A dream exhorting the patient to mourn for her father's death

A woman in her mid-thirties, who suffers from severe anxiety and always dreads harm coming to her from unknown quarters, reported this recurring dream, which was going on for couple of weeks, and had started a few months after her father's death. The immediate cause was her going to Detroit's winter bash where young people were skating on the ice rink and feeling envious of their vitality. [She is an envious person by temperament.]
After returning from the rink she dozed off on the couch and the dream occurred for the first time.

My father is there in the apartment. I cannot see him but I can feel his presence as a tremendous pressure. Then I hear voices. The voices tell me that I forgot something.
On asking if the voice is that of her father. She said: No it is not my father's voice. But I know it is my father. The voices are more like a drone. Many people talking as if I am in a restaurant or a public place where you feel the presence of others without interacting with them.

Patient complained that the dream is driving her crazy because she cannot for the world figure out as to what she forgot. She has thought of million things, gone through every drawer in her bedroom and every nook and corner of the basement and racked her brain to no end, but still she cannot figure out as to what she has forgotten.
Then she conjectured that maybe she did not pay her father's money back, and there is guilt over it. "You know I always borrowed money from him but never returned any of it. I feel so bad about that. He was so mad in the end about my ceaseless borrowing he would not talk with me. For that George Washington you see on that dollar bill that was his God. By the end of his life all he lived for was to collect little amount of cash that came his way from all the rickety little businesses he had built around town. Not paying back his money sits on my chest like a brick. I wrote a letter to him as to how sorry I was for doing him that way but never gave it to him. There was some psychological block there.
Or may be I forgot to mention somebody at his funeral, maybe left out saying something about one of his three children [her three siblings] when I spoke there. I was the only one who spoke. I was the only strong one at the funeral. And it surprised everyone because I am the most messed up."

Patient then added that her dreams come true. She once dreamt a friend of her's shooting someone. The next day the friend got shot, and exactly on the same spot on the chest, where he had shot the other person in the dream. She could not explain as to why her prophetic dream did not show him getting shot the way it was going to happen the next day, though accurately telling the method of injury and the site of the wound.
She reported another dream where she saw the death of her father's best friend, Earl, who the next day did die.
Now such premonitory dreams of death is a symptom of obsessive thinking. The obsessional neurotic person believes that his or her thoughts are so powerful that they can magically cause death. And since obsessional neurotic's unconscious is filled with thoughts of causing others harm, usually by death, they are always doing away people in their dreams. And since dreams are nothing but our daily thoughts couched in the special language of dreams, the death of other people is a staple in the dreams of obsessive people. And therefore it is not surprising when someone close to them does die they can immediately recall recently having had a dream of somebody or other dying.
When asked if she also dreamt her father's death before it happened she admitted she did not. But immediately added that just before his death she did see him in a dream standing next to a window looking out of glass pane and then turning to her to assure that everything will be alright.
She claimed that the dream signified that he was going to die and it was his way of telling her that he was looking out of the glass pane at his approaching death and was assuring her that she will be fine with that."
"And I was fine throughout the funeral," the patient claimed. "I did not even cry, not even quivered my lips. In fact I was so strong and in so much control that my family was convinced that I was high on weed. I thought people were talking about me for not feeling any sadness and not crying. But I was like a preacher who is not affected by the death of somebody about whom he has to give eulogy. And my father did not look dead. He looked so good and young."
Now failure to cry or feel emotions at the death of such an important figure as one's father, especially in case of a girl, means that there is lot of undischarged anger or grudge, and the affect of revenge is holding back the tears.
I conjectured that the dream/her father was telling that she forgot to cry over his death. The love for her father was telling her that she should cry for his death while the revenge feelings were blocking out the last part of the command and the dream was allowing the expression of just half of it : You forgot something.
The woman was stunned and said, "I would have never thought of that," which is usually a phrase that declares yes I always knew that to be correct but only in my unconscious for I could never allow myself to think of it consciously. And then went into describing how she was her father's favorite, his little girl, and would sit on his lap as a little child till everything changed with onset of puberty and in the end they were not even on speaking terms.
"And why was that?"
"Because he favored boys over girls. He favored even a strange men, who would approach him for help and would give them start up money for their businesses but would never do that with his girls."
"That must be the reason why whatever money you took from him you did not return and could not make yourself to hand him the letter of apology and could not cry at his funeral."
"Yes," the girl agreed. But cried my heart out at the death of E, my father's best friend, who died two months before my father."
"So the tears for your father came out at the death of his best friend."
"Yes," the girl agreed. "I knew my father would be dying very soon too. Both E and my father were buddies from the earliest childhood, and both were on the brink of death. So you are right, I must have begun to mourn for my father at E's funeral."
"Why you would cry for E, but not your father when both were in the class of fathers for you?"
"Because E was gentle and unlike my father was not always exhorting me to be tough. Toughen it up. Don't let anybody see your weakness. Tighten it up. These were his favorite words and it kind of ruined my girlish nature. I became tough towards everything soft and feminine. In fact I became a tomboy. I have a real bad temper. I can really wallop anybody if they aggravate me beyond a point and that may be the reason I am always fearful because I can never trust myself as to when I will fly off the handle and maul whichever idiot is rubbing me the wrong way. So I guess by not crying at his funeral I was following his command to suck it up and not show any emotions. Giving him his own medicine you could say."
"Why did the voice not come from your father but from a number of people as if you were in a public place?"
" All it means is that not just my father but all my relatives and other people who were at that funeral are telling me to give up my grudge against my father and mourn over the loss of those happy times with him. These people are kind of authority to me just like my father was."

