Additional: Once I found myself in a theater in the first row of a balcony. Tristan was being given for the occasion. Instead of the orchestra leader, André Rose was leading. A fine one-year volunteer, Einjahrig-Freiwilliger, back of me, in the second row, was singing Tristan in the style of the modern recital song. Next to me sat my aunt who is linked with memories of my kindergarten age. I had the unpleasant feeling that I was involuntarily sliding down towards the ground floor, and therefore I leaned heavily back in my seat stretching out my legs and trying to support myself by pressing my toes against the foot support (bed foot-board?). I had the uncanny feeling that the foot rest might give way and fall off like a piece of paste board. I begged my aunt to lift me carefully. I felt like a very sick person. Sitting again upright I felt well and refreshed and I was just in time to see the curtain drop over the stage and a number of persons appearing in front of it, among them several gentlemen in evening dress. Obviously the performance is being cancelled. The public broke into ironic applause, whistled and howled.
Another dream: Late at night in a big garden. Many people about to take their leave after an afternoon spent in irrelevant gossip. My parents were also among those present. My father was in a hurry to get to town. He leaves. It is very dark. Presently a station bell, the whistle of a locomotive. I shout into the night’s darkness not knowing whether any one hears me or not: he is lucky! He is just in time to catch the train. And I think of following in an hour. I am very tired. I am happy in my bed at home.
Sunny afternoon in a poor quarter of a suburb. Under a window of an apartment window there are a number of tin vessels which I know, belong to the woman above. An elderly woman is preoccupied with the vessels, holding each vessel up to the light, as if testing them, but I know that she is merely awaiting the opportunity to run off with them. A window is raised in the neighboring house, a woman calls out to the woman living in the apartment under whose window the vessels are lying, to watch out for the stranger. By that time I myself am standing in the owner’s room. She is just putting on her best toilette. The warning neighbor appears and scolds the vain woman who on account of her vanity neglects to watch out for her things.
Addition: I was in the next room. The woman had a little girl with her. I held my penis in hand pursued the two and wanted them to take it in their hand; and thus the ejaculation....
The woman’s hands disgusted me because they were dirty.
This is hardly the place for a complete analysis of the whole dream. The first part, the falling into a deep basin is a hypnagogic vision and represents the process of falling asleep, the descent into the depths of primordial man. The rapidly passing automobile, the danger. The representation of Tristan refers to a great passion for a queen. Schœnbrunn, the former Kaiser’s summer residence, refers to the parental home. Isolde is also a queen, who is lost forever for Tristan. Is it not rather remarkable that he should dream of Tristan and Isolde, the quintessential epic of heterosexual love? And does not the cancellation correspond precisely to his cryptic wish? The thought of a fall into the depths is continually recurring as well as the inhibitions about things not holding out (hence the steadying with the feet for support). The man in evening dress represents the love of a modern cultural man in contrast with a Tristan. He himself is Tristan, the onlooker and the singing Einjährig-Freiwillige. Finally another picture: parting, i.e., his father’s death: “He was lucky.” What is the meaning of that? He has caught the train on time! Recalling that in one of his previous dreams the subject was unable to catch the electric car, we understand that his father found time to attain his aim,—a tempo—while he himself is late. We shall be informed presently about the meaning of this aim. And back of all inhibitions another picture breaks forth: he runs after an old woman with his erect membrum (the child is a symbol for the genitalia. Cp., in this connection, The Language of Dreams, Dreams and Sex, Chapter, “Children in Dreams,” translation by James S. Van Teslaar, Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922).
He is not a little surprised that his dreams portray heterosexual feelings. Heretofore he had paid no attention to his dreams.
I have not yet stated whom the old woman represents. He is asked to mention any woman that occurs to him and after some hesitation he states: my mother.
Here we come across one of the roots of his homosexuality, one that perhaps we anticipated. But thus far I avoided any inquiries about his attitude towards the mother.
What is the meaning of that portion of the dream which portrays a number of tin dishes? I perceive this as follows: He does not possess many treasures, it is all mere tin, but such as it is it all belongs to the woman above ... the mother. The neighbor warns the mother that another woman might rob her of her son’s affection. The mother is very vain and spends considerable time preparing her toilette.