Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/126

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108
THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

For two dreams, one of my daughters, at that time eight and a half years old, the other of a boy five and a quarter years of age, I am indebted to an excursion to the beautiful Hallstatt in the summer of 1896. I must make the preliminary statement that during this summer we were living on a hill near Aussee, from which, when the weather was good, we enjoyed a splendid view of the Dachstein from the roof of our house. The Simony Hut could easily be recognised with a telescope. The little ones often tried to see it through the telescope—I do not know with what success. Before the excursion I had told the children that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein. They looked forward to the day with great joy. From Hallstatt we entered the valley of Eschern, which highly pleased the children with its varying aspects. One of them, however, the boy of five, gradually became discontented. As often as a mountain came in view, he would ask: "Is that the Dachstein?" whereupon I would have to answer: "No, only a foot-hill." After this question had been repeated several times, he became altogether silent; and he was quite unwilling to come along on the flight of steps to the waterfall. I thought he was tired out. But the next morning, he approached me radiant with joy, and said: "Last night I dreamt that we were at Simony Hut." I understood him now; he had expected, as I was speaking of the Dachstein, that on the excursion to Hallstatt, he would ascend the mountain and would come face to face with the hut, about which there had been so much discussion at the telescope. When he learned that he was expected to be regaled with foot-hills and a waterfall, he was disappointed and became discontented. The dream compensated him for this. I tried to learn some details of the dream; they were scanty. "Steps must be climbed for six hours," as he had heard.

On this excursion wishes, destined to be satisfied only in dreams, had arisen also in the mind of the girl of eight and a half years. We had taken with us to Halstatt the twelve-year-old boy of our neighbour—an accomplished cavalier, who, it seems to me, already enjoyed the full sympathy of the little woman. The next morning, then, she related the following dream: "Just think, I dreamt that Emil was one of us, that he said papa and mamma to you, and slept at our house