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MY FIRST REACTION to being asked to discuss children's dreams was the recognition that in fact I did not know much about children's dreams and I wondered if it might be better if someone else had been asked. That I did not know much about children's dreams struck me as a little strange as I consider myself skilled in working with children. I rely heavily on dreams with adults, but, unless the child brings one up, I rarely discuss them. When I examined why I treat them this way I realized that I do not discuss children's dreams because I find for the most part that they are much too direct, and, outside of some broad generalizations, I often do not wish for the child to know much about his unconscious dynamics. The child is in the process of building defenses and it is not a good idea to reveal them before they are in place. I shall explain more about this later in my paper.
In searching some of the literature I became a little upset in noting that in some ways I am re-inventing the wheel and that some of my observations about children's dreams have been made before. However, I am critical about ways in which other analysts have worked with children's dreams which I will note, but of course as I reveal my own thoughts I suspect that some of you might be critical of my approach. "People in glass houses shouldn't etc., " or as the Nepalese more graphically word it, "Do not look for lice on your neighbor's head when there is a water buffalo sitting on your own head."
There is a good summary of the psychoanalytic application of children's dreams by Ablon and Mack (1980). In reading about