Defiance against parents expressed as love for Tosh.O brand of humor

A young girl, barely 21, brought the following dream to the session:

I am in a jail. The jail is run by Tosh.O, who is a comedian. It is so weird for it makes no sense. Why would Tosh.O be running a jail. Jail is weird too. It has a long corridor with jail cells on both sides. There are 2 or 3 people in each cell and Tosh O. is holding them there as some form of punishment. They are kids from my high school, which is so weird. J [patient's boyfriend] is with me. He finagles his way out of the cell in which we are. In fact, our cell is the last one in the hall. He goes after Tosh.O, and possibly gets caught, for there is this loud scream which must be from him and which wakes me up.

Now long corridor with multiple cells reminded me of the typical dream of going from one room to another in a house or hotel, and which is a pictorial representation of polygamy, but by reversal symbolizes marriage - since marriage is an institution that protects one from the trials and tribulation of polygamy. And from previous sessions I knew that the girl was struggling with the issue of marriage, not sure if she should make a commitment, despite being with her boyfriend now for over five years. It is unclear why she hesitates committing herself, though we both think it has to do with her great ambivalence towards her father, who she once loved very dearly - during the Oedipal phase - but now cannot criticize enough. The constant criticism of the father is an attempt on her part to free herself from her unconscious bondage to him.
Anyway, I began the analysis by asking her as to who in the world is Tosh. O.
"He is a comedian. Daniel Tosh. I love him. J records his show on the VCR, when I am not there. I also look for his shows on U-tube and Comedy Central. He makes completely off the wall statements. Stupidest things. Gross stuff. Jokes on celebrities, horrible ones, absolutely forbidden statements. I cannot get enough of him."
Now making insulting, gross and forbidden statements towards celebrities, or those who are in high places, has its roots in showing such off-limit defiance towards one's parents - especially father who traditionally has ruled the roost - but out of filial piety they are displaced and expressed against these parent- substitutes.
So her fascination for Tosh.O humor must have arisen from his irreverence towards authorities, I reasoned.
Being somewhat familiar with her problems - for behind her obsessions lie thoughts of harming her parents and simultaneously thoughts of protecting them from her harmful thoughts - I commented to her that perhaps she wants to change places with Tosh.O and poke fun at celebrities [her parents]. That alone explains why she brought Tosh.O in her dream and then declared it was so weird. [Declaration of weirdness about a dream or its elements is always embarrassment over the intensity of the displacement the dream wish has to undergo before the dream can show it getting satisfied.]
She agreed with that interpretation, but only after a slight period of incredulity which broke into an admiring smile, and then brought the following association.
"There is one scene of Tosh O which I found so funny. He shows a woman coming down the steps who is such a klutz that she knocks people down with her arms which are flying all over the place. To punish her Tosh makes her walk down the steps again, but this time with her arms tied, and on a chair, and she has to bounce down each step."
I conjectured that the series of jail-cells in the dream were possibly taken from the series of steps on which the klutzy woman came down. In the TV scene she was knocking people every step of the way and this scene is transformed in the dream to show Tosh O punishing people in that series of jail cells. The steps have been transformed into jail cells. Your classmates from high school were your rivals and, given your competitive nature, you are getting even with them in the dream.
Patient agreed with the correctness of the interpretation and added that it also explains as to why my boyfriend and I are at the end of the long corridor. This allows us to get a good view of all the people in those cells getting punished by Tosh. O.
I wondered if the forbidden insulting things that Tosh. O does to celebrities is something she envies and it is a talent which she would like to steal for herself so she can get even with her parents and he school mates.
The girl agreed with the interpretation.
There is one point which needs explanation. If she wants to steal Tosh O's talent why does not she go after it himself instead of sending her boyfriend.
To steal a man's talent in the unconscious is equated with stealing his manhood. There is too much affect of fear associated with that. So she sends her boyfriend. For woman's ambition traditionally has been fulfilled through the daring of her man.
And though her boyfriend successfully escapes out of the cell and goes after Tosh O. to steal his talents, he gets caught, and since she is identifying with him, she is the one who wakes up with a loud scream. The anxiety/fear trumps the wishfulfilment and wakes her out of her dream.

