Oedipus
Oedipus is, of course, the mythic Greek figure who fulfilled a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Freud took these incidents and fashioned his infamous Oedipal Complex out of them. He arises as a character in this book by virtue of patients complaining of never having an “Oedipal” dream. Freud counters that they have had Oedipal dreams, but they were so veiled as to defy conscious connection.
The Man Who Dreamed an Ax Attacker
One of the many case studies briefly referenced in the book is that of a twenty-seven year old with recurring nightmares of being attacked by an ax-wielding man he is unable to escape because of momentary paralysis. The ax derives from an accident during his youth in which hurt his hand while chopping wood and subsequently mistreated his younger brother. A few years later he overheard his parents making love and mistook it for a violent act. The upshot was growing up with sadistic associations with sexual activity.
Mrs. E.L.
Mrs. E.L. is a character from a dream experienced by Freud himself. The contents of the dream are introduced to reveal a hypothetical manner by which dreams can be interpreted. In the dream, Mrs. E.L. is overly familiar and intimate despite being a person with whom he is “scarcely on visiting term.” In the dream, she places his wife and also the daughter of a man to whom he owes money.
The Butcher’s Wife
The butcher’s wife is a patient who challenges the idea that a dream is always a wish-fulfillment by relating a dream in which her wish is explicitly unfulfilled. This actually turns out to be a surprisingly involved and complicated interpretation involving a dream in which she is able to serve anything for supper but smoke salmon because every avenue of buying something else is closed. The interpretation of the dream involves the reality of the butcher going on a diet to treat his increasingly obesity. It is a doozy of an interpretative analysis.
