If I make the assertion that wish fulfilment is the meaning of every dream, that, accordingly, there can be no dreams except wish dreams, I am sure at the outset to meet with the most emphatic contradiction. Objections will be made to this effect: "The fact that there are dreams which must be understood as fulfilments of wishes is not new, but, on the contrary, has long since been recognised by the authors. Cf. Radestock (p–138), Volkelt (p–111), Tissié , M. Simon on the hunger dreams of the imprisoned Baron Trenck), and the passage in Griesinger. The assumption that there can be nothing but dreams of wish fulfilment, however, is another of those unjustified generalisations by which you have been pleased to distinguish yourself of late. Indeed dreams which exhibit the most painful content, but not a trace of wish fulfilment, occur plentifully enough. The pessimistic philosopher, Edward von Hartman, perhaps stands furthest from the theory of wish fulfilment.
He expresses himself in his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II. (stereotyped edition, ), to the following effect: -
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