A retired patriarch in his mid seventies, father of six children and grandfather of at least a dozen, a devout catholic, straight as an arrow in his dealings with others, on the matter of sex having given up its practice with his wife of fifty years for quite a while due to excessive familiarity, the libido sublimated into church activities, helping others, rescuing abandoned or hurt animals, taking active interests in grandchildren's progress, and doing whatever else that would please God, so he is on the right side of His ledger when his earthly sojourn ends, came to the session with the following dream - he is a prolific dreamer and communicates the psychic material in the treatment primarily through dreams - and which he had titled on the page where he had neatly typed it as he always does with dreams that he finds of interest:
"The Dead Girl and The Stereo System"
My dream was very disturbing because I thought it was real. Someone, unknown person, was behind me but I don't know who it was. We approached a door at the end of a dark, narrow hallway and an older woman abruptly pushed out the body of a young dead woman. The dead girl had long brown hair and was about in her 20's, The older woman said to me; "Here, you can have her, do what you want. " I got the impression she was telling me I could have sexual relations with this dead woman. the person who had been with me left. Although I was shocked, I picked the woman up in arms and carried her to a public area with people on a beach. I had a blanket with me and covered us up like she was sleeping at the beach and figured someone would find her there eventually and call the authorities Later I thought "I can't believe I had sex with a dead woman! They'll find DNA on her body and link her to me, I'll be in trouble." Then I thought; "This must be be a dream but it seemed like it really happened so it can't be."
The scene switches to another place where I was going in an apartment with some stereo equipment along with several other guys. I knew we were not supposed to be there as it was not ours nor were we invited, but we went in anyway. I noticed a guy sleeping in a bed partially covered up with blankets and thought "He's going to discover us here and we'll be in trouble." The guy woke up and instead of us running out, I made up this story about us delivering stereo equipment to his apartment, as if I got the address wrong and just came in. His daughter also arrived and asked where the equipment came from and I said "Sears." I noticed something else in the apartment with a Sears tag on it. We continued to try and install the equipment as though they won it as a prize.
Analysis:
The dream was very disturbing because more intense, forbidden, and taboo the wish that dream shows fulfilled, greater is the punishment/disturbance over it. And nothing is more forbidden, taboo and intense as are the oedipal/incestual wishes. Let us see if at the completion of the analysis this tenet of psychoanalysis proves to be true.
It felt real - the more pent up the wish greater is the satisfaction obtained from its if it finds representation in dream, and greater the satisfaction more real the dream feels while one is dreaming it.
Someone, unknown person, was behind me but I don't know who it was. Unknown person in dreams usually signifies someone very familiar (generally family member) whose identity is repressed to enable the dreamwork to do its job. Familiar is rendered into unknown through "reversal". Whispering voices of paranoid schizophrenic, which are often very annoying and irritating, because their tone is hostile and derogatory, but whose identity and the content of what they are talking remains indecipherable, sometimes not rising above the level of tinnitus, are no more than the voices of family members often arguing with each other over the patient's conduct.
On my conjecture the unknown person was his father keeping an eye on him, he rejected it because the person was someone of the same age as himself.
"Perhaps it is that aspect of you which, incorporated from your father, acts as your father towards you, your conscience?"
Patient agreed with that and added that yes the unknown person was felt as a restraining influence, whose oppressive influence waxed and waned but was never absent throughout the dream.
We approached a door at the end of a dark, narrow hallway and an older woman abruptly pushed out the body of a young dead woman. The dead girl had long brown hair and was about in her 20's
Based upon they being typical symbols the door was interpreted as the genital opening and the narrow hallway genital passage. The old woman was his mother, the brown-haired dead girl was his sister. Patient first found it hard to accept these conjectures which were based upon my great familiarity with this patient's intrapsychic life, he being in treatment with me for at least a decade. A general conversation followed in which we discussed among other things how the abuse of mother-incest (mother-fucker) is treated as the worst insult across all cultures, but in India sister-incest (sister-fucker) is used too and perhaps more often and no doubt because while conveying the same category of insult, the guilt over it is less. This led to the patient recalling that the older woman's stocky legs and the brown hair of the young dead woman was taken from the stocky legs of his mother and brown hair of his sister respectively.
The older woman said to me; "Here, you can have her, do what you want. " I got the impression she was telling me I could have sexual relations with this dead woman. the person who had been with me left. Although I was shocked, I picked the woman up in arms and carried her to a public area with people on a beach. I had a blanket with me and covered us up like she was sleeping at the beach and figured someone would find her there eventually and call the authorities
The guilt over having sex with the mother was too strong for it to make it into the manifest content so it had to emerge as having sex with his sister. The horror of sister-incest is markedly less. The unknown person's leaving, and the mother herself handing him the sister, was to do away with the restraining influence (censorship) emerging from the parental source (superego). If the mother herself was ordering him to indulge in incest and the father now absent from the scene of the crime it was easier to dream the forbidden. However absence of the parents was replaced by presence of other people on the beach. As we emerge out of the influence of the parents fear of pubic opinion replaces their absence in keeping us in line. To overcome the public disapproval of what the was planning the wish nullified it by doing the act under the cover of the blanket. This dream is a good illustration of how "the wish" and "its censorship" struggle back and forth in construction of dreams bringing all the dream distortions.
