Not only did that nightmare disappear but very soon after, his dreams changed to visions of successful sex-gratification.
Dream insight based upon the personality of the analyst should not be considered as real insight. When a patient reports, “I dreamt that I was a baby but remembered that Mr. Tridon would call that a regression dream and I awoke,” or, “I felt that Mr. Tridon would characterize the whole thing as a masochistic performance and awoke,” much work remains to be done.
The dreamer must know that his nightmare is a symbol and not merely know that his analyst would call it a symbol.
When the dreamer has acquired the technical skill which enables him, after a little concentration and meditation, to interpret his own sleep visions, he is no longer at the mercy of the annoyance called nightmare. When he can see at a glance where the repression seems unbearable, he may devise ways and means to satisfy his cravings more completely if they are justifiable and lawful; if they are unjustifiable or socially taboo, he may seek substitutes for them and, especially as I have explained in another book, free them from the parasitic cravings which make them unduly obsessive.
He who can read the indications of his own dreams, has at his disposal an instrument of great precision which indicates to him the slightest fluctuations of his personality and, besides, points out various solutions for the problems of adaptation which the normal, progressive human being must solve every day of his life.
Oneiromancy is the algebra which enables us to perform rapidly complicated calculations in the mathematics of psychology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abrahamson, I.—Mental disturbances in lethargic encephalitis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. September 1920.