Handicaps of Childhood

by H. Addington Bruce

The helpfulness of dream-analysis to parents comes from the fact that the dreams of children usually relate either to things which the children dread, or things which they desire. This is also true of the dreams of adults, as shown by the analysis of thousands of dreams. In the case of adults, however, the fear or the desire mirrored by the dream is nearly always masked by the variety and seeming absurdity or incongruity of the dream-images. As when, for example, a complicated, fantastic dream of adventure in an out-of-the-way part of the world is found, on examination, to be connected with a secret longing for marriage. Accordingly, prolonged and tedious analysis is often needed to get at the true meaning of an adult's dreams. In the case of children's dreams, the opposite is the rule. There is little repression or distortion, the dream dealing directly with what is uppermost in the dreamer's waking mind, and emphasising the fears or fulfilling the wishes of his waking life.

This is what makes dream-analysis both easy and profitable to parents. Once aware of the wish-fulfilling rôle of dreams, no parent need experience difficulty in interpretation if his small boy reports to him a series of dreams like the following:

"It was after school, and I went with other boys to a candy store, and the storekeeper told us we could have anything we wanted. We had a fine time. I filled my pockets with chocolates and caramels and peanut candy, besides what I ate while I was in the store.

"I was at a party, and there was plenty to eat and drink. We had sandwiches and lemonade, ice cream and cake. After it was over, they told us we could take away all the food that was not eaten.

"There was a fire in the next street, and I went to see the firemen at work. It was rainy and cold, and somebody brought out coffee and cake for the firemen. There was more than they could eat, so they gave me some."

Dreamed by a small boy living in a poor home, dreams like these would be of a pathetic, rather than sinister, import. For they would represent the imaginary fulfilment of wishes unrealisable in the waking life, and would thus be a subconscious protest against the cramping limitations of poverty. Even so, whether the youthful dreamer were the son of poor parents or the son of parents comfortably circumstanced, it would be an unescapable inference that, when awake, he was inclined to think overmuch of his stomach. Wherefore, dreams like these, if dreamed with any frequency, would unmistakably suggest the desirability of training to check a tendency to gluttony and greed.

The frequency with which dreams of a given type are dreamed has, indeed, much to do with their significance as indicators of character defects. An occasional dream of gorging one's self—or, say, of being the centre of attraction at an evening party—would not be valid ground for indicting a little boy of greed, or a little girl of vanity. But, if such dreams are habitual, or if, despite a seeming variety in the dreams reported by son or daughter, there is discernible an undercurrent of desires incompatible with strength and beauty of character, then the wise parent will not delay in supplementing dream study by educational measures to correct the indicated defects.

And, as emphasised by the experiences of many of the youthful nervous patients whose case-histories have been given in this book, dream-analysis should particularly be utilised to help children who—being free from adenoids, eye-strain, or other adverse physical conditions—show a sudden and unfavourable change in disposition. Some cause of emotional stress is undoubtedly present, and it may be taken for granted that the child will betray, through the content of his dreams, what is troubling his mind. Dream-analysis will thus give insight into secret jealousies, secret desires, secret fears, secret mental conflicts of many kinds, that are provocative both of unfavourable changes in character and of outright ill health.

One such conflict, to which I have already referred when discussing the handicap of sulkiness, is conflict over sex questions. Frequently, to the parents' astonishment, it will be found that the actual cause of timidity, reticence, moodiness, or depression of spirits in a formerly happy child, is a mental conflict due to the child's vain endeavours to work out fully satisfactory answers to delicate questions which the parents have not answered when put to them by the child, or have answered in an evasive fashion. Children are far more discerning than most parents give them credit for being. Also, they often are more interested than most parents suppose in some of the fundamental problems of existence—and especially the problem of their own nature and origin. The scientific study of dreams, indeed, has furnished an additional and powerful argument against the common practice among parents of veiling in mystery or concealing with well-intentioned falsehoods the facts of birth and of sex.

But let me quote, at this point, the findings of an English medical psychologist, Doctor Ernest Jones, of London, who has specially studied the reactions of children to the policy of silence and mystification regarding sex matters.