Dreams

Botanical Monograph (Part 1)

I had written a monograph on a certain plant. The book lay open before me and I was at the moment turning over a folded coloured plate.

Bound up in each copy there was a dried specimen of the plant, as though it had been taken from a herbarium.

That morning I had seen a new book in the window of a book-shop, bearing the title The Genus Cyclamen - evidently a monograph on that plant.

Cyclamens, I reflected, were my wife's favourite flowers and I reproached myself for so rarely remembering to bring her flowers, which was what she liked...

Once, I recalled, I really had written something in the nature of a monograph on a plant, namely a dissertation on the coca-plant...

I saw the monograph which I had written lying before me. This again led me back to something. I had had a letter from my friend [Fliess] in Berlin the day before in which he had shown his power of visualization: 'I am very much occupied with your dream-book. I see it lying finished before me and I see myself turning over its pages.' How much I envied his gift as a seer! If only I could have seen it lying finished before me!

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