Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/77

 NUMBERS IN DREAMS 69

To 3 he associates his family — wife, daughter and self

To 5: his daughter was five when she went home.

It might have been a roll of paper he was looking for in the dream, greyish bluish sort of paper, like an engineers plan. Al- though he seemed to remember the pigeon holes quite clearly as square holes, yet there was a drawer that had to be opened and a roll which had to be taken out. The patient, who has read some psychological works, is here struck with the idea that the roll of paper might be a phallic emblem.

His mind clings to the colour of the roll; the pale bluish colour is very insistent, it reminds him of the pale bluish colour and the blue veins of his penis. He last saw the colour in the proposed plan for the rebuilding of his hospital. It also might have been a roll of legal documents, marriage documents particularly. He feh in the dream that it was his own drawer and that the opening of it was purely his own business.

He feels that perhaps the dream meant that Psycho-Analysis was going to show him what he wanted, and that the well-arran- ged series of pigeon holes was his own mind. In the dream aU he had to do was to find something.

Here he recalls that in the dream he hesitated for a moment, as he was not quite sure if he had the right hole. At this point he' went back to the figure five. Five fingers on a hand, five cards in a

hand of Nap; the number of his wife's room in France was five

no, he thinks it must have been six. He used to have five days leave when he went to stay with her. No, it was six. Why does he keep saying five when it is six? He had received a wire from his wife on the sixth from Port Said. Port Said is nine days from Bombay; the wire said she would arrive in Bombay on the fif- teenth. The total of the second group of figures is fifteen (915 = 15). It is two days journey from Bombay to where he is. The total of the first group of figures is seventeen (935 = 17), the date of his wife's arrival.

95 = Unit which has an objectionable doctor = The analyst who the day before forced the patient to realise his unpleasant sub-conscious attitude towards his daughter. 35 = Unit which has a doctor who is a good fellow ^ Patient

himself Also represents his wife whose age is 35. 15 = Unit which has no doctor = His daughter, who at the age of 15 will be away at boarding school.