But the dream declares clearly that a change of program is taking place in the play of his life. Don Juan becomes a Donna—Carissima,—she who is most dear to him. He has changed programs; and the love for the father he has transferred to his mother. He is within the maternal body,—he himself is the mother. He seeks himself, he is his dearest woman, he loves the womanly in himself. We have here the never absent love of the homosexual for himself—narcissism.
Various recollections come to surface, all showing alike that his earliest predisposition was distinctly heterosexual. Thus, for instance, at five years of age he fell in love with a girl, wanted to marry her, and called her his bride. We hear only of three heterosexual episodes belonging to his later life. It is not yet clear how this complete turning away from woman came about. Further inquiries reveal dreams of which I can only give a part. Thus he dreams:
I study for an hour. My textbook is on various physical experiments, further on it turns into history. There is something in it about Bavarian history. The year 4005 plays an important rôle. The whole thing ends with a fairy tale about three pines which stand on a winter’s night before the house and signify three dead women.
Later I act successfully as an imitator of women.
The figure 4005 brings the following associations: 00 is the sign for lavatory; 45 is the opus number of one of his favorite opera scores, the Salome of Richard Strauss; 4 and 5 are the bad marks at school.
The Salome of Strauss and a previous dream lead us to his sadistic trends. It becomes progressively clearer that his aboriginal sadism was extraordinarily great. To this day he revels in phantasies about sexual crimes, violent murders, etc. He toyed with the plan of killing himself as well as his whole family. Any opposition at home immediately suggests to him thoughts of murder. His original attitude towards woman, too, was sadistic. The chief motive of Salome is the severed head of the prophet. Also the pound of flesh in Shylock, in the first dream, refers to this trend; finally the dream about the bedbug. His religious trend set in early, thus protecting him against the wild beast within him. At six years of age he played that he was a preacher and he had his own altar. He fled from woman because he was not sure of himself....
He has a large number of idiosyncrasies which may be explained through a repressed sadism. He cannot eat peaches because their skins resemble human skin; he cannot tolerate the skin on parboiled milk, it brings on disgust and nausea; he often turns against meat and for a long time he confined himself to vegetarianism. Meat he calls animal carcass. The thought of a menstruating woman is particularly repulsive to him. All associations with blood are strongly affective, partly in a positive and partly in a negative way.
What is the meaning of the three pines which symbolize dead women in the dream? Has he lost three female ideals? He associates with “Ein Fichtenbaum stand einsam im Norden auf kahler Höhe,” etc., “a pine tree stood lonely on the bleak heights of the north,” the famous poem by Heine. That pine tree dreams of palms in the glowing climate of the Southern Country. There are no further associations. The theme “dead women” is met with considerable resistance.
I pass over a number of days which amounted merely to a preparation for the coming solution; and I shall report merely the most significant of the dream material.
Very important appears the following dream: