A father, whose dream when interpreted shows that he wished for the death of his eldest and favourite child, is in the same way obliged to recall that there was a time when this wish was not unknown to him. The man, whose marriage had proved a disappointment, often thought when the child was still an infant that if the little creature who meant nothing to him were to die he would again be free and would make better use of his freedom. A large number of similar impulses of hate are to be traced to a similar source; they are recollections of something belonging to the past, something which was once in consciousness and played its part in mental life. From this you will be inclined to draw the conclusion that such dreams and such wishes would not occur in cases where there have been no changes of this sort in the relations between two persons, that is to say, where the relation has been of the same character from the beginning. I am prepared to grant you this conclusion, only I must warn you that you have to consider, not the literal meaning of the dream, but what it signifies on interpretation. It may be that the manifest dream of the death of some beloved person was only using this as a terrible mask, whilst really meaning something totally different, or it is possible that the beloved person is an illusory substitute for someone else. This situation will, however, raise in you another and much more serious question. You will say: “Even though this death-wish did at one time actually exist and this is confirmed by recollection, that is still no true explanation; for the desire has long since been overcome and surely at the present time can exist in the unconscious merely as a recollection, of no affective value, and not as a powerful exciting agent. For this later assumption we have no evidence. Why is the wish recollected at all in dreams?” This is a question which you are really justified in asking; the attempt to answer it would take us far afield and would oblige us to define our position with regard to one of the most important points in the theory of dreams. But I must keep within the limits of our discussion and must forbear to follow up this question; so you must be reconciled to leaving it for the present. Let us content ourselves with the actual evidence that this wish, long since subdued, can be proved to have given rise to the dream, and let us continue our enquiry whether other evil wishes also can be traced in the same way to the past.