A very talented artist, who draws cartoons that rival the finest productions of Disney World, but who failed to get but minimal recognition for his extraordinary abilities, in his early thirties, came down with persecutory delusions, chief of which was that the security guards at the college campus where he worked at a low level job were following him. He stopped stepping out of the house (agoraphobic withdrawal) because whichever street he went, he was bound to run into black cars filled with security guards. He heard voices telling him that he will go to hell because he had indulged in too much masturbation. This was deeply disturbing to him because his brother and him, both of whom were single, and devoutly religious, considered the only purpose of life was to make it into the heaven by living the straight and narrow. At the church where he had regularly gone at least twice a week all his life, he was horrified to notice that blasphemous and sexually insulting thoughts against Jesus kept interrupting the church's pious proceedings. What was most disturbing was that these blasphemous thoughts could be seen by other church members. It was a classical paranoid breakdown.
Mellaril stabilized him.
Thirty years later, he brought in a dream which threw light upon the etiology of his illness. He was greatly worried, as he told the dream, whether it was not harbinger of his coming down with dementia soon.
The dream:
My memory was gone I did not know anything. I was in a group and I purposely sat in the middle of a round table where I could have no one to my left my right. People sitting on the table also were suffering from same problem. Just like myself they also could not remember anything. They were laughing at me.
The next scene was of my walking with my Dad and we stopped at Tim Horton's. My dad ordered a pastry - bunny pastry- and I ordered a hot chocolate and a beautiful cat pastry. The bill was 4 dollars and 99 cents.
Patient was assured that the dream was not a premonition of his becoming demented. The most priced organ in the body is one's genitals and losing it is the greatest fear man has. However, this fear easily gets displaced to fear of going blind, or losing a limb, or teeth falling out, or hair falling (going bald). In his case it had gone a step further and turned into losing his mind, an organ almost as precious as the genitals. The irrational fear was easily divined in his case as that of castration anxiety, which the patient has in plenty. When he has psychotic relapses he dreads the security guards cornering and castrating him. Once assured that the dream is not a harbinger of his impending dementia and that it is only a new variation of his castration fears, the patient was no longer afraid to explore the meaning of the dream, which earlier he had apprehension that if he tries to find its meaning the process of his going demented will hasten.
When asked why the table was round no associations emerged, but he knew that he chose the place where he was sitting because the seats next to him, on both sides, were empty. Which meant that the security guards who always keep eye on him were not there.
This was immediately interpreted as the dream wish was so strong that it had overpowered the dream censor (symbolized by security guards) and had made them disappear. The security guards were not watching him so he could do as he wished without fear of getting castrated.
When asked what could it mean that he and others on the table could not remember anything, he replied, it could only mean that I could do whatever I wanted do without fear of neither others nor myself remembering it. We were all demented. So the memory of what wrong I would do I need not fear they will remember it and later taunt me about it. The censorship however was not completely suspended because in the dream all those memoryless people were still laughing at him.
So far there was no trace of the wish. Only the agencies which had interest in quashing the wish - the security guards and his own moral sense and public's disapproval - getting their power nullified.
But what was the wish?
"Why Tim Horton's?" I asked him.
The patient could not come up with any useful associations.
"Why 4 dollars and 99 cents?"
"Everything now costs so much. A single sandwich whether at Arby's or at Tim Hortons invariably costs 4 dollars 99 cents." The previous day, patient had paid 4 dollars 99 cents for buying a gyro at the Arby's and that had made it into the dream as the day's residue.
"Was the wish seeking fulfillment before it would get too costly to indulge in it?" Patient half heartedly agreed with that interpretation. But added a crucial piece. His father in the dream was around 40 and he 20 when things were much cheaper and easily gettable.
"The wish had to be in relationship with the father," I told him.
Now eating sweets is usually symbol of sexual satisfaction. But who was he seeking the sexual satisfaction with? Did pastries symbolize woman which the patient was attracted to, the day before and now was enjoying her by turning her into a sweet thing? And was giving the same pleasure to the father? Patient felt that was correct but not the essence of the dream. And I agreed with him.
"Why the father's pastry was bunny and yours cat?"
Patient replied, the only thing that comes to the mind is the interpretation of another dream which we had undertaken a few months ago where he had dreamt of a beaver in a dream and it had symbolized female genitals.
"Are you saying the bunny and cat are alluding to genitals like beaver did?"
"I think they do," the patient replied.
Suddenly a conjecture struck to me. Are you and your father eating together the pastries is symbolizing sexual intercourse between the two of you?"
"I never thought of that," the patient replied. "It is so far fetched."
Now it is almost guaranteed when a patient says I never thought of that or I would have never guessed that it can be safely taken for granted that the interpretation has hit its mark. What the person accomplishes through that negation is to allow the repressed thought to emerge but with the negative sign so it can be acknowledged as true yet rejected as perhaps not for I did not ever even think of that. . It is a kind of confession that I always knew that being so but never allowed it to emerge in my thoughts.
Then as if to further confirm the correctness of the interpretation, he added, "But you are the doctor you know if it is true or not."
In his conscious thoughts he has no interest in man. He assured me that his father and he never had anything sexually inappropriate between them. But the dream allowed that repressed wish to emerge. And I could not help but deduce that his paranoid illness began as an attempt to suppress this homosexual thought from reaching his conscious mind. A complex thought (plan of action) has to reach consciousness before one can convert it into behavior. The paranoia of security guards following him, voices jeering him and people laughing at him, were all trying to keep the homosexual wish with the father out of his consciousness but at the expense of making him come down with frank paranoid illness.
