commonest sexual symbolism, and will easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from behind (between the two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it is only consideration for the wife which is responsible for the detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the previous day a young girl had entered the household of the dreamer who had pleased him, and who had given him the impression that she would not be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house between the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of that city.
If with my patients I emphasise the frequency of the Oedipus dream—of having sexual intercourse with one's mother—I get the answer: "I cannot remember such a dream." Immediately afterwards, however, there arises the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has been dreamed repeatedly by the patient, and the analysis shows it to be a dream of this same content—that is, another Oedipus dream. I can assure the reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with the mother are a great deal more frequent than open ones to the same effect.[1]
There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is always laid upon the assurance: "I have been there before." In this case the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can indeed be asserted with such
- ↑ I have published a typical example of such a veiled Oedipus dream in No. 1 of the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse; another with a detailed analysis was reported in the same journal, No. IV., by Otto Rank. Indeed the ancients were not unfamiliar with the symbolic interpretation of the open Oedipus dream (see O. Rank,106 p. 534); thus a dream of sexual relations with the mother has been transmitted to us by Julius Caesar which the oneiroscopists interpreted as a favourable omen for taking possession of the earth (Mother-earth). It is also known that the oracle declared to the Tarquinii that that one of them would become ruler of Rome who should first kiss the mother (osculum matri tulerit), which Brutus conceived as referring to the mother-earth (terram osculo contigit, scilicet quod ea communia mater omnium mortalium esset, Livius, I., lxi.). These myths and interpretations point to a correct psychological knowledge. I have found that persons who consider themselves preferred or favoured by their mothers manifest in life that confidence in themselves and that firm optimism which often seems heroic and brings about real success by force.
