It is necessary to conclude, from the material obtained in
psychoanalysis, that these dreams repeat impressions from childhood—that
is, that they refer to the movement games which have such extraordinary
attractions for the child. What uncle has never made a child fly by
running across the room with it with arms outstretched, or has never
played falling with it by rocking it on his knee and then suddenly
stretching out his leg, or by lifting it up high and then pretending to
withdraw support. At this the children shout with joy, and demand more
untiringly, especially if there is a little fright and dizziness
attached to it; in after years they create a repetition of this in the
dream, but in the dream they omit the hands which have held them, so
that they now freely float and fall. The fondness of all small children
for games like rocking and see-sawing is well known; and if they see
gymnastic tricks at the circus their recollection of this rocking is
refreshed. With some boys the hysterical attack consists simply in the
reproduction of such tricks, which they accomplish with great skill. Not
infrequently sexual sensations are excited by these movement games,
harmless as they are in themselves.[CJ] To express the idea by a word
which is current among us, and which covers all of these matters: It is
the wild playing (“Hetzen”) of childhood which dreams about flying,
falling, vertigo, and the like repeat, and the voluptuous feelings of
which have now been turned into fear. But as every mother knows, the
wild playing of children has often enough culminated in quarrelling and
tears.
I therefore have good reason for rejecting the explanation that the
condition of our dermal sensations during sleep, the sensations caused
by the movements of the lungs, and the like, give rise to dreams of
flying and falling. I see that these very sensations have been
reproduced from the memory with which the dream is concerned—that they
are, therefore, a part of the dream content and not of the dream
sources.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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