Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/74

 66. M. J. EISLER

and after a short time was given difficult problems which I easily solved, and finally the calculation and plan of a large steamer. Soon afterwards a beautiful young girl was sent into the room. I flew down and noticed that now there was a sofa in the room. The girl sat down on it of her own accord. I was going to sit down beside her, when I awoke". Second part of the dream. "I opened a door that was mounted with iron, went in, and saw a long passage out of which a number of other passages led. I wandered about in them and then noticed that someone was seeking me in the long passage. I saw an old man, a professor, to whom probably these passages belonged, for he immediately noticed that a stranger had entered. He held an umbrella under his left arm and wore a large pair of spectacles. I was invisible and so stepped up quite near to him. I wished to snatch off his spectacles, but he pressed them so strongly on to the bridge of his nose that it was impossible for me to take diem off. The next moment he put his right hand into his pocket and pulled out a revolver which he fired off in the direction he believed me to be in. I lay flat on the ground. I saw the smoke from the revolver, and the bullet flew quickly in the direction where I iiad just been standing; then I awoke."

Only the details need be interpreted in this transparent dream. The first part contains the representation of intra-uterine life. The striking conduct of the dreamer who imagines himself as an embryo I interpret — following a remark of Ferenczi — as a paradox: "It is surely not possible for an unborn child to have any sensations whatever". Absurdity is concealed in the dream as super-wisdom.^ By professor and assistant he signifies his father and myself. In the second part of the dream spying on parental intercourse is represented, as in Freud's example -' and at the same time a strong ambivalent attitude towards his father (reversed threat of castration) is indicated.

The deeper motive from which this dream originates I dis- covered a few weeks later when he brought me a similar dream ol a womb phantasy.

"I felt as though I were dead. I crossed the square to — • Street and had the feeling that somebody was following me. In this street I entered the second house on the right and ascended

' The dreamer is an official in a shipping company. » Traumdeutung, 6. Aufl., S. 272.

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