Hysterical fear of sexual intercouse occurring as a recurrent dream

A girl of 21 brought in the following dream, which she had regularly dreamt when she was about 4 or 5. Then after a hiatus of 15 years, while in a process of separation from her father, while she was on vacation, she dreamt it again.

She gave the following preamble to the dream:
There was a building on the street where I grew up which always fascinated me, perhaps becasue I never ever saw anybody inside it. Generally the parking lot was empty as well. The building had three large windows facing the street and they always had shades reaching right to the bottom, keeping everything inside hidden, which gave me the creeps. There was something uncanny about the building. It was a doctor's office.

The dream:

I am inside that building. Everything appears familiar, though in reality I have never been inside. There are masked men after us and in fact they have taken us as hostages. There are three or four of them. They are wearing ski masks. We are trying to escape from them underneath two desks that face each other. Under one desk is my mother, my sister J, and myself. My mother is trying to comfort and reassure me. Under the other desk are my mother's relatives. I look intensely at the carpet to forget about the masked men who are after us. The carpet has red, blue and black designs that I have seen somewhere. Since I am the youngest, my mother tells me to make my escape by going down the basement where there should be an escape door. But when I go down into the basement I find it completely dark with no way to escape. I notice pipes all over the place, perhaps connected to a boiler. I wait in fear of the masked men, and hear one of them coming down the stairs. He takes me upstairs. When I reach upstairs I find that he is my father. I feel safe and he puts me back under the table with my mother.

The above was the recurrent dream when she was 4 or 5. The dream that she recently dreamt
was almost identical except for one detail. The man who comes down the stairs, whose approach she awaits in great fear and anticipation, this time does not turn out to be her father but one of the masked men. One of the masked men who comes down and puts a gun against her head and pulls the trigger. She does not see herself dying, but wakes up in fright her heart beating fast.

"Why did you find that building creepy, and why does it come in the dream?
The girl could give no associations. But based upon our theoretical knowledge of typical dreams, we know that uncanny buildings, mansions, churches, temples, museums, statuesque structures, eerie ruins are typical dream symbols of the mother, and quite often taking refuge in them symbolizes the fantasy of returning/escaping back to the womb. Once the most familiar, or rather the only object we knew for nine months, the process of repression, changes it to something uncanny, strange and eerie. No different than how on returning to our old school or college or house or city, after hiatus of decades, we find everything oddly strange, as if we cannot believe that once it was the place whose every nook and cranny we explored. Even the feeling of strangeness and slight eeriness that women's genital areas and articles of clothing intimately connected to it give us, owes to the fact that it was once our home. The strangeness acts as a block/defence against the wish to go back there. The feeling of dread and eeriness which caskets, and other enclosed spaces, including the phobia of getting buried alive by mistake, arises from the same complex - the temptation and horror of returning to the womb.
So the dream is taking her inside her mother's womb (medical building) and we are left with no choice but to assume that she is frightened of something and is seeking her mother for protection. Now the dream portray the objec to fear as the masked men and so we have to analyze as to what danger is represented by the masked men, and what wish underlies behind for the fullfillment of which she is willing to court that danger.
At first she could bring up no memories to tell us as to where the masked men were taken from, but on some encouragement she remembered that when she was very young - and she confirmed that the dream started immediately after this event - one evening, while returning to her 'subdivision' with her family, some police cars rushed past them with their sirens blaring and lights blazing. Her father joked that for sure they are headed to our house. And to their surprise on arriving at their house they did find those police cars on their driveway.
Her half-sister T, about 13 years older than the patient, had broken up with her boyfriend, and he had come to their house in a ski mask and had kicked open their door, busted their windows, smashed a glass grille, and poured their alcohol in the swimming pool.
She went on to tell that the boy was weird and though her half-sister T had gone back with him, when he showed up at her graduation party, her father had gone after him to teach him a lesson. The graduation party had all her mother's relatives present.
"Now the memory accounts for just one masked man, why there are 3 or 4 in the dream?"
"Because if there was one masked man, my father would have overpowered him. But if there were three men than they would overpower him." So whatever the wish that needed fulfillment required that the father be overpowered, and she herself should be overpowered by the men. So here was the hysterical phantasy of giving into sex only when overpowered and having no choice over the matter.
"Any other associations to 3 or 4 men?"
"Yes, in my life about 3 or if you include my fiancee 4 men who have had romantic interest in me."
"Why these men are coming after you in a doctor's office?"
To this she produced the association that the fear of the masked men was similar to the fear of needle she felt when getting vaccine shots, and these shots were given in a a doctor's office.
So she was equating getting penetrated by the hypodermic needle with getting sexually penetrated by the masked men. So here was the [dreaded] central wish of the dream around which rest of the dream was festooned. The motive force was the desire for sexual satisfaction with the men who were taking interest in her, with special interest in the fourth one, her fiancee, and the dread was the reflection of fright over it.
"Any other association to the doctor's office?"
When they gave shots I tried to block out the fear by just look intensely at the red, blue and black design of the carpet.
The colors of the carpet also symbolized the pleasure that awaited her if she gets over her fright of getting [sexually] poked by men. This of course is my construction.

