The symptom is thus an indirect expression of the nonconscious wishes, which, were they conscious to us, would come into a violent conflict with our conceptions of morals. This shadowy side of the soul withdraws itself, as has once been said, from the control of the consciousness; by so doing the patient can exert no influence upon it, cannot correct it and can neither come to an understanding with it nor get rid of it, because in reality the patient absolutely does not possess the subconscious passions. Rather they are repressed from out the hierarchy of the conscious soul, they have become autonomous complexes, which can be brought again into consciousness only with great resistance through analysis. Many patients think that the erotic conflict does not exist for them; in their opinion the sexual question is nonsense; they have no sexual feeling. These people forget that in place of that they are crippled by other things of unknown origin. They are subject to hysterical moods, bad temper, crossness, from which they, no less than their associates, suffer. They are tortured by indigestion, by pains of every sort, and are visited by the whole category of other nervous phenomena. They have this in place of what they lack in the sexual territory, because only a few are privileged to escape the great conflict of civilized man of the present day. The great majority inevitably takes part in this common discord.
As specimens of dream-analysis I will give resumes of two histories of illness told me by Dr. Jung.
ANALYSIS AND CURE OF A CASE OF NERVOUS PROSTRATION
A twenty-year-old banker's son, from a large city in Hungary, suddenly grew sick two years ago, shortly after his father had suffered an attack of apoplexy and paralysis of the right side. He is spiritless, restless, not able to work, cannot use his right arm to write, is powerless to put his attention on anything, sleeps badly, etc. No treatment has any helpful effect. He is advised to seek distraction in Paris, but this, too, is of no avail. Then, after months of torture, he came to Zurich to Dr. Jung, who subjected him to analysis. At the second visit the patient behaved extremely mysteriously; he was much disturbed and appeared to be under the influence of an anxious dream, which he had dreamt that night. It required some effort to induce him to tell this dream, and it was only after he had convinced himself that no one could listen in the hall, that this story, not without emotion, came out.
"I see in a vault a coffin in which my father lies, and I beside him; in vain I attempt to remove the lid, and in my horrible fear I awake."
Some days were employed with the analysis of this dream. The explanation of it is: he has a very strong father-complex. From childhood up he has always been with his father, he has assumed the role of his father's wife, has cared for him, lived for him. He often reproached his mother for not making enough of the father, for not always cooking his favorite dish, for sometimes contradicting him, etc. He was always around with his father, worked at his office, served him in all sorts of ways, and anticipated all his wishes. Now, when the father suddenly became an invalid, the conflict arose. He identifies himself with the father. His father's invalidism becomes his own, he cannot think any more, he cannot write any more, and he sees death approaching. In the dream he is apparently dead, but his youth, his strength refuses to die, and this is translated in his attempts to get out of the coffin, which explains the fear.
The explanation brings relaxation. After some days, during which the patient communicates his secret thoughts in detail, he feels very much better, his heavy burden has been rolled away, and he cannot find words enough to express his thanks to the doctor. The latter points out to him that however natural this feeling of thankfulness may be, it is partly a symptom of the cure at his hands. He shows the patient how the latter, who had seen through the analysis that his love for his father has been exaggerated and morbid, had been able to control this, and how he now transfers to him, the assisting physician, the need for love, freed from suffering along the way of sublimated homo-sexuality. He impresses upon him that he must now learn to moderate the sympathy, which he expresses too feelingly, and that he must not desire to see another father in the doctor, but simply a friend, who is teaching him to stand on his own feet and to become an independent man. After a few more weeks the young man was entirely cured of his neurosis, freed from his exaggerations and returned home a well man.
ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF SLEEPLESSNESS
Once when traveling I made the acquaintance of a naturalist who not long before had completed a famous exploring expedition in distant countries. During this expedition he had been almost constantly in peril of his life. Almost every night he had had to stay awake and watch so as not to be set upon and killed. He had been back in England a short time and had completely recovered from the privations and sufferings he had experienced, but he suffered desperately from insomnia. On his return he had slept well, but a month before his sleep had suddenly begun to be disturbed.
Knowing me to be a neurologist, he asked my advice. I inquired about the patient's former life, but discovered that my traveling companion was little inclined to be communicative in this direction, in fact he was strikingly reticent. To my inquiry about the immediate origin of the insomnia, he told me it was immediately connected with a miserable dream which he had dreamt a month past, and from which he had awakened in terrible anxiety. I asked him to tell me this dream and gave him hope that perhaps the analysis of this might succeed in laying bare the cause of the insomnia. The substance of the dream was as follows: