bout a contract which seemed a little disturbing
but which she hoped (in the dream) would not interfere with her
vacation. Maury, an early student of this topic, was awakened from a
feverish dream of the French Revolution by something falling on his
neck; this, under the circumstances, he took to be the guillotine.

Now, _why_ is a dream? What satisfaction does it bring to the dreamer?
Or shall we say that it is merely a mechanical play of association,
with no motivation behind it? Dreams are interesting while they last,
sometimes fearful, sometimes angry, sometimes amorous, otherwise not
very emotional but distinctly interesting, so that many people hate to
have a dream broken up by awaking. It seems likely, then, that dreams
are like daydreams in affording gratification to desires. They are
"wish-fulfilling", to borrow a term from Freud's theory of dreams,
soon to be considered.

A boy dreams repeatedly of finding whole barrels of assorted
jackknives, and is bitterly disappointed every time to awake and find
the knives gone; so that finally he questions the reality of the
dream, but pinching himself (in the dream) concludes he must be awake
this time. An adult frequently dreams of finding money, first a nickel
in the dust, and then a quarter close by, and then more and more, till
he wakes up and spoils it all. Such dreams are {502} obviously
wish-fulfilling, as are also the sex dreams of sexually abstinent
persons, or the feasting dreams of starving persons, or the polar
explorer's recurring dream of warm, green fields. An eminent
psychologist has given a good account of a dream which he had while
riding in an overcrowded compartment of a European train, with the
window closed and himself wedged in tightly far from the window. In
this uncomfortable situation he dropped asleep and dreamed that he had
the seat next to the window, had the window open and was looking out
at a beautiful landscape. In all these cases _the wish gratified in
the dream is one that has been left unsatisfied in the daytime_, and
this is according to the famous passage, slightly paraphrased, "What a
man hath, why doth he yet dream about?" The newly married couple do
not dream of each other. We seldom dream of our regular work, unless
for some reason we are disturbed over it. The tendencies that are
satisfied during the day do not demand satisfaction in dreams; but any
tendency that is aroused during the day without being able to reach
its concl