Part 15

Additional: _Once I found myself in a theater in the first row of a balcony. Tristan was being given for the occasion. Instead of the orchestra leader, André Rose was leading. A fine one-year volunteer_, Einjahrig-Freiwilliger, _back of me, in the second row, was singing Tristan in the style of the modern recital song. Next to me sat my aunt who is linked with memories of my kindergarten age. I had the unpleasant feeling that I was involuntarily sliding down towards the ground floor, and therefore I leaned heavily back in my seat stretching out my legs and trying to support myself by pressing my toes against the foot support (bed foot-board?). I had the uncanny feeling that the foot rest might give way and fall off like a piece of paste board. I begged my aunt to lift me carefully. I felt like a very sick person. Sitting again upright I felt well and refreshed and I was just in time to see the curtain drop over the stage and a number of persons appearing in front of it, among them several gentlemen in evening dress. Obviously the performance is being cancelled. The public broke into ironic applause, whistled and howled._

Another dream: _Late at night in a big garden. Many people about to take their leave after an afternoon spent in irrelevant gossip. My parents were also among those present. My father was in a hurry to get to town. He leaves. It is very dark. Presently a station bell, the whistle of a locomotive. I shout into the night’s darkness not knowing whether any one hears me or not: he is lucky! He is just in time to catch the train. And I think of following in an hour. I am very tired. I am happy in my bed at home._

_Sunny afternoon in a poor quarter of a suburb. Under a window of an apartment window there are a number of tin vessels which I know, belong to the woman above. An elderly woman is preoccupied with the vessels, holding each vessel up to the light, as if testing them, but I know that she is merely awaiting the opportunity to run off with them. A window is raised in the neighboring house, a woman calls out to the woman living in the apartment under whose window the vessels are lying, to watch out for the stranger. By that time I myself am standing in the owner’s room. She is just putting on her best toilette. The warning neighbor appears and scolds the vain woman who on account of her vanity neglects to watch out for her things._

Addition: _I was in the next room. The woman had a little girl with her. I held my penis in hand pursued the two and wanted them to take it in their hand; and thus the ejaculation...._

_The woman’s hands disgusted me because they were dirty._

This is hardly the place for a complete analysis of the whole dream. The first part, the falling into a deep basin is a hypnagogic vision and represents the process of falling asleep, the descent into the depths of primordial man. The rapidly passing automobile, the danger. The representation of Tristan refers to a great passion for a queen. _Schœnbrunn_, the former Kaiser’s summer residence, refers to the parental home. Isolde is also a queen, who is lost forever for Tristan. Is it not rather remarkable that he should dream of Tristan and Isolde, the quintessential epic of heterosexual love? And does not the cancellation correspond precisely to his cryptic wish? The thought of a fall into the depths is continually recurring as well as the inhibitions about things not holding out (hence the steadying with the feet for support). The man in evening dress represents the love of a modern cultural man in contrast with a Tristan. He himself is Tristan, the onlooker and the singing _Einjährig-Freiwillige_. Finally another picture: parting, _i.e._, his father’s death: “He was lucky.” What is the meaning of that? He has caught the train on time! Recalling that in one of his previous dreams the subject was unable to catch the electric car, we understand that his father found time to attain his aim,—a tempo—while he himself is late. We shall be informed presently about the meaning of this aim. And back of all inhibitions another picture breaks forth: he runs after an old woman with his erect membrum (the child is a symbol for the genitalia. _Cp._, in this connection, _The Language of Dreams_, _Dreams and Sex_, Chapter, “Children in Dreams,” translation by _James S. Van Teslaar_, Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922).

He is not a little surprised that his dreams portray heterosexual feelings. Heretofore he had paid no attention to his dreams.

I have not yet stated whom the old woman represents. He is asked to mention any woman that occurs to him and after some hesitation he states: my mother.

Here we come across one of the roots of his homosexuality, one that perhaps we anticipated. But thus far I avoided any inquiries about his attitude towards the mother.

What is the meaning of that portion of the dream which portrays a number of tin dishes? I perceive this as follows: He does not possess many treasures, it is all mere tin, but such as it is it all belongs to the woman above ... the mother. The neighbor warns the mother that another woman might rob her of her son’s affection. The mother is very vain and spends considerable time preparing her toilette.

The key to the dream rests in the pollution with which it ends and the deepest effect: the disgust on account of the dirty, unclean hands of the woman above.

