represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is
the prince or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and
umbrellas (on account of the stretching-up which might be compared to an
erection! all elongated and sharp weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes,
are intended to represent the male member. A frequent, not very
intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account of the
rubbing and scraping?). Little cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and
stoves correspond to the female part. The symbolism of lock and key has
been very gracefully employed by Uhland in his song about the "Grafen
Eberstein," to make a common smutty joke. The dream of walking through a
row of rooms is a brothel or harem dream. Staircases, ladders, and
flights of stairs, or climbing on these, either upwards or downwards,
are symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth walls over which
one is climbing, façades of houses upon which one is letting oneself
down, frequently under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human
body, and probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward
climbing of little children on their parents or foster parents. "Smooth"
walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one is holding on firmly to
some projection from a house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women,
perhaps on account of the opposition which does away with the bodily
contours. Since "bed and board" (_mensa et thorus_) constitute marriage,
the former are often put for the latter in the dream, and as far as
practicable the sexual presentation complex is transposed to the eating
complex. Of articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be
definitely interpreted as the male genital. In dreams of men one often
finds the cravat as a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only
because cravats hang down long, and are characteristic of the man, but
also because one can select them at pleasure, a freedom which is
prohibited by nature in the original of the symbol. Persons who make use
of this symbol in the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and