Later I thought "I can't believe I had sex with a dead woman! They'll find DNA on her body and link her to me, I'll be in trouble." Then I thought; "This must be be a dream but it seemed like it really happened so it can't be."
Once the wish was fulfilled the censorship now took the upper hand and the fear of the act being discovered by authorities took hold of his mind. The anxiety was about to wake him but the wish to sleep countered it by making him realize that it is just a dream. But the censorship not to be left behind declared that if it feels like it really happened then it is not a dream but reality. The feeling that he was really indulging in incest and not dreaming it was not just adding to the pleasure from the wish fulfillment but also causing the distress ("the dream was very disturbing").
The scene switches to another place where I was going in an apartment with some stereo equipment along with several other guys. I knew we were not supposed to be there as it was not ours nor were we invited, but we went in anyway.
As he managed to continue to sleep despite the anxiety and distress at doing the forbidden, the wish sought another round of satisfaction through a second edition of the act. The genital passage of the mother became apartment, his genitals became the stereo equipment, and now to lessen the guilt he was going to participate in the company of other men. Herein lies the psychology of orgies and of multiple men having sex with a single woman It is to lessen the fear and guilt of indulging in the forbidden sexual act by shifting the blame to the group instead of shouldering it all by oneself. The restraining influence (censorship) is now felt by the nagging feeling that we are not invited to the apartment and it is not ours (the mother and sister belong to the father).
I noticed a guy sleeping in a bed partially covered up with blankets and thought "He's going to discover us here and we'll be in trouble."
The sexual act that took place earlier in the cover of the blanket is now truncated in its manifestation by just showing the blanket. The guy is his father and himself rolled into one, with part of the father acting as the restraining influence - "He's going to discover us here and we'll be in trouble." - and part as an accomplice in the crime.
The guy woke up and instead of us running out, I made up this story about us delivering stereo equipment to his apartment, as if I got the address wrong and just came in.
The guy was now entirely the restraining father, and he was making excuses for the crime of incest. Excuse of wrong address was trying to pull wool over his father's eyes by making it an accidental incest not a deliberate one.
His daughter also arrived and asked where the equipment came from and I said "Sears." I noticed something else in the apartment with a Sears tag on it. We continued to try and install the equipment as though they won it as a prize.
Guy's daughter was of course his sister. Sears was allusion to his mother and sister both being dead. The dream refers to Sears twice. Sears stores are all closed and dead now. Telling the guy (father) that he is installing the equipment as a way to provide them as prize was attempt to con him that I am not "screwing your wife and daughter" but giving you a present.
The question arises why did he suddenly had this eruption of incestual desire given his age and his long ceasing to be a physically sexual person. As we get older the desire to reunite with the mother (incest with her) emerges in the dream as reuniting with the mother-earth and is frequently symbolized by reaching journey's end, though usually shown by reversal as missing out on reaching the journey's end by not being able to make it on time to the airport or in failing to board the train due to various obstructions or being lost on the streets unable to find the address where one is supposed to be. In this dreamer's case the wish to reunite with the mother, which all of us did for at least nine months uninterruptedly and throughout life long for its repetition, instead of showing it in symbolic/displaced form showed it in its raw sexual version, the oedipal version. This was perhaps made possible by sister-incest replacing the mother-incest. The element of derailment to prevent from reaching journey's end (death/mother-incest)) which in other dreams in shown as missing the train, plane etc. is shown here by the sexual act getting derailed into occurring with the sister instead of the mother.
The greatest sorrow of the patient's life is the death of his sister when she was just 38 due to alcoholism. He has always carried a load in his heart for not doing enough for her to save her from her cruel fate. If there is one thing on his bucket list it is to make amends to his sister for this failure of his. The love making was not just to seek pleasure in the incest but to rescue her from her fate. It is through having sex and giving a child to our partner we rescue each other from death.
That his sister was made dead before making love to her was partly expressing his ambivalence towards his mother and sister, especially towards his mother who could be very mean towards others, including him - he still harbors great resentment and death wishes towards her - but partly by making her sister dead while he was indulging in the forbidden act, he was making sure that the sister does not notice what he was doing to her, for if she was dead she wouldn't notice a thing, let alone that she was being made his sexual object.
