Curiosity of this kind is also found to underlie much of Children's questions that desire for knowledge which manifests itself in the incessant asking of questions so characteristic of children at a certain age. Where this is the case, the actual questions asked are often only substitutes for the real problem which so insistently demands solution—the problem of the origin of men—and are shown to be of little importance in themselves by the listless and uninterested way in which the child frequently receives the answers that are given him, making them, as he does only too often, the starting point for fresh questions, the answers to which prove in their turn to be equally unsatisfying. In all such questioning the true nature of the real problem is for the most part kept below the threshold of consciousness, through the operation of repressive influences, originating perhaps to some extent in the natural course of development of the child's own mind, but probably to a greater degree due to the attitude of his adult environment, which, directly or by implication, has taught the child to regard such questions as taboo. This notion The forbidden question in myth and legend of the question which is forbidden but which nevertheless imperiously demands an answer is one that is of frequent occurrence in myth and legend, the forbidden question often disclosing itself as one which has reference to the birthplace, parentage or birth of the hero (as for instance in the Lohengrin legend) or the origin and nature of man in general (as in the case of Œdipus)[68].
Under these circumstances, it may well seem to the child that his curiosity concerning the process by which he and other children came into the world could be most satisfactorily gratified by the experience in his own person of those events concerning which information is required. The motive thus aroused will then in many cases add very considerably to the fascination which the ideas of gestation and birth may already possess in virtue of their purely sexual significance. The desire thus satisfied may again in some cases be still further reinforced by the notion that the position of the child within the womb is a favourable one for finding out many things about the life of the mother and her relations to the father which may be otherwise difficult to discover; as in the not infrequent phantasy of observing the sexual act between the parents from this point of vantage.
Summarising our discussion as to the significance of the Summary womb and birth phantasies, we have seen that they may have any or all of the following meanings:—
As to the return to the womb:—
(1) An expression of the tendency to withdraw from the labours and difficulties of life to the place where the greatest possible freedom from such troubles may be found; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) the desire for the effortless gratification of all needs and wishes,
(b) the desire for protection from the dangers of the outer world,
(c) the equation of life after death with life before birth, the former being invested with all the supposed advantages of the latter.
(2) A sexual significance, as representing:—
(a) the closest possible intimacy with the mother,
(b) a means of attaining sexual intimacy with the father through fusion with the mother,
(c) a means of satisfying sexual curiosity.
As to re-birth:—
(1) A more or less symbolic significance; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) the desire for a more vigorous and independent mode of life, involving greater freedom from the protecting and guarding influence of the parents and especially of the mother,
(b) the desire for physical rejuvenation (of the individual, of the race, or of the means of subsistence),
(c) the desire for moral or religious improvement or conversion.
(2) A more literal significance, in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) a directly sexual pleasure in the contemplation of the act, the process of birth being treated as a substitute for sexual intercourse,
(b) the possibility of satisfying sexual curiosity[69].
(a) the desire for the effortless gratification of all needs and wishes,
(b) the desire for protection from the dangers of the outer world,
(c) the equation of life after death with life before birth, the former being invested with all the supposed advantages of the latter.
(a) the closest possible intimacy with the mother,
(b) a means of attaining sexual intimacy with the father through fusion with the mother,
(c) a means of satisfying sexual curiosity.
(a) the desire for a more vigorous and independent mode of life, involving greater freedom from the protecting and guarding influence of the parents and especially of the mother,
(b) the desire for physical rejuvenation (of the individual, of the race, or of the means of subsistence),
(c) the desire for moral or religious improvement or conversion.
(a) a directly sexual pleasure in the contemplation of the act, the process of birth being treated as a substitute for sexual intercourse,
(b) the possibility of satisfying sexual curiosity[69].