We see that the pollution is slowly prepared. First there is a representation of the heterosexual love (Tristan). But his inner voices—the public—express themselves against that love, the latter is deprecated: there is whistling and shouting and ironic applause. Next the father is upon the scene of action. He is represented in the act of leaving. Other women appear,—the old woman, the neighbor. But the orgasm is achieved only through the “woman above” (“upstairs,”—_Frau da oben_, literally, woman above),—the mother. This form of pollution, which at bottom represents merely an unconscious onanism (unclean hands!) brings on a feeling of disgust in him.

The next dream portrays a scene in which a man talks about his son. The scene takes place in a lavatory. Probably this reproduces an infantile scene wherein he may have observed his father at the lavatory. The dream following that is much clearer. I reproduce here both:

_I found myself in a lavatory compartment and I watched my “victim.” The man turned his back to me and spoke to himself about his son. I noticed that the woman guardian was keeping watch on me from the outside and I started to leave, grabbing my hat just as she was opening the door to catch me at my observation post. I acted as if I were unconcerned, quietly picked up my handkerchief on which I had knelt down, picked off the floor the various things of mine that were still strewn about, gloves, muffler, etc., and went off with the feeling that through my cool behavior I disarmed the woman of her suspicions and had avoided a public scandal...._

_I went upstairs to a wide open store. Half way across I saw the saleswoman standing in a corner. At the sight of her I am seized with tremendous bowel cramps. I turned around and defecate publicly in the room. The woman over there will not see me?_

This dream reminds him of the childhood incident already mentioned: When he was two years of age he was playing out of doors with another boy who prepared himself to move his bowels close to the street, in the open. Now he admits also that his own _libido_ is greatly increased if he imagines he is watched during defecation. This is a typical instance of sexual infantilism. He is not only _voyeur_; he is also exhibitionist.

The first dream discloses the fear that the mother, the guardian, might find out his scatological tendencies. In the second, the woman upstairs was the onlooker during an infantile scene. It reproduces undoubtedly a frequent scene of childhood.

He has carried out a number of homosexual acts at public baths. In Denmark the men bathe together in steam rooms. Thus he had opportunity to permit himself bodily contact with others to the extent of inducing _ejaculatio_. He must also add something to yesterday’s dream about defecation. Once at the seashore he heard a man groan in the lavatory. He climbed upon the side wall and saw the man masturbate. This so excited him that he climbed down at once and also masturbated. The stranger revenged himself by looking on in his turn and that increased tremendously the subject’s _libido_.

His dreams today are very characteristic.

_I am in a carriage and I am playing with an infant in swaddling clothes. I would gladly be rid of it. A man advises me to pack the child in a tin box,[39] and I actually do to._

Interpretation: he wants to be rid of his infantilism; he preserves it in a tin box. Compromise between the two trends. The next dream relates about a minister of the gospel who stands before a big hole in the ground and who interprets that hole to mean that asceticism is not a possible ideal. It is necessary to masturbate, at least occasionally. There were roots in that hole, which looked like hair. Next he is with his mother in a carriage. The mother turns into the holy Madonna or the holy Zara(?)

The earth, too, stands for the mother: mother earth. The hole refers to both, birth and death. One comes from the mother and returns to the mother. The mother appears again as the holy one, and as the Czarina, hence the mystifying Zara. The father is the Czar, just as in the Tristan dream he is represented by the king. Further meaning is obvious.

Hairs recall his peculiar attitude. Women’s hairs are abhorrent to him. His mother has long blond hair. The father was very hairy. Formerly all hairy men were abhorrent to him. Downy, young, feminine men are his ideal. He is continually seeking woman in man....

He reverts once more to the dream about the hole in the ground. He now recalls that dream very clearly.

I am again a pupil at school and I am being conducted to confession along with the other school mates. We stand in a wide, round amphitheater scooped out of the ground. The natural wall rises to a height of about 2 meters, all around. Above it there stands a wonderful temple-like edifice. A monk points to the wet spots upon the earthen walls and compares them to the erotic thoughts, which are also not to be rooted out of the believer’s conscience. I notice a bunch of roots on the wall and involuntarily I think of pudendal hair. The monk condemns asceticism.

A dream full of religious meaning. Already in some of the previous dreams the woman “upstairs,” or “above,” was perceived through religious over-determination as mother Mary to whom alone his love belongs and which he therefore must not squander on any earthly woman. He sees his grave which like a _memento mori_ admonishes him to regard this life as a preparation for the next.

Woman seems to be here the quintessence of sinfulness. Now we understand why the woman upstairs had a little child by her. It was little Jesus. He has soiled his pure faith. The brain which holds his belief (the earthen wall!) is likewise stained with his sinful erotic thoughts.

