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THE PSYCHOANALYTIC QUARTERLY expresses its thanks to the 'Wolf-man' and to the Freud Archives for permission to publish the following two letters. The first, formerly in the possession of Dr. Ruth Mack Brunswick, was written by the 'Wolf-man' to Professor Freud on June 6, 1926. A lengthy excerpt follows from a letter to the Archives, dated June 11, 1957, which answered an inquiry concerning the first letter.
Vienna, June 6, 1926.
Dear Professor Freud:
Your valued letter was very pleasant; let me thank you for it most cordially. Naturally, now that I know your opinion in regard to the motion-picture piece and the newspaper article, I shall do no more about them. In reply to your questions about my childhood dream, I hasten to communicate to you all that has come to my mind in relation to this dream.
As to points 1 and 2: I am completely sure in my belief that I dreamed the Wolf-dream precisely as I narrated it to you at the time. I have no reason to doubt the correctness of this memory. On the contrary, the dream's brevity and clarity have always seemed to me to be its most characteristic qualities. Also, so far as I know, my memory of this childhood dream never underwent any change. After it, I was afraid of having dreams of this sort, and as a counteracting measure, I used to bring before my eyes, before I went to sleep, such things as frightened me, among them this dream. The Wolf-dream always appeared to me to be central among childhood dreams, if for no other reason, because the Wolf dominated my childhood fantasy. However, when I later on saw a real wolf in the menagerie, I was quite disappointed, and I did not recognize in it the Wolf of my childhood. The Wolves sitting on the tree were in fact not wolves at all but white Spitz dogs with pointed ears [in German, spitzen Ohren]