Dreams

A Child's Death-Wish Dream

"Hostile feelings towards brothers and sisters must be far more frequent in childhood than the unseeing eye of the adult observer can perceive."

"A whole crowd of children -- all her brothers, sisters and cousins of both sexes - were romping in a field. Suddenly they all grew wings, flew away and disappeared.


The dreamer had no idea what this dream meant; but it is not hard to recognize that in its original form it had been a dream of the death of all her brothers and sisters, and had only been slightly influenced by the censorship.
... the dreamer must have asked some wise grown-up person what became of children when they are dead. The reply must have been: 'They grow wings and turn into little angels.' In the dream which followed this piece of information all the dreamer's brothers and sisters had wings like angels and -- which is the main point -- flew away. Our little baby-killer was left alone, strange to say: the only survivor of the whole crowd!