Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/73

 WOMB AND BIRTH SAVING PHANTASIES IN DREAMS

by

M. J. EISLER, Budapest.

The solving of dreams which have womb or birth saving phantasies as their basis (both phantasies often appear inseparably interwoven) as a rule presents no difficulties to the analyst once he is alive to them. The associations of the dreamer are here of only trifling service. It is only when the dreamer has experienced the sense of the dream as a whole that the material is produced of which the details are composed. The analysis then advances from this point.

The examples I give are remarkable in the finish of their form; and how I obtained them is worth mentioning. My younger brother had prepared a typed copy of a small contribution to dream interpretation which I published under the title "Das Labyrinth", —a saving dream awakened through incestuous phantasies at puberty. Its content made a deep impression on him with which was mingled a little doubt as to the credibility of the matter. At first it seemed to me he had identified himself with the dreamer, a thought which had reinforced the impression. During one of the subsequent nights he dreamed as follows in the form of a waking stimulus dream. (He dreamed the first part of the dream when called by a comrade trying to wake him; he went to sleep again and finished the dream.)

"I found myself in an empty room massively built of cement It had only one exit, the double door of which was missing. The next moment I heard the voices outside of an older and younger man (professor and assistant). I did not want them to see me, so swung myself by two or three swimming movements into the air and remained hovering horizontally in a somewhat darker comer of the room with my head turned upwards. I spoke to them, 65