Dream. I was walking along a street on a cold winter night. I looked down
at the cement walk and in this was set a piece of granite on which the
letters "W. H." were cut. Coming to the corner, I looked up and saw on a
short board which was nailed to a post, the name of the street, "Queen
Street," The street running at right angles to this was King Street, and I
turned and went down this. After walking a short distance, I came to a house
from a window of which a light was shining. The house number was "23." I
took a key from my pocket, unlocked the door and entered.
Analysis. In attempting to analyze this (so-called) dream, I was amazed to
find with how many past longings and emotionally-colored experiences it was
associated. I first took up the letters on the sidewalk, and as I repeated
them, letting my mind be as blank as possible in order that the associations
might be free, I gained an immediate response. "W. H."--"Which House"--came
out as in answer to a question. With these words there was a definite visual
image of a young country farm youth standing talking to two persons in a
buggy. I remembered the incident in all its details. I was the young man and
these people were asking the way to a certain place, or at WHICH HOUSE they
should stop. As it so happened, I was at that time keeping company with a
young lady who lived at the very house concerning which they asked. I will
not go into detail any further at this point, for this is a real case and I
should be trespassing on personal ground. But any one who yet remembers his
boyhood courtship, with all its agonies and fears, its hopes and joys, its
disappointments and its pleasures, can see at a glance how important this
occasion is in throwing light on the meaning of the dream. Of course "W. H."
stood for "Which House."
I seemed to get no further in my associations with these letters at this
time, and my thoughts spontaneously turned to the name of the street.
"Queen Street." Even more readily and completely than in the other case,
there came a whole complex of associations. First there was the name and
image of Miss Agnes Queen, whom I had known for years. But, strange to say,
the image was of this young lady standing and talking to a certain Mr.
Harding. I saw them together but once, and it seemed passing strange that
this incident should be the one remembered in connection with the name. But
the associations were rapidly progressing, and I mentally reviewed parts of
three or four years during which I was working and closely associating with
this Mr. Harding. Here I began to see some light. This Mr. Harding was in
all respects, at least as far as I knew him a man of good morals, but he was
much less particular in his social habits than I was. He was engaged to a
young lady all the time I was with him, and wrote letters to her constantly;
but this fact did not prevent him from paying attentions to other young
women, and I was aware that he was more familiar with them than
conventionality would warrant. In fact he made no attempt to be secret in
the matter, and often poked fun at me for my over sensitivity on the
subject. Here was the key to a whole lot of meaning. The first year I was
with him, I had no sweetheart or any lady friend on whom to center my
affection or to whom I could write. There were a number of young men in our
"squad," as it was called, and nearly all of them had correspondents and it
was a joke among us that I was "out in the cold world with no one to love."
In reality, this was not so much a joke for me at the time, as I tried to
give the impression that it was, and I longed for the very thing of which we
joked. The fact that I was out on the street on a cold winter night in this
dream symbolized being "out in the cold world," as we had used the term
then.
I now took up the letters "W. H." again, and the words "White Horse" came in
response to the stimulus. With little hesitation I placed this as connected
with the Knights of the White Horse of whom Tennyson writes in his poems of
"King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table." I got very little out of this,
but still the White Horse was a band of men who were unrestrained in their
desires and bore about the same relation to King Arthur's Knights that
Harding did to me. However, the associations did not stop here but went on,
giving what at first seemed to be a meaningless list of words. "W. H." first
called up the words, "Wish Harding"; next, "Will Harding"; next, "With
Harding"; and last, "Walk Harding." In a minute it flashed on me what this
all meant. "I WISH to do as Harding is doing, to WALK the way he is WITH
him and I WILL." To walk up Queen Street meant, then, to follow his
example, as he at one time paid some attention to this Miss Agnes Queen.
Perhaps the reason why her name was selected instead of some others was
because his relations to her had been very slight and formal, and thus the
idea was easier for the censor to let into sleeping consciousness than it
would have been if some other names had been taken. "W. H.," then,
symbolized the four expressions that arose in the analysis.
The meaning of "King Street" came last of anything in the dream, but I will
give it now. I did not seem to be able to get anywhere on this for some
time, and the idea kept presenting itself that it symbolized that I was king
of the situation which seemed innocent enough; but at last there came an
association with Nero as portrayed in "Quo Vadis." I then remembered how I
read this book while in the adolescent stage, and how a cousin made remarks,
very sensuous in their nature, about parts of it. I then got a vision of
the book, "Mad Majesties," which I saw on the library table not long since.
Next came a memory of the French kings as portrayed in the works of Dumas.
