Dream Psychology

that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject
has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and his
dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so
that one might think of a reference to the mother.


4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.

(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman,
reported by B. Dattner.)

... Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a
policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a
church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there
was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was
furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who
went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins
sack-like aprons.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This
road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became
thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it
spread out into quite a forest.


5. A stairway dream.

(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.)

For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the
same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream.

"I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl,
whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the
bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman?)
I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find
myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the
child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my
genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very
distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways.
During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if
in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a
green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the
painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday
present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that
cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very
indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the
stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the
pollution."

Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of
the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some
pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the
dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly
took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however,
was quite unknown to him.

Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian
servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child "was made on the
stairs." The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual
occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the
home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for sexual
relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In
witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers,
the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar steps."

These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream
content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily
reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also
utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had
spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first
become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among
other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to
become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very
rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he
hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down,"
as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the
beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual
excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer
used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he
satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.

If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in
the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus,
the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is
shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual
excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this
is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the
sadistic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing,
indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous
excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in
the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the
middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of
pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream
interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured
undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole
stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for coitus. Freud lays
stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons
for the sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream
especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express
assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most