Sigmund Freud - The Collected Works of Sigmund Freud

It is no more difficult to discover the fulfilment of wishes in several dreams which I have collected from healthy persons. A friend who knew my theory of dreams and had imparted it to his wife, said to me one day: "My wife asked me to tell you that she dreamt yesterday that she was having her menses. You will know what that means." Of course I know: if the young wife dreams that she is having her menses, the menses have stopped. I can understand that she would have liked to enjoy her freedom for a time longer before the discomforts of motherhood began. It was a clever way of giving notice of her first pregnancy. Another friend writes that his wife had recently dreamt that she noticed milk stains on the bosom of her waist. This is also an indication of pregnancy, but this time not of the first one; the young mother wishes to have more nourishment for the second child than she had for the first.

A young woman, who for weeks had been cut off from company because she was nursing a child that was suffering from an infectious disease, dreams, after its safe termination, of a company of people in which A. Daudet, Bourget, M. Prevost, and others are present, all of whom are very pleasant to her and entertain her admirably. The different authors in the dream also have the features which their pictures give them. M. Prevost, with whose picture she is not familiar, looks like—the disinfecting man who on the previous day had cleaned the sick rooms and had entered them as the first visitor after a long period. Apparently the dream might be perfectly translated thus: "It is about time now for something more entertaining than this eternal nursing."

Perhaps this selection will suffice to prove that often and under the most complex conditions dreams are found which can be understood only as fulfilments of wishes, and which present their contents without concealment. In most cases these are short and simple dreams, which stand in pleasant contrast to the confused and teeming dream compositions which have mainly attracted the attention of the authors. But it will pay to spend some time upon these simple dreams. The most simple dreams of all, I suppose, are to be expected in the case of children, whose psychic activities are certainly less complicated than those of adults. The psychology of children, in my opinion, is to be called upon for services similar to those which a study of the anatomy and development of the lower animals renders to the investigation of the structure of the highest classes of animals. Until now only a few conscious efforts have been made to take advantage of the psychology of children for such a purpose.

The dreams of little children are simple fulfilments of wishes, and as compared, therefore, with the dreams of adults, are not at all interesting. They present no problem to be solved, but are naturally invaluable as affording proof that the dream in its essence signifies the fulfilment of a wish. I have been able to collect several examples of such dreams from the material furnished by my own children.

For two dreams, one of my daughters, at that time eight and a half years old, the other of a boy five and a quarter years of age, I am indebted to an excursion to the beautiful Hallstatt in the summer of 1896. I must make the preliminary statement that during this summer we were living on a hill near Aussee, from which, when the weather was good, we enjoyed a splendid view of the Dachstein from the roof of our house. The Simony Hut could easily be recognised with a telescope. The little ones often tried to see it through the telescope—I do not know with what success. Before the excursion I had told the children that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein. They looked forward to the day with great joy. From Hallstatt we entered the valley of Eschern, which highly pleased the children with its varying aspects. One of them, however, the boy of five, gradually became discontented. As often as a mountain came in view, he would ask: "Is that the Dachstein?" whereupon I would have to answer: "No, only a foot-hill." After this question had been repeated several times, he became altogether silent; and he was quite unwilling to come along on the flight of steps to the waterfall. I thought he was tired out. But the next morning, he approached me radiant with joy, and said: "Last night I dreamt that we were at Simony Hut." I understood him now; he had expected, as I was speaking of the Dachstein, that on the excursion to Hallstatt, he would ascend the mountain and would come face to face with the hut, about which there had been so much discussion at the telescope. When he learned that he was expected to 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.