The Interpretation of Dreams

looked forward to the outing with the greatest delight. From
Hallstatt we entered the valley of Eschern, which enchanted the
children with its constantly changing scenery. One of them, however,
the boy of five, gradually became discontented. As often as a mountain
came into view, he would ask: "Is that the Dachstein?" whereupon I had
to reply: "No, only a foot-hill." After this question had been
repeated several times he fell quite silent, and did not wish to
accompany us up the steps leading to the waterfall. I thought he was
tired. But the next morning he came to me, perfectly happy, and
said: "Last night I dreamt that we went to the Simony hut." I
understood him now; he had expected, when I spoke of the Dachstein,
that on our excursion to Hallstatt he would climb the mountain, and
would see at close quarters the hut which had been so often
mentioned when the telescope was used. When he learned that he was
expected to content himself with foot-hills and a waterfall he was
disappointed, and became discontented. But the dream compensated him
for all this. I tried to learn some details of the dream; they were
scanty. "You go up steps for six hours," as he had been told.
On this excursion the girl of eight and a half had likewise
cherished wishes which had to be satisfied by a dream. We had taken
with us to Hallstatt our neighbour's twelve-year-old boy; quite a
polished little gentleman, who, it seemed to me, had already won the
little woman's sympathies. Next morning she related the following
dream: "Just think, I dreamt that Emil was one of the family, that
he said 'papa' and 'mamma' to you, and slept at our house, in the
big room, like one of the boys. Then mamma came into the room and
threw a handful of big bars of chocolate, wrapped in blue and green
paper, under our beds." The girl's brothers, who evidently had not
inherited an understanding of dream-interpretation, declared, just
as the writers we have quoted would have done: "That dream is
nonsense." The girl defended at least one part of the dream, and
from the standpoint of the theory of the neuroses it is interesting to
learn which part it was that she defended: "That Emil was one of the
family was nonsense, but that about the bars of chocolate wasn't."
It was just this latter part that was obscure to me, until my wife
furnished the explanation. On the way home from the railway-station
the children had stopped in front of a slot-machine, and had wanted
exactly such bars of chocolate, wrapped in paper with a metallic
lustre, such as the machine, in their experience, provided. But the
mother thought, and rightly so, that the day had brought them enough
wish-fulfilments, and therefore left this wish to be satisfied in
the dream. This little scene had escaped me. That portion of the dream
which had been condemned by my