The dream and the primal scene (Wolfman) - Freud - Article

The article starts with a description of a dream, possibly the first "anxiety dream" the author once had (around the age of 3 or 4 years). He dreamt that he was lying in his bed. Suddenly, the windows opened and he saw six or seven white wolves sitting outside on a tree. Out of fear of being eaten up by the wolves, he screamed and woke up. Then, the nurse came to see what had happened. It took him a while to realize it was just a dream.

The author always connected this dream with the recollection that during these years of his childhood he was most afraid of the picture of a wolf in a book of fairy tales. Why were the wolves white? Well, it made him think of the sheep, large flocks of which were kept in the neighbourhood of the house. How did the wolves come to be on the tree? Well, this reminded him of a story his grandfather once told. In that story, the tree appears, upon which the wolves were sitting. Why were there six or seven wolves? Well, this could be connected with the story of the "The wolf and the seven little goats", in which both the number seven (that is, the total number of goats) and six (that is, the number of goats eaten up by the wolve) occur. The three appeared to be a christmas tree, which coincides with the date of the dream; just before christmas. His fourth birthday was also on christmas day.

Another event that is also importantly connected with this dream is that he saw his parents having intercourse. In his grandfather's story, the tailless wolf asked the others to climb upon him. It was this detail that called up the recollection of the picture of the primal scene (In Freudian theory: the occasion on which a child becomes aware of it's parents sexual intercourse, the timing of which is thought to be crucial in determining predisposition to future neuroses); and it was in this way that it became possible for the material of the primal scene to be represented by that of the wolf story, and at the same time for the two parents to be replaced by several wolves.   

Two factors in the dream made a large impression on him. First, the perfect stillness and immobility of the wolves. The wolves sat their and did not move at all; they just stared at him. Second, the strained attention with which the wolves all looked at him. Moreover, the lasting sense of reality also made a deep impact on him.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this dream. For instance, he must have had some allusions to a fear of death, since the greater part of the sheep had died of the epidemic. The wolves on the tree led to his grandfather's story. The wolf may have been a father-surrogate, which means that the wolf represented his father. This first anxiety dream showed the fear of his father, which from that time forward was to dominate his life. His anxiety was a repudiation of the wish for sexual satisfaction from his father -the trend which had put the dream into his head. The form taken by the anxiety (that is, the anxiety of being eaten by the wold) was only the regressive transposition of the wish to be copulated with by his father, that is, to be given sexual satisfaction in the same way as his mother. His last sexual aim, the passive attitude towards his father, succumbed to repression, and fear of his father appeared in its place in the shape of the wolf phobia.