Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for BeginnersFreud, Sigmund
Science
Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners
Freud, Sigmund
Dreams; Psychoanalysis
A boy of five and a half years was not at all pleased with his party
during a walk in the Dachstein region. Whenever a new peak came into
sight he asked if that were the Dachstein, and, finally, refused to
accompany the party to the waterfall. His behavior was ascribed to
fatigue; but a better explanation was forthcoming when the next morning
he told his dream: _he had ascended the Dachstein_. Obviously he
expected the ascent of the Dachstein to be the object of the excursion,
and was vexed by not getting a glimpse of the mountain. The dream gave
him what the day had withheld. The dream of a girl of six was similar;
her father had cut short the walk before reaching the promised objective
on account of the lateness of the hour. On the way back she noticed a
signpost giving the name of another place for excursions; her father
promised to take her there also some other day. She greeted her father
next day with the news that she had dreamt that _her father had been
with her to both places_.
What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy
wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply
and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.
The following child-dream, not quite understandable at first sight, is
nothing else than a wish realized. On account of poliomyelitis a girl,
not quite four years of age, was brought from the country into town, and
remained over night with a childless aunt in a big--for her, naturally,
huge--bed. The next morning she stated that she had dreamt that _the
bed was much too small for her, so that she could find no place in it_.
To explain this dream as a wish is easy when we remember that to be
"big" is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The bigness of the
bed reminded Miss Little-Would-be-Big only too forcibly of her
smallness. This nasty situation became righted in her dream, and she
grew so big that the bed now became too small for her.
Even when children's dreams are complicated and polished, their
comprehension as a realization of desire is fairly evident. A boy of
eight dreamt that he was being driven with Achilles in a war-chariot,
guided by Diomedes. The day before he was assiduously reading about
great heroes. It is easy to show that he took these heroes as his
models, and regretted that he was not living in those days.
From this short collection a further characteristic of the dreams of
children is manifest--_their connection with the life of the day_. The
desires which are realized in these dreams are left over from the day
or, as a rule, the day previous, and the feeling has become intently
emphasized and fixed during the day thoughts. Accidental and indifferent
matters, or what must appear so to the child, find no acceptance in the
contents of the dream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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