Dream Work: A Psychoanalytic Perspective ______________________________________________________
DREAM III Client W is an anxious man 54 years of age. His dream occurred the night before his therapy session. I’m in bed, and I know I’m trying to sleep. I feel something on my head tugging or touching or hitting. I can’t see it, but I put my hand up and feel it to pull it down. I know it’s a small demon. I can feel it, like its little arm or something. I want to grab it, pull it down, and look at it. I get hold of it, but when I look at it—this is the crazy part—it is one of those transparent plastic salad containers! It’s empty—just a bit of residue of dressing on the bottom. Associations • Salad container: Eating salad is healthy, and an empty container indicates it has been eaten. • Touch on the head: Client W’s wife, A, touches his head when he snores to wake him up, but he was sleeping in the other room because she was sick. It is very important to Client W to stay healthy. • Demon: Client W has often said he continues therapy to stay mentally healthy and to “get the demons out” of his head. He recalls that, in childhood and adolescence, his dreams were filled with frightening fiery demonic images associated with priests’ warnings about the evils of masturbation. He dreaded sleep. He continues with current worries (e.g., conflicts he feels about the many demands made by his recently widowed mother). Analysis In this case, the wish filled was to exchange demons for good health. “Head” could be understood as “penis” and a wish to have it touched. (Client W often expresses unhappiness about A’s disinterest in sex.) W’s wish to pull the little demon seems linked to boyhood masturbatory wishes. Oedipal themes also remain to be explored. DREAM IV The client, S, is a woman 50 years of age who feared becoming “just like” her mother. Obese, controlling, and reclusive, her unhappy mother demanded constant attention and offered S little except rules and criticism. S’s early and disastrous mar- riage brought four children and years of self-doubt about her own mothering. S opens the session remarking: I had this amazing dream about my mother; I haven’t dreamed about her in 40 years! I dreamt I saw her, and it was her, but she was so different! She was still heavy, kind of like me—well, heavier than I am but not obese. She looked good! Her hair was done and pretty, and she was wearing make-up. She smiled, and she saw me. She really looked at me!
building manager told me that an upstairs office I had inquired about was rented. • Preparing a large meal: I had fallen asleep still hungry from my medical fast. • People all around me: While waiting for the colonoscopy, I had felt anxious and wished for company, a feeling I quickly rejected as silly. • L: Both the name and the image referenced a friend from high school days. She was a sweet, good-natured girl, first cousin to my high school boyfriend, B, who was competitive with C, L’s boyfriend. Both B and C were candidates for admission to military academies. C won an appointment, while B was only a first alternate. I remembered, too, that my father had once had a friend named L; both of my parents sometimes made playful teasing references to the “sweet L” of his youth (possibly my mother’s rival). • She must walk upstairs: I had no associations, but my analyst provided an interpretation (discussion to follow). Analysis A large meal is this dream’s first promise; it allowed me to sleep on in spite of hunger pangs. “People all around me” fulfilled another lingering wish: to have company and not be alone. L’s role is more disguised. What wishes prompted the appearance of my old friend? In our adolescent social circle, L gained boyfriend status over me through C’s achievement. The dream reverses that nicely; she must climb stairs to join me. Furthermore, L’s smiling, compliant presence is a comforting replacement for A, the cousin whose demanding ways and higher socioeconomic status had so irritated me. A mostly forgotten, decades-old affront to my pride links up with a fresh insult and suppressed wish (i.e., to have a richer husband than A) and appears in the teenage image of an old friend. Another wishful thought appears: if I am with L, I am young again, safely away from any need for colonoscopies. Finally, the upstairs kitchen with large windows grants another wish: to be like my admired colleague and have a better office. More could be said. The dream’s origin has been explained (i.e., preserving sleep in spite of hunger) and its raw material (i.e., suppressed feelings, memories, trivial events from the day), but questions remain. For example, why no associations to “she must walk upstairs?” Given the context of ambitious wishes and aggressive feelings (i.e., to have a better office, to eliminate rivalry with cousin A), is some conflict suggested? A look at history may be warranted. Is it important that memory shows my mother to be playful (not competitive or aggressive) in response to her rival? Dreams open the way to new material and also to a deeper understanding of familiar issues.
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