This section is from the book "Dream Psychology", by Maurice Nigoll. Also available from Amazon: Dream psychology.
The patient in question experienced the dream in the early stage of treatment. It is necessary to look for a moment at the factors implied in such an investigation. A patient who undertakes to search his own character through the medium of a physician must be prepared to reveal himself without reserve; otherwise the physician is unable to present to him the inconsistencies and disharmonies of which he is a victim. In dealing with an extrovert, there is usually plenty of unconscious selfrevelation obtained without much urging,- up to a certain point which forms the first crisis of the treatment. But with the introvert, self-revelation is a painful process, because from the first the patient is aware that it is a self-revelation. Now the bull-dream arose at a stage when the patient had a certain task to perform, and shirked it.
The bull part of the dream is linked up with the incident of the women searching for something in a tub of water. Linking-up or juxtaposition in dreams is important. The unconscious may see in them some fundamental similarity, and so draws them together. What is this similarity in the present example %
The patient shirked, on his own admission, a certain side of life. Any function or ceremony that brought him into immediate contact with women he avoided. He excused himself by stating he was a dull sort of companion for the other sex. He then added he enjoyed taking an upper seat at the opera and looking down at the scene from a distance. His avoidance is therefore not due to an aversion, but to a sense of embarrassment or fear. The second part of the dream indicates a demand made by women. He feels embarrassment by it. The demand assumes the symbolism of something hiding, which the women search for. The unconscious corrects the view that an avoidance of women was a solution to the patient's timidities. Women, and all they stand for, are not passive ; they, from their own side, bring a force to bear on the patient. It became evident from his remarks that he could not properly assimilate this idea; he was incapable of getting women into their proper perspective in the scheme of things. He usually clung to some extreme and ideal view, but at moments swung too far in the opposite direction. He remarked that there was something intensely unpleasant to him in the way they searched for the hidden fish in the tub.
If we look for a moment at the bull portion of the dream, a certain difference from the fish part becomes evident. Here two bulls are seen goring each other, and some vague figures running about ; there is apparently no symbol that corresponds with the women ; but if the fish and the women be contrasted as antagonists in the latter part of the dream, then the contrast in the first part lies between one bull and another bull. That is, in one part the antagonist is male, in the other female. What is the male antagonist ? The patient, in the course of treatment, had remarked that up to a certain point, as long as the physician's attitude was sympathetic, he enjoyed the process. The connection and interdependence of things was interesting. Here, perhaps, we see the immediate situation responsible for the dream. He finds, in his relationship with the physician, that as long as the latter maintains towards him a sympathetic, uncritical mood, he is more or less at ease ; he leaves out, for instance, an important part of his narrative, and at first nothing is said j but so soon as a demand is made for him to be more honest, so soon as a suspicion of the blunt and matter-of-fact creeps into the physician's tone, the patient retreats sensitively. In the retreat patients usually avail themselves of a number of excuses, some of which will refer to the manner of the physician. But in this case, the unconscious shows him bulls goring one another, as a symbol referring to his situation, while he hangs perilously above them, and thus it puts the blame on himself. So frank and unrestrained an encounter as bulls fighting finds no parallel in his sensitive relations with his physician. He fears a knock and fears to knock. Such an attitude will not help him. It contains something in it that is similar to the other problem dealt with n the second part of the dream, for each of the pieces of symbolism centres round the necessity of a fearless emotional encounter.
The same patient experienced the following dream a short time later. " I was in charge of a store, it seemed, and was wearing pyjamas. I wondered if it was odd being in pyjamas. A woman, whom I do not know, entered and asked for a piece of red-wood furniture—a cabinet, I think. I thought I had one, but failed to find it. I searched in a catalogue for it, seeming to have no stock actually in hand, and feeling rather embarrassed. I found it described in the catalogue, something very exquisite and rare, in antique red lacquer, but she seemed annoyed and left the place."
Here, again, in different symbolism, one sees the motive reproduced of some demand made by women upon the dreamer—something which he only possesses in a catalogue and not actually. The fact that the dreamer wears pyjamas must be connected with the idea suggested that his store is very inadequately stocked; he seems, indeed, to have no stock at all, only a catalogue. I have already mentioned that the introvert much prefers to read of things than to experience them. The tendency is indicated here. His position, from the point of view of the unconscious, is ridiculous. His dress is unsuitable and he has nothing to sell when it comes to the test.
The next dream occurred in the same night as the above, and deals with the same theme, but again in different symbolism.
" I possessed an essay in French which I had composed, apparently, though I do not remember doing so. It was written in very fine, perfect handwriting on parchment, like some rare old official document. Old Colonel X. took it and began to cross out some words. He made some disparaging remarks about my use of the reflexive with the verb separer, and asked me where I got some words from, and without waiting for a reply, and quite uninterested, threw it over to me. I wondered how he knew—or if he knew—French at all, and resented his interference and manner."
 
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