We are trying to escape from them underneath two desks that face each other. Under one desk is my mother, my sister J, and myself. My mother is trying to comfort and reassure me. Under the other desk are my mother's relatives.
There were two desks in our bedroom. My sister and I use to play underneath it using a computer keyboard pretending to be supermarket cashiers or doctor's office girls.
So here was the promise of becoming grown up, enjoying all the pleasures of adulthood, if one gives into getting sexually penetrated by men and from which she was running away and hiding under the desk, seeking the protection of her mother. Mother's presence next to her, and desk itself as symbol of mother attests to it.
Mother's relatives under the other desk appear in the dream because of her father going after the ski-masked kid at Sister T's graduation party. In the party all the mother's relatives were there. They come into the dream as an attempt to shift, at least partially, the danger of men from herself to them.

Since I am the youngest, my mother tells me to make my escape by going down the basement where there should be an escape door. But when I go down into the basement I find it completely dark with no way to escape.
Further elaboration - duplication - of the fantasy of returning to the womb. But what looks like escape turns into a no-escape situation for return to womb is one-way street to death/darkness. So the mother's encouragement/pull to return to her, instead of giving into having sex with men, is no solution either, and the dream shows it as absence of any escape.

I notice that it has pipes all over, perhaps connected to a boiler.

The association to it was A Nightmare on Elm Street horror movie and its main character the serial killer Freddy Krueger. Apparently in the movie Freddy Krueger gets burnt in a basement which has similar pipes and boiler. He also emerges disfigured and half-charred, evil and revengeful. Also the patient's association led to her recalling the detail that Freddie Krueger does the killing in people's dreams, and if they don't wake up in time, they die in real life as well. Recall here, how in her recent dream she wakes up before the masked man shoots her.
Now the lure of horror movies psychologically is based upon the lure of incest and dread and castration associated with it. So Freddie Krueger's coming after innocent children is nothing but fulfillment of incest fantasies with father where the guilt over it regresses the satisfaction in to sadomasochistic forms - getting shot or knifed. The fear generally completely blocks out the pleasure of the underlying sexual satisfaction.
The girl confirmed that as a child she was addicted to horror movies. A reflection of her strong attachment to her parents which was now making it difficult for her to make transition to strange men.
The pipes and boilers were allusions to male genitals rather an exaggeration of it - the eerie feeling, the horror of it - while the disfigurement and half-charring of the body were symbolizing castration.
The impulse to castrate was directed against her father [Freddie Krueger] whom she would encounter in her mother's womb as a competitor and find it as a danger. In her real life too, she had extremely ambivalent relationship with her father, whom she had once loved very dearly but now could not criticize enough.
So her fright was as much of getting sexually penetrated by men as of the fear of her own desire for revenge which would not hesitate to castrate, disfigure and char them who would dare to poke her.

I wait in fear of the masked men, and hear one of them coming down the stairs. He takes me upstairs. When I reach upstairs I find that he is my father. I feel safe and he puts me back under the table with my mother.
Here the father is being represented as her savior. "Instead of having sex with these strange men, who will penetrate me, and cause damage just like my sister T's boyfriend did to the window and the glass grille of my house, I rather run back to my father who will protect me and save me. In dream she climbs back with her father who puts her back under the desk with the mother [incestual fantasy with the father while in the womb].

In the contemporary dream, which was sparked by separation from her father, he is being replaced by one of the masked man.

It is one of the masked men who comes down and puts a gun against her head and pulls the trigger. She does not see herself dying, but wakes up in fright her heart beating fast.

