sleep likewise belongs to the category of dreaming, I may report the following as one of the most recent dreams in my collection. My youngest girl, at that time nineteen months old, had vomited one morning, and had therefore been kept without food throughout the day. During the night which followed upon this day of hunger, she was heard to call excitedly in her sleep: "Anna Feud, strawberry, huckleberry, omelette, pap!" She used her name in this way in order to express her idea of property; the menu must have included about everything which would seem to her a desirable meal; the fact that berries appeared in it twice was a demonstration against the domestic sanitary regulations, and was based on the circumstance, by no means overlooked by her, that the nurse ascribed her indisposition to an over-plentiful consumption of strawberries; she thus in the dream took revenge for this opinion which was distasteful to her.2
If we call childhood happy because it does not yet know sexual desire, we must not forget how abundant a source of disappointment and self-denial, and thus of dream stimulation, the other of the great life-impulses may become for it.3 Here is a second example showing this. My nephew of twenty-two months had been given the task of congratulating me upon my birthday, and of handing me, as a present, a little basket of cherries, which at that time of the year were not yet in season. It seemed difficult for him, for he repeated again and again: "Cherries in it," and could not be induced to let the little basket go out of his hands. But he knew how to secure his compensation. He had, until now, been in the habit of telling his mother every morning that he had dreamt of the "white soldier," an officer of the guard in a white cloak, whom he had once admired on the street. On the day after the birthday, he awakened joyfully with the information which could have had its origin only in a dream: " He(r)man eat up all the cherries!"4
What animals dream of I do not know. A proverb for which I am indebted to one of my readers claims to know, for it raises the question: "What does the goose dream of?" the answer being: "Of maize!" The whole theory that the dream is the fulfilment of a wish is contained in these sentences.5
We now perceive that we should have reached our theory of the hidden meaning of the dream by the shortest road if we had merely consulted colloquial usage. The wisdom of proverbs, it is true, sometimes speaks contemptuously enough of the dream—it apparently tries to justify science in expressing the opinion that "Dreams are mere bubbles;" but still for colloquial usage the dream is the gracious fulfiller of wishes. "I should never have fancied that in the wildest dream," exclaims one who finds his expectations surpassed in reality.
1. The facts about dreams of thirst were known also to Weygandt,75 who expresses himself about them (p. 11) as follows: "It is just the sensation of thirst which is most accurately registered of all; it always causes a representation of thirst quenching. The manner in which the dream pictures the act of thirst quenching is manifold, and is especially apt to be formed according to a recent reminiscence. Here also a universal phenomenon is that disappointment in the slight efficacy of the supposed refreshments sets in immediately after the idea that thirst has been quenched." But he overlooks the fact that the reaction of the dream to the stimulus is universal. If other persons who are troubled by thirst at night awake without dreaming beforehand, this does not constitute an objection to my experiment, but characterises those others as persons who sleep poorly.
2. The dream afterwards accomplished the same purpose in the case of the grandmother, who is older than the child by about seventy years, as it did in the case of the granddaughter. After she had been forced to go hungry for several days on account of the restlessness of her floating kidney, she dreamed, apparently with a transference into the happy time of her flowering maidenhood, that she had been "asked out," invited as a guest for both the important meals, and each time had been served with the most delicious morsels.
3. A more searching investigation into the psychic life of the child teaches us, to be sure, that sexual motive powers in infantile forms, which have been too long overlooked, play a sufficiently great part in the psychic activity of the child. This raises some doubt as to the happiness of the child, as imagined later by the adults. Cf. the author's "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory," translated by A. A. Brill, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Publishing Company.
4. It should not be left unmentioned that children sometimes show complex and more obscure dreams, while, on the other hand, adults will often under certain conditions show dreams of an infantile character. How rich in unsuspected material the dreams of children of from four to five years might be is shown by examples in my "Analyse