Around 1910, Sigmund Freud treated Pankejeff, who he called "the Wolf Man" for a vivid dream the latter had as a very young child:

I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in bed. (My bed stood with its foot towards the window; in front of the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and night-time.)

Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up.

My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what had happened to me. It took quite a long while before I was convinced that it had only been a dream; I had had such a clear and life-like picture of the window opening and the wolves sitting on the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as though I had escaped from some danger, and went to sleep again.

"Wolves Sitting in a Tree", painted 1964 by "Wolf Man" (Sergei Pankejeff)

Freud made the dream famous; his analysis of the dream (along with Pankejeff's input) was that as a very young child Pankejeff had witnessed a primal scene--his parents having sex "doggy style", or that he had witnessed animals mating, and displaced it onto his parents.

Decades later, Pankejeff was skeptical it had to do with his parents at all; he'd always slept in his nurse's room; it seemed unlikely he'd have any opportunity to see parental sex of any kind.

The idea that predators can climb trees (and open my window, and eat me?) seems plenty primal to me without dragging parents or sex in, but don't mind me; I always roll my eyes at Freud.

"Wolfman's Dream" drawn 1993 by Jim Dine

SOURCE: The Interpretation of Dreams: the Illustrated Edition by Sigmund Freud, pp. 168-9 & 368-9 for images & basics; Wikipedia for full dream text.

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