In the recent dream, unlike the ones she dreamt as a child, she is making progress for she chooses one of the masked man as the person making love to her instead of running back to her father and mother.
To understand this we have to interpret that the sexual activity is depicted as getting shot with a gun and having sex is equated with dying.
The pounding heart is reflection of the anxiety that accompanies sexual excitement.

A Dream portraying hysterical ambivalence towards mother

A 17 year old girl, whose sister had died in an auto accident a year ago dreamt the following:

I have to save my mother. She is far away in a building, it could be a barn. A fire starts. I try to reach her but it is too late. By the time I arrive she is already burnt to ashes. I see the ashes on a bench. It is in form of her shadow, as if in her shadow she is still sitting on the bench.

This girl is having great difficulty in getting over her sister's death who was just 3 years older than her, and the two did quite a few things together. She has difficulty in sleeping at night. She is always anxious. She misses her sister so much that she has to often pretend when she goes to Mall or to places where they did things together that she is her sister. Fun things can only be done when she is pretending to be her sister, that way the sister does not miss out on fun. It is a mental mechanism to avoid guilt for having fun without the sister. Often she has to bargain with unknown entities that if her sister comes back to life even for a day, she will gladly go to jail for a year or for all her life. In desperation to bring back her sister she once shop lifted and hoped she will get put in jail. She had developed a special obsession to pay homage to the memory of her sister. Her sister's name had 7 letters. She would often repeat her sister's name visualizing the fact that it was made up of 7 letters and had also developed a superstition that number 7 was lucky for her. Whenever she could convert any number to 7 or some number connected with 7 such as 17 and would come across such a number as in receiving change back of 7 or 70 cents she would feel better and not guilty as if she had saved her sister's existence in some sense.

Now in contrast to her sister she has great ambivalence towards her mother. The mother is highly anxious person as well. She is always anticipating harm, and rarely leaves home. This fear of harm coming to her is also projected on to all those who are near and dear to her, including her children. She always has to know the whereabouts of the patient. The patient has to be in mother's vicinity lest something happens to her. If she goes out she had to keep in touch on phone every so often to reassure that she is doing OK.
As a consequence a dominant wish in the patient is for her mother to disappear (die). And to negate such an evil thought there also exists in her the counter wish that her mother should never come to harm and that she should save her mother from some ill befalling her.

The dream was expressing this ambivalence.

She is far away in a building

This was expression of the wish for her mother to go away as possible.
The fire started on its own but was giving expression to her own burning jealousy of her mother from an earlier period when she envied her mother and was burning to be like her mother. Now she was turning tables and making her mother burn. It was an act of revenge.
The saving of mother was expressing her love for her mother. This was the counter-wish - to save her mother from her hatred.
The bench could not be deciphered, but perhaps stood for the comfort her mother had once provided her.
The ash was taken from her sister's ashes. The sister was cremated and her ash is still with them. It was expressing the wish for her sister to be saved and her mother to die in her place.

It is in form of her shadow, as if in her shadow she is still sitting on the bench.

It is once again negation of death. Negation of her death-wish towards her mother - my mother did not die but is still alive and sitting on the bench

On successful analysis of the first dream another dream emerged in her consciousness.

I am in my bed and sleeping. Or may be I am awake. Because the room in dream is exactly the way it is in real life, and I am sleeping exactly the way I sleep. Or maybe I am dreaming while I am still awake because it is weird how my mind never shuts off, and even in my sleep my thoughts never cease to keep running in the background. In the dream - or may be she really did come - my sister appears and tells me that is is not all that bad here.

Now this patient has great difficulty in sleeping. She suffers from high level of anxiety like her mother, and one of its consequence is that she worries about harm coming to herself and those close to her. He obsessive fear of harm coming their way extends even to her dead sister, as if she will come to harm in the after life. To counter these thoughts of impending doom there is always counter thoughts running in her mind to block the anticipated harm. The background thoughts are also a method to constantly reassure herself that she is not going to disintegrate - a reflection of excessive anxiety - if she abandons her caution and falls asleep.
This state of affairs was present even before her sister's death, and was a result of her excessively high level of anxiety, which itself was a reflection of her highly sexual nature - she is suffused with sexuality - but it had worsened since her sister's death.
Now she had to be vigilant throughout the night, even in her sleep to prevent harm coming to her sister in afterlife.
Her mind had conjured up the dream to reassure her that her sister was doing fine in afterlife and so she could relax a little, and continue to sleep instead of waking up in fright.
When the dream was interpreted the patient exclaimed, "That is kind of creepy. I never quite looked at it that way. But it kind of makes sense." Confirming the correctness of the interpretation.

