neurosis. He dreamed that he called at a house where he had been twice before. But this very patient had long ago told me of an episode of his sixth year. At that time he shared his mother's bed, and had abused the occasion by inserting his finger into his mother's genitals while she was asleep.

A large number of dreams, which are frequently full of anxiety, and often have for content the traversing of narrow spaces, or staying long in the water, are based upon phantasies concerning the intra-uterine life, the sojourn in the mother's womb, and the act of birth. I here insert the dream of a young man who, in his phantasy, has even profited by the intra-uterine opportunity of spying upon an act of coition between his parents.

He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window, as in the Semmering tunnel. Through this he sees at first an empty landscape, and then he composes a picture in it, which is there all at once and fills up the empty space. The picture represents a field which is being deeply tilled by an implement, and the wholesome air, the associated idea of hard work, and the bluish- black clods of earth make a pleasant impression on him. He then goes on and sees a work on education lying open... and is surprised that so much attention is devoted in it to the sexual feelings (of children), which makes him think of me.

Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient, which was turned to special account in the course of treatment.

At her usual holiday resort on the... Lake, she flings herself into the dark water at a place where the pale moon is reflected in the water.

Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their interpretation is effected by reversing the fact recorded in the manifest dream- content; thus, instead of flinging oneself into the water, read coming out of the water- that is, being born. * The place from which one is born may be recognized if one thinks of the humorous sense of the French la lune. The pale moon thus becomes the white bottom, which the child soon guesses to be the place from which it came. Now what can be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born at a holiday resort? I asked the dreamer this, and she replied without hesitation: "Hasn't the treatment made me as though I were born again?" Thus the dream becomes an invitation to continue the treatment at this summer resort- that is, to visit her there; perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion to the wish to become a mother herself. *(2) -

* For the mythological meaning of water-birth, see Rank: Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (1909).

*(2) It was not for a long time that I learned to appreciate the significance of the phantasies and unconscious thoughts relating to life in the womb. They contain the explanation of the curious dread, felt by so many people, of being buried alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in a life after death, which represents only the projection into the future of this mysterious life before birth. The act of birth, moreover, is the first experience attended by anxiety, and is thus, the source and model of the affect of anxiety. -

Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from a paper by E. Jones. "She stood at the seashore watching a small boy, who seemed to be hers, wading into the water. This he did till the water covered him and she could only see his head bobbing up and down near the surface. The scene then changed to the crowded to hall of an hotel. Her husband left her, and she 'entered into conversation with' a stranger.

"The second half of the dream was discovered in the analysis to represent flight from her husband, and the entering into intimate relations with a third person, behind whom was plainly indicated Mr. X's brother, mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the dream was a fairly evident birth-phantasy. In dreams, as in mythology, the delivery of a child from the uterine waters is commonly represented, by way of distortion, as the entry of the child into water; among many other instances, the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening which she had experienced in her only