Page:The theory of psychoanalysis (IA theoryofpsychoan00jungiala).pdf/130

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

libido, that is to say, to all kinds of terrors and involuntary obligations. The anxieties and superstitions of savages furnish us with the best illustrations; but our own history of civilization, especially the civilization and customs of the ancients, abounds with confirmations. Non-employment of the libido makes it autonomous, but we must not believe either that we are able to save ourselves permanently from the coercion of the libido by making forced efforts. To a certain limited extent we are able to set conscious tasks to our libido