HISTORICALLY speaking, dreams have always been
credited with meanings; but, in a given case, the
psychologist must ask, how far does the accredited
meaning represent the mere fancy of the interpreted
and how far does it mirror actual conditions in the dreamer's
mind. To seek aught beyond these is but idle divination.
For of all dreams it is true, in the words of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, "that the reason for them is always latent in the
individual." "Things are significant enough, Heaven
knows;" he exclaims, "but the seer of the sign,—where is
he?"[1]
Not till the last year of the nineteenth century, did an
answer come; it was Sigmund Freud's work, "The Interpretation
of Dreams," which said, in effect, "Here am I, in
Vienna."[2]