A Primal Fantasy dream expressed as a three-car accident

A woman of 26, related the following dream in a therapy session:

I am inside a car on the driveway of a house. The house is on a hill. I am four years old. Somehow I get out of my seat and mess with the gear which goes in reverse. The car starts to roll down the hill towards the main road where a car and a semi are coming from opposite directions and hard as I try I cannot stop my car's rolling down and it is crushed between the oncoming two vehicles.

When asked where is the house taken from? She said it is the house where she was born and where she lived the first years of her life.

Why the hill comes in the dream? The house was actually in a suburb which had rolling grounds. The dream was conveniently using the location of the house, without any need for modification, to represent coming down from a height and to represent the feeling of losing control over one's vehicle.

Now we know from "The Interpretation of Dreams" that climbing up or down stairs and romping on hills almost always signifies intercourse.

Playing with the gears could it refer to masturbatory activity? The patient drew a blank here but did not object to the construction.

Why are you going back? I guess I am going back in time to my childhood [to bring a closure to some unfinished business from that period].

At this point a construction was made based upon the theoretical knowledge of typical dreams from The Interpretation of Dreams:

Could it be possible that the car and the semi that crush your car represent your mother, father and yourself?

This provoked a gasp and confirmation of the correctness of the interpretation with:

"I would have never thought of that."

Now we know from Freud's article on "Negation" that no other sentence is greater music to the analyst's ear than patient proclaiming, "I never thought of that," or "I never quite looked at it that way." It says in effect "Oh I always knew that in my unconscious, but, now that you have directly confronted me with it, I guess I can admit to it, but only with a negative prefix." It is a best signpost that one is on the right track.

The patient, who I know quite well, is unhappy with her life. A most powerful wish in her is to return to the beginning of it and rewrite her destiny. The script of this wish/fantasy was carved when she was four. Till then the only child, she had to confront the unpleasant reality of the birth of her brother. Noticing the penis in this unwelcome addition (from her point of view) to the family, she had gone into intense jealousy and rage. The emotions had found outlet by resurrecting from her phylogenetic memory the fantasy of returning to the womb, participating in the parental intercourse there, sandwiched between the two (getting crushed between the two oncoming vehicles), and in the process wresting the coveted penis from her father, as her brother had done.

This fantasy had become more and more powerful with years as life had brought more disappointments. Birth of a second brother and the realization that she amongst all the siblings who had been specially chosen to be wronged.

When the interpretation was made that getting caught between the car (mother) and the semi(father) can be viewed as getting sandwiched between parental intercourse and satisfying the wish to make love to both the parents at the same time, she recalled another dream.

I am trying to escape from zombies. I am first running on foot then in a car. My husband is with me. I run out of gas and have to stop at a gas station. The gas station attendant who pumps my gas, when he turns around, shows himself to be a zombie too. He pours the gasoline on the car and then flicks a match. Then he goes back to purgatory.

Since the second dream was resurrected out of repression on analyzing the first dream, it indicates that our interpretaion of the first dream was hitting the right spots and undid the repression of the second dream enough for it to be recalled. It also indicates that the two dreams are most likely dealing with the same complex.
The second dream was not fully interpreted because of lack of time. But the two zombies turned out to be no other than her brothers who were now coming after her for stealing something (penis) from them. They set her car on fire. It probably symbolized her burning jealousy of her brothers. The theme of zombie was taken from her unconscious wishes for their death and her fear that they will return as zombies and take revenge.

Successful analysis of a dream leading to relief from the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder

This dream is of a 17 year old teenager; a talented musician who was plagued with crippling anxiety. Around the age of 10 or so he had crippling obsessions. He had the following dream, the successful analysis of which resulted in significant improvement: I am in my house, in my room, where I feel the safest. I hear commotion on the ground floor, as if somebody is throwing pots and pans and causing other disturbance. I come down and see my parents sitting on the dinner table. My sister is sitting on the bar stool. She is flipping a religious book. It is more like illustrated book of religious symbols, something like a comic book, for children. It is open at a page where there is cross. It is violet in color. And there is writing next to it that declares that I will be crucified for my sins. I view it sarcastically. I see two severed heads in the oven. It is grotesque but there is no blood to it. There is a sticky pad note on the oven that I will meet the same fate. Then we all sit down to dinner. Everybody knows that I will be killed, but my family is indifferent to it. Somebody comes and grabs me from behind and is about to strangle me when I wake up with fright in cold sweat. It took me long time to realize that the dream is not true. The boy came to treatment because of harrowing anxiety, constant irritability towards parents including feelings that they should die, feelings of unreality, severe fears of others, feeling that his friends and others kids don't like him, feeling like he is a fake and not a real person, fear that others can sense his thoughts and know that he is evil, guilt about having sex with his girlfriend, and thoughts of ending it all with suicide. The only relief from the turmoil in his mind and difficulty in interacting with people was in giving himself to writing music and playing it with his band. Fragments of some of his dreams had been analyzed before, and the therapy had proceeded far enough for him to have the insight that his obsessions were displaced expression of his repressed hostility. It was this awareness, along with the fact that he did not fear censure expressing such thoughts in therapy, that allowed his mind to dream the above frightening dream. I am in my house, in my room, where I feel the safest. This was the actual state of affair in his life as well. He was running away from the world out of fear of the consequences of his hostile impulses. The house and his room symbolized withdrawal into the womb - primal womb fantasy - where the dangers of the external world could not follow him. I hear commotion on the ground floor, as if somebody is throwing pots and pans and causing other disturbance. This was the stirrings of his hostile impulses in the dream. In the dream he had taken refuge in the sanctuary of your room, but his destructive impulses were following to and he had to pay attention to them as they emerged in form of pots and pans being thrown around in the kitchen. And they were emerging in regression. When he was much younger, he was given to throwing things in the kitchen when things did not go his way. I come down and see my parents sitting on the dinner table. My sister is sitting on the bar stool Now these three are the primary objects of his hostility. This had been established in earlier sessions through analysis of some of his obsessions. One such obsession was the compulsion to do everything four times. For example he had to open and close the refrigerator four times to make sure that the food inside had not gone bad [which would result in food poisoning of his sister, parents and himself; he had suffered from a few episodes of food poisoning himself]. There were four members in the family and opening and closing four times was "undoing the death wish" four times. If his attention was not fully upon this undoing process then he would have to repeat the ritual in multiple of four. He would have to do opening and closing of the fridge 16 or 64 times. His parents were on the table and the sister on the bar stool symbolized the different level of respect he accorded to his parents versus his sister. He had much greater hostility to his sister and less guilt over its emergence. That he had less probelm over visualizing his sister's death had been confirmed through analyzing a tormenting obsession of his from the past. The obsession involved checking and rechecking the toilet to make sure the cat [sister] had not drowned and died in it. She is flipping a religious book. It is more like illustrated book of religious symbols, something like a comic book, for children. It is open at a page where there is cross. Here the dream work had changed the logical sequence of the thoughts behind the facade of the dream. The punishment for the transgressions was being shown before the actual crime. The cross was showing that he will be nailed to the cross as a punishment for his death wishes. The fear that he will be nailed to the cross or subjected to other severe punishments was reinforced by his attending the Bible classes and listening to the sermons in the church when he was 10 to 11 years old. At that age his obsessions were at their zenith; sometimes he would lay awake all night dreading his impending death. Now at age 10, he believed in what was being taught to him in the church, about sin and punishment. But at 17, and under the influence of therapy, he was having doubts that if it was really possible for him to be nailed to the cross for having thoughts of his parents death. So the whole religious an-eye-for-an-eye doctrine was being mocked by declaring that it is as good as a comic book. It is violet in color. And there is writing next to it that declares that I will be crucified for my sins. I view it sarcastically. The association to the violet color was weakness and sissy stuff. This was once again making a mockery that one cannot take seriously what is taught in church about sin and punishment. I see two severed heads in the oven. The patient did not agree with my construction that they were the heads of his parents. Instead he said they were the heads of his grandfather and his girlfriend. Why them? Because his grandfather was given to licentiousness and in his mind she was no different. The interpretation was easy. It was she who had tempted him into sex, and it is she who is now causing this castration anxiety, and it is she who should be punished by beheading (a regular substitutive symbol for castration) not me. It is grotesque but there is no blood to it. It is lessening of the dread of castration to let him sleep. The essential nature of dream is to protect the person from waking. There is a sticky pad note on the oven that I will meet the same fate. His parents were in the habit of leaving sticky notes as a way of communicating in the family and generally for ordering the children to do things. This lack of direct communication, by the way, also contributed for the child to develop obsessions. So the fear of castration had its origin in fear of parents (father). Then we all sit down to dinner. Everybody knows that I will be killed, but my family is indifferent to it. It is unclear why they are having dinner. This part escaped analysis or rather I failed to inquire in to it. Perhaps it has to do with oral aggression and impulse to poison their food. Recall here his dread that he will poison them with rotten food of the refrigerator. Also at this point he also recalled a dream in which he was contaminated and had to go through a door to a chamber where he was decontaminated. This contamination dream alluding to his wish to contaminate the food of his family. The indifference of the family was alluding to the punishment being well deserved. Since he was wishing them dead, they were indifferent to his death. Somebody comes and grabs me from behind and is about to strangle me when I wake up with fright in cold sweat. This was his own violent impulses that were being redirected from others on to himself. The dreams showed it as causing the beheading of his girlfriend and grandfather and poisoning of his family but the facade could not be maintained too long and the aggression found its final outlet against his own self. Here too the dream kept on its purpose of maintaining the sleep by projecting out the violent impulse as coming from a stranger with which he can fight, but then the fear led to his not breathing [sleep apnea] and he woke up in cold sweat. It took me long time to realize that the dream is not true. This signified the intensity/strength of his desire to do harm and gave the vividness and sense of reality to the dream

