7. Manifestations of the Unconscious

Here is another example given by Volkelt—wherever possible I shall only quote examples actually recorded in literature. A Swabian woman dreams that she is visiting her sister in a large town. The sister is the wife of a clergyman. The two sisters are in church listening to the sermon. The clergyman starts in a perfectly decorous way but suddenly seems to get wings and begins to crow like a cock. One sister says to the other: ‘What a very peculiar way to preach!’ And the sister replies: ‘The Consistory Court has decreed that this is how sermons are to be preached.’ Then the woman wakes up and hears a cock crowing outside. The crowing of the cock which would otherwise have been heard simply as such, has been transformed in this way in the soul; everything else has grouped itself around the crowing. These are examples of dreams instigated by the senses.