a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

experience of the previous day will always explain the dream to us. The
dream is a sleep-reaction of psychic life upon these experiences of the day.
We shall now consider a few examples so that we may base our further
deductions upon them.
a). A boy of 22 months is to present a basket of cherries as a birthday gift. He
plainly does so very unwillingly, although they promise him that he will get
some of them himself. The next morning he relates as his dream, "Hermann
eat all cherries."
b). A little girl of three and a quarter years makes her first trip across a lake.
At the landing she does not want to leave the boat and cries bitterly. The time
of the trip seems to her to have passed entirely too rapidly. The next morning
she says, "Last night I rode on the lake." We may add the supplementary fact
that this trip lasted longer.
c). A boy of five and a quarter years is taken on an excursion into the
Escherntal near Hallstatt. He had heard that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the
Dachstein, and had shown great interest in this mountain. From his home in
Aussee there was a beautiful view of the Dachstein, and with a telescope one
could discern the Simonyhütte upon it. The child had tried again and again to
see it through the telescope, with what result no one knew. He started on the
excursion in a joyously expectant mood. Whenever a new mountain came in
sight the boy asked, "Is that the Dachstein?" The oftener this question was
answered in the negative, the more moody he became; later he became
entirely silent and would not take part in a small climb to a waterfall. They
thought he was overtired, but the next morning, he said quite happily, "Last
night I dreamed that we were in the Simonyhütte." It was with this
expectation, therefore, that he had taken part in the excursion. The only
detail he gave was one he had heard before, "you had to climb steps for six
hours."
These three dreams will suffice for all the information we desire.
2. We see that children's dreams are not meaningless; they are intelligible,
significant, psychic acts. You will recall what I represented to you as the
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