The great wall surrounding the place to a height of a couple of meters symbolizes all the inhibitions. He himself is the monk, he had a passing desire to become an ecclesiastic, he is a heterosexual ascete....

Last night many dreams of going through urinals. In one urinal he found a man who instead of a _phallus_ had a vagina.

Dissolute dreams. Among others a dream that he _podicem lambit_ a friend. He also entertains consciously fancies of like character.... Further dreams of mutual masturbation with a strange man. Finally the scraps of dreams culminate in a lengthier one in which he finds himself in the company of the girl he was very fond of as a boy. The struggle against the heterosexual tendencies goes on throughout the night and finally he is conquered.

Obvious resistance against the uncovering of the heterosexual tendencies.

One dream out of a large number deserves to be reproduced:

_I go on a walk with mother. We are tender with one another and she tells me sweet words. I pluck wonderful anemones from a river and want to make a garland to crown my mother with it. But the petals fall off and only the empty green stems remain in my hand._

Any one familiar with the symbolism of plucking flowers (_vid._ my _Dreams and Sex: The Language of Dreams_, translated by _Dr. James S. Van Teslaar_, Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922, Publisher) will readily recognize that this is a reference to an indulgence of an erotic nature. These love pats lead to empty stems. The love cannot come to blossoms or fruition.

He dwells on his relations with his mother. It is virtually a marriage without any erotic elements. He does not tolerate his mother’s tendernesses and he has asked her to refrain. There is now between them genuine shyness. Erotic matters are never so much as touched upon. Against his incestuous leanings he secures himself by the wall of an apparent aloofness. But they live together, they go out together, they share every enjoyment. His mother is a woman who has a grip on his whole life. And at bottom he is not angry because she has interfered with his other friendship. He understands her, that is, he sympathizes with her. That friendship was an attempt to free himself of the mother. But the mother instinctively did the right thing when she stepped in between her son and his friend. He does not at bottom care to be liberated from the slavery of his affection. He allows himself to be led about and to be treated as a child. He talks as if the love and the chain were disagreeable to him. Both trends—towards the mother and away from her—are active in his soul: bipolarity.

The treatment should improve his neurotic condition only but should not interfere with his attitude towards his mother. He dreams that he is well and that he tells his mother, now he is all well and they are going to be happier together than ever.

In connection with a dream another love affair comes to surface, dating some 16 years back. He courted a certain girl and sent her some poems. He thinks it was mere play, an attempt to “imagine” that he was also capable of loving girls. That is how he endeavors to dismiss lightly his heterosexual tendencies. But he thinks that the love poems were irrelevant. He also composed poems to his mother, when he was away from home for a short time:

“_Du meines keuschen Herzens Allgebieterin, Der ich mich neige in tiefer Demut_ ...”

_“You, mistress of my chaste heart, To whom I bow in deep humility_ ...”

The verses are full of yearning and passion. His blood calls for her, his heart is filled only with yearning for her. These are the utterances of a man who has lost his head by falling in love.

This case illustrates plainly the manner in which monosexuality leads to homosexuality. But the subject himself did not want to recognize any of these relations. All the powers of sublimation at his disposal he had turned into his love for the mother. Therefore he had to cling to a portion of his mysophilia (dirt compulsion). What he overdid on one side in the way of cleanliness was compensated for on the other by a sinking into filth. It is noteworthy that he does not care to be cleared of his homosexuality. He looks upon it as a protection and as something that sets him apart from other men. This again shows the hopelessness of any therapeutic endeavors in most cases of this type.

Since taking account of his dreams he is astonished how often heterosexual excitations come to the surface. Last night he dreamed, first, that he was with a naked woman, of wonderful build and that he _in vaginam et in anum immisit_ his finger.

Further, another remarkable dream, which played an important rôle in the solution of his neurosis:

_I am with mother at the Opera. A long hallway at the end of which one obtains a view of Vienna. One sees the wonderful St. Stephen’s Church, a fine cloud like a smoke or like a fine powdery water spray over its tower. The Opera is changed. Instead of Don Juan, the Donna carissima._

Already the first dream indicated a definite trend towards woman and now the change of program discloses the source of his neurosis. I ask him for a description of the woman in the first dream. He did not see her face at all. He merely saw the wonderful bewitching white body.

Such dreams—figures without faces—are very frequent and serve to hide the beloved person and to prevent recognition. I know dreamers who have pollutions with such half figures. The face is never visible. Often only a portion of the body. Through the second dream we may assume that the figure represents the mother. Otherwise it is hardily possible to explain why the face should have been subjected to the dream’s censorship.

The second dream belongs to the category of maternal body fancies. He is within the mother’s womb. The long passage he associates with: life’s pathway. It is in fact the pathway through which he came into life. Stephen’s tower is a phallic symbol. The smoking room, _ejaculatio_ or _mictio_. It is a representation of the illusion that he is within the maternal body and is able to observe from that point of vantage the process of generation. The dream becomes even more transparent when we learn that his father’s name is Stephen.[40]

Now his sexual infantilism becomes intelligible. He is under the spell of _Mutterleibsphantasie_, maternal body phantasy. Every lavatory becomes for him the symbol of the maternal body. There he watches the man urinating as he might have watched the father in the maternal body if he had had enough intelligence to do so as an embryo. It seems unbelievable that intelligent persons should become victims of so puerile a phantasy. Various facts always uphold the sense of such a phantasy. In this particular instance there was dislike for, and unpleasant sensations in, closed rooms, also a series of paraphiliac trend which found their explanation only through that phantasy. He revelled in the thought of permitting himself to be besprinkled with the spermatic fluid by his beloved male friend; he had a craving _membrum erectum amati viri fellare_; his urolagnic and coprolagnic proclivities, too, were dominated by the same phantasy. He behaved as if he were still in the maternal body.

But the dream declares clearly that a change of program is taking place in the play of his life. Don Juan becomes a _Donna_—_Carissima_,—she who is most dear to him. He has changed programs; and the love for the father he has transferred to his mother. He is within the maternal body,—he himself is the mother. He seeks himself, he is his dearest woman, he loves the womanly in himself. We have here the never absent love of the homosexual for himself—narcissism.

Various recollections come to surface, all showing alike that his earliest predisposition was distinctly heterosexual. Thus, for instance, at five years of age he fell in love with a girl, wanted to marry her, and called her his bride. We hear only of three heterosexual episodes belonging to his later life. It is not yet clear how this complete turning away from woman came about. Further inquiries reveal dreams of which I can only give a part. Thus he dreams:

_I study for an hour. My textbook is on various physical experiments, further on it turns into history. There is something in it about Bavarian history. The year 4005 plays an important rôle. The whole thing ends with a fairy tale about three pines which stand on a winter’s night before the house and signify three dead women._

_Later I act successfully as an imitator of women._

The figure 4005 brings the following associations: 00 is the sign for lavatory; 45 is the opus number of one of his favorite opera scores, the Salome of Richard Strauss; 4 and 5 are the bad marks at school.

The Salome of Strauss and a previous dream lead us to his sadistic trends. It becomes progressively clearer that his aboriginal sadism was extraordinarily great. To this day he revels in phantasies about sexual crimes, violent murders, etc. He toyed with the plan of killing himself as well as his whole family. Any opposition at home immediately suggests to him thoughts of murder. His original attitude towards woman, too, was sadistic. The chief motive of Salome is the severed head of the prophet. Also the pound of flesh in Shylock, in the first dream, refers to this trend; finally the dream about the bedbug. His religious trend set in early, thus protecting him against the wild beast within him. At six years of age he played that he was a preacher and he had his own altar. He fled from woman because he was not sure of himself....

He has a large number of idiosyncrasies which may be explained through a repressed sadism. He cannot eat peaches because their skins resemble human skin; he cannot tolerate the skin on parboiled milk, it brings on disgust and nausea; he often turns against meat and for a long time he confined himself to vegetarianism. Meat he calls animal carcass. The thought of a menstruating woman is particularly repulsive to him. All associations with blood are strongly affective, partly in a positive and

## partly in a negative way.

What is the meaning of the three pines which symbolize dead women in the dream? Has he lost three female ideals? He associates with “_Ein Fichtenbaum stand einsam im Norden auf kahler Höhe_,” etc., “a pine tree stood lonely on the bleak heights of the north,” the famous poem by _Heine_. That pine tree dreams of palms in the glowing climate of the Southern Country. There are no further associations. The theme “dead women” is met with considerable resistance.

I pass over a number of days which amounted merely to a preparation for the coming solution; and I shall report merely the most significant of the dream material.

Very important appears the following dream:

_Standing with father at a wide stream. A little white steamboat departs from us, turning and twisting like a reptile. I would have liked very much to be on it (though I do not know where I could have found place, it was like a microcosm). The ship is delayed and now we have to return by train. That the ship would have made better time is an opinion I dare not share with father._