Welcome to My Blog and analysis of a dream of falling down from the sky

Dear Friends,

This blog is for all those who are interested in learning about the deeper roots of human behavior. Things are often not as they appear. Our behavior is often driven by motives that are hidden from our conscious mind. The site is primarily to help mental health professionals learn about clinical issues which appear something else on simple questioning and superficial evaluation but on in depth evaluation show to have completely different meanings. I will post clinical vignettes and the insights gained from analyzing patients' complaints and symptoms. Dreams, of course, will be given a special place.

Comments on articles from psychiatric and psychoanalytic journals and newspapers, internet posts, using psychoanalytic method will be another feature.

Your comments and disagreements are welcome.

I may as well start with a dream that a woman patient brought to the therapy session a few days ago.

It was dreamt by a patient who is struggling with the issue of whether to or not to get divorced from her husband.

She dreamt:

A woman is riding on a bike. A little boy is on her side. The bike is like in the sky. Maybe it is on a wall like sometimes one sees in people's garages. The front of the bicycle is facing downwards, which is rather odd. The rider and the bicycle are as if nestled between a neon sign of a facade of a store. I am afraid that she will fall from the height. And to my horror what I fear begins to happen. She starts falling down. But I notice with relief that her fall is getting broken with her bicycle bouncing down a series of cars whose tops are bright violet and blue.

What is the meaning of the dream?

The method of dream analysis requires that each element of the dream be taken separately and associations to it carefully examined.


A woman is riding on a bike. A little boy is on her side.

She rejected my conjecture that the woman was herself and the boy her son.

Instead, she said, they reminded her of a woman who was her roommate long time back when she was a student. and after some reluctance brought following two associations to this part.

Long time back she was roommate of a pretty single girl who had a young daughter.

Anyone else?

My sister is divorced and has a daughter who is in college.

The bike is in the sky

That reminded her of her own precarious condition. She is terrified of being divorced and living on her own with a child. Her son, who is a minor.

The front of the bicycle is facing downwards, which is rather odd.

She had the following to say about this. She loved riding the bicycle as a child. Facing downwards was contrary to how things should be.

The rider and the bicycle are as if nestled between a neon sign of a facade of a store.

She has a boutique which makes a small profit. The neon sign on the facade was taken from there. She added that her courage to think of divorce came from relying upon her store to keep her busy and productive.

And to my horror what I fear begins to happen. She starts falling down.

This she associated with her fear that if she goes riding on her own, without her husband, she will fall. There was double allusion here. One fall was that she will financially not make on her own and everything will fall apart. But there was a second meaning. Without her husband to restrain her, she will have a moral fall, and she will be tempted to go out on the streets and may do immoral sexual acts with strange men.

She is highly moral person who in her waking life will not even think of having sex with anybody but her husband. Yet, she is highly sexual person as well, and does not trust her ability to not get seduced if she is living all by herself.

her bicycle bouncing down a series of cars whose tops are bright violet and blue.

The bright violet and blue brought up two associations. First had to do with her trying out violet and blue tops that afternoon in a store and resolving to wear bright clothes and not try to hide her body. She had also admired her beautiful body in the mirror while trying out those clothes and had told herself that if she gets divorced somebody will surely want to make love to such a beautiful person. Though she had immediately suppressed the thought as depraved and being unfaithful to her husband.

Her falling down from the sky was allusion to this moral depravity.

The blue and violet tops were also taken from the new bedsheet she had put upon her bed that evening and had noticed the brightness of the colors just before falling asleep, next to her husband.

The bouncing reminded her of her wish that her husband make love to her. She is still sexually attached to him, despite the fact that they do not get along and have not made love to each other in a long time.

So the bouncing was allusion to sexual activity in which she was taking the masculine role with a bicycle and striking his organ - the bright violet and blue cars - with her organ - the bicycle, an allusion to clitoris, which she considered inferior to his and also as morally depraved for using it in a masculine fashion.

Hence the sexual act in which there was a role reversal where she was identifying with her husband and making love to herself - the image of herself in the mirror dressed in blue and violet tops - was being condemned in the dream with anxiety of falling down from her high standards - falling down from the sky.