At this point, I realized that the idea suggested by the word king is very
often, though not always, an idea or image of a very loose person as far as
his social life is concerned. Thus to walk Queen Street or follow the
example of Harding finds a parallel in walking King Street or following the
example of a king.
With the light in the window, I came into an entirely new field of
associations. I cannot go far into detail here as it would involve others
as well as myself, but suffice to say that the light in the window called up
a paper on the subject of light which was written by a Mr. X. and read in my
hearing. Now Mr. X. and I had both kept company with the same young lady at
different times, and here was another group of emotionally colored
experiences. However, the important function performed by the light was that
it symbolized (together with the house in which it was) the comforts, warmth
and pleasures of the very opposite condition from that of being "out in the
cold world with no one to love."
The house number "23" is associated with at least two occasions. One Sunday
evening; a few of the boys of our "squad," myself among them, went out with
the daughter of our landlady, and one or two other young ladies and took a
boat ride in the park. It was a beautiful summer night and the park was full
of young people who were treating each other to very endearing caresses.
There were so many who wanted boats that only one boat was unoccupied, and
it was No. 23. It had been left because it was a hoodoo number, and the
other boaters were all superstitious. As we were not, we took this boat and
used it. My longing lonesomeness was about at its maximum height on this
night. The other occasion associated with this number is that I became
engaged when I was twenty-three years old and at that time desired greatly
to be married; but, as I was in school, it had to be postponed.
Now the climax of the dream! I took a key from my pocket, unlocked the door
and entered. This is so plain that it hardly needs comment. Being in the
cold world, as symbolized by the cold street, I enter the warmth and comfort
of the lighted house. The key and lock are, of course, phallic symbols and
have special significance for me as I once took a young lady to a banquet at
which the favors were paper keys and hearts. Thus symbolically are fulfilled
all the longings I felt while with Harding, all my desires to be married
when twenty-three, all my adolescent courtship yearnings, and all my
remaining repressed sexual longings.
As a point which may have a little bearing on this, I have recently received
a letter from Harding and in it was information that he is for a time away
from home, and I wondered if he is still careless in his behavior.
This analysis will seem foolish in the extreme to many, and I am one of the
number, but my excuse is that I have copied as closely after the Freudians
as possible. I have only to invite a comparison. This is not a "made up"
dream, but a little bit out of my daily life; just an experience occurring
on the way home from the seminary. The analysis is real in the sense that
the associations arose as I have recorded them.
Perhaps some ardent Freudian might find it in his heart to say that this
analysis only strengthened their position, as it showed how a whole sexual
background underlies our entire life, and therefore our dreams must have a
sexual origin. But the reason why I found a sexual solution of this was that
I started the analysis with a definite Bewnssteinlage, as Titchener would
call it, which consisted of a knowledge that I had started for a certain
kind of solution, and the whole course of the associations was governed by
this. If Freud had at first come into the possession of a theory that every
dream fulfills a fear, or pictures a state of anger or any other emotion, he
would have had just as good success in demonstrating the truth of his
statements. The following analysis will illustrate this. This is a real
dream, but before beginning the analysis, I took the attitude that the
analysis would reveal the fulfillment of a fear or show that the dream was
the dramatic representation of a feared condition as actually existing. It
took some time to get into this attitude, it is true, but when the result
was finally accomplished, the analysis was begun and the attempt was made to
follow the Freudian method as closely as possible under the changed
conditions.
The Dream. On the night of February first, I dreamed that I was going down
a little hill in company with my brother and Mr. N. We seemed to be in
Colorado, and at the foot of the hill was a little stream which was very
pretty. There was a little waterfall, and a green pool below it, and a mist
hung over the pool. I am not sure I saw the color of this pool. There was
also a huge rock around which the water dashed. Some people were fishing in
the stream. Some one asked if we could see the rainbows, and Mr. N. replied
that he could see only one. I then looked carefully and saw a purple haze in
the mist over the pool and supposed this was what was meant. But, as I
continued to look, I saw a great number of rainbows, or at least patches in
the mist over the water which showed the spectral colors. These were about
two feet in diameter and extraordinarily beautiful. I was very anxious to
get some of the trout which I felt sure were In the stream. As we came
nearer, it seemed that the stream had overflowed and there were several
shallow pools not over a foot deep and eight or ten feet long. In these
pools could be seen fish by the dozen from a foot to eight feet long. I was
slightly troubled because it would muddy my shoes, but I began to try to get
some of them out. I got one very big one by the gill slit, but could not
manage him and had to let him go. I handled several in the dream, but do
not know whether or not I got any out.