Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/43

 Whatever may be denied in reality we nevertheless can realise in another way—in our dreams. And probably more of our daily life, conduct, moods, beliefs than we think, could be traced to preceding dreams."

Dr. Ross was listening attentively, as Craig turned to him. "This is perhaps the part of Freud's theory from which you dissent most strongly. Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, the best indication of abnormality would be its absence. Sex is one of the strongest of human impulses, yet the one subjected to the greatest repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural development. In a normal life, he says, there are no neuroses. Let me proceed now with what the Freudists call the psychanalysis, the soul analysis, of Mrs. Maitland."

It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it.

"Mrs. Maitland," he continued, "your dream of fear was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a suppressed wish. Moreover, fear always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. The gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consciously you feared the death of your husband because unconsciously you wished it."

It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps, merciless—this dissecting of the soul of the handsome