"Oh, Doctor," Bobby began, "it's really awful. I know it's going to happen, but I can't do anything to stop it. I stay up as late as I can, and I will do anything not to go to sleep. But when I do, I'll kind of wake up a little later, and I'll see Mother and Dad looking very worried. At the same time, I'll see a box, with white walls, glowing brightly, but not in the room where Mother and Dad are. It's in some space, I guess it's in my mind, a black space, with that white-colored cube just floating there. And then it begins to turn inside out. My stomach feels like it's turning inside out, and it hurts and scares me. It feels awful. I really think if the cube turned all the way inside out, I'd die. But it never does; I always wake up first."
Dr. Chase began to meet with Bobby three times a week. He gradually gained his trust. At a session during the third week of treatment, he asked Bobby if he would play a word association game with him.
DR. CHASE: Tell me what you think of when I say, "dog."
BOBBY: Cat.
DR. CHASE: Black.
BOBBY: White.
DR. CHASE: Chair.
BOBBY: Cushion.
DR. CHASE: Box.
BOBBY: House.
DR. CHASE: Angry
BOBBY: Mad.
Dr. Chase spent about fifteen minutes writing down some of Bobby's associations. Bobby gave back associations in the rapid-fire way Dr. Chase asked, doing this almost automatically, leaving no time to deliberate. Gradually, Dr. Chase felt he saw a pattern emerging, and he was able to confirm this from Bobby's associations in later sessions.
Toward the end of the sixth week, Dr. Chase sketched for Bobby's parents the interpretation he had developed during Bobby's short-term experience in psychoanalysis: "I believe Bobby has unconsciously been trying to tell you something in a highly symbolic form: often the mind expresses deep-seated fears in the imagery of dreams.
"I've tested Bobby in a variety of ways. Always, he appears to associate the box in his dream with home or with a house. I'm fairly certain that 'being turned inside out' symbolizes for him the process of moving out of all the houses you have moved away from. A house really is turned inside out when you move: all of its contents are taken out, usually in boxes.
"I believe Bobby is hurting because of your frequent moves. I think if you will stay in one place, even though I realize that you, John, would probably have to give up evangelical work, you will gradually see a real improvement in Bobby."
Dr. Chase's advice was received with a good deal of disbelief by John and Rachel, but they did, eventually, decide to try it. John became assistant minister at a local church.
Two years later, Dr. Chase received the following letter:
Dear Dr. Chase: