Dream Observations in a Two-Year-Four-Months-Old Baby

Dreams are not the exclusive privilege of man; neither are they the privilege of adults, for observations of babies have shown that dreams occur during the first year of life. Babies suck, smile or cry during sleep; later they exhibit during sleep signs of more or less violent experiences, especially anxiety and horror.

What happens during a child's sleep may be learned only at a later age when the child is old enough to tell about it. However after the age of five years, children are not able to report reliably their dream experiences. Children are never much interested in telling the truth, for telling some fantasied adventure is much more fun than to try to give objective information. In a child intelligent enough and willing to remember its dreams, the difference between the report of a real dream and a fantasy is only slight. The healthy child with all its longing for pleasure is attached to the very thrilling present and is directed by the pleasure principle towards the future and therefore seldom spontaneously reports about the past. When it awakens the night is gone, is nothing; the need for a new day and new ventures inhibits every tendency to look back. Interest in the past is a very unchildlike attitude, and is much more characteristic of the adult. The possibility of obtaining reliable dream material by questioning a child is open to doubt because the suggestibility of young children is enhanced by the leading nature of every question, no matter how carefully it may be phrased, and the material obtained in such a manner is scarcely trustworthy.

So it happens that nearly all reports of infant dreams come