small as flowers are. A policeman comes. I say to him, "If you dare to make any remark, I shall take your sword and cut off your head."
In the analysis of this dream she makes the following remarks: "I would like to be taller than my father, for then he will have to obey me." The first association with policeman was father. He is a military man and has, of course, a sword. The dream clearly fulfils her wish. In the form of a tower, she is much bigger than her father, and if he dares to make a remark, he will be decapitated. The dream fulfils the natural wish of the child to be a grown-up person, and to have children playing at her feet, symbolized in the dream by the small children. With this dream she overcomes her great fear of her father; that means an important improvement with regard to her personal freedom, and her certainty of feeling.
But incidentally there is here also a theoretical gain; we may consider this dream to be a clear example of the compensating and teleological function of dreams which was especially pointed out by Maeder. Such a dream must leave with the dreamer an increased sense of the value of her own personality, which is of much importance for personal well-being. It does not matter that the symbols of the dream are not perceived by the consciousness of the child, as conscious perception is not necessary to derive from symbols their corresponding emotional effect. We have to do here with knowledge derived from intuition; in other words, it is that kind of perception on which at all times the effect produced by religious symbols has depended. Here no conscious understanding has been needed; the feelings are affected by means of emotional intuition.
Fifth Interview. In the fifth sitting, the child brings a dream which she had dreamt meanwhile. "I am with my whole family on the roof. The windows of the houses on the other side of the valley radiate like fire. The rising sun is reflected. Suddenly I notice that the house at the corner of our street is, as a fact, on fire. The fire comes nearer and nearer; at last our house is also on fire. I take flight into the street and my mother throws several things to me. I hold out my apron, and among other things my doll is thrown to me. I notice that the stones of our house are burning, but the wood remains untouched."
