On account of their similar affective character, the dreams of missing a train deserve to be ranked with the examination-dreams; moreover, their interpretation justifies this approximation. They are consolation- dreams, directed against another anxiety perceived in dreams- the fear of death. To depart is one of the most frequent and one of the most readily established of the death-symbols. The dream therefore says consolingly: "Reassure yourself, you are not going to die (to depart)," just as the examination-dream calms us by saying: "Don't be afraid; this time, too, nothing will happen to you." The difficulty is understanding both kinds of dreams is due to the fact that the anxiety is attached precisely to the expression of consolation.

The meaning of the dreams due to dental stimulus which I have often enough had to analyse in my patients escaped me for a long time because, much to my astonishment, they habitually offered too great a resistance to interpretation. But finally an overwhelming mass of evidence convinced me that in the case of men nothing other than the masturbatory desires of puberty furnish the motive power of these dreams. I shall analyse two such dreams, one of which is also a flying dream. The two dreams were dreamed by the same person- a young man of pronounced homosexuality which, however, has been inhibited in life.

He is witnessing a performance of Fidelio from the stalls the of the operahouse; sitting next to L, whose personality is congenial to him, and whose friendship he would like to have. Suddenly he flies diagonally right across the stalls; he then puts his hand in his mouth and draws out two of his teeth.

He himself describes the flight by saying that it was as though he were thrown into the air. As the opera performed was Fidelio, he recalls the words: -

He who a charming wife acquires.... -

But the acquisition of even the most charming wife is not among the wishes of the dreamer. Two other lines would be more appropriate: -

He who succeeds in the lucky (big) throw

The friend of a friend to be.... -

The dream thus contains the lucky (big) throw which is not, however, a wish-fulfilment only. For it conceals also the painful reflection that in his striving after friendship he has often had the misfortune to be thrown out, and the fear lest this fate may be repeated in the case of the young man by whose side he has enjoyed the performance of Fidelio. This is now followed by a confession, shameful to a man of his refinement, to the effect that once, after such a rejection on the part of a friend, his profound sexual longing caused him to masturbate twice in succession.

The other dream is as follows: Two university professors of his acquaintance are treating him in my place. One of them does something to his penis; he is afraid of an operation. The other thrusts an iron bar against his mouth, so that he loses one or two teeth. He is bound with four silk handkerchiefs.

The sexual significance of this dream can hardly be doubted. The silk handkerchiefs allude to an identification with a homosexual of his acquaintance. The dreamer, who has never achieved coition (nor has he ever actually sought sexual intercourse) with men, conceives the sexual act on the lines of masturbation with which he was familiar during puberty.

I believe that the frequent modifications of the typical dream due to dental stimulus- that, for example, in which another person draws the tooth from the dreamer's mouth- will be made intelligible by the same explanation. * It may, however, be difficult to understand how dental stimulus can have come to have this significance. But here I may draw attention to the frequent displacement from below to above which is at the service of sexual repression, and by means of which all kinds of sensations and intentions occurring in hysteria, which ought to be localized in the genitals, may at all events be realized in other, unobjectionable parts of the body. We have a case of such displacement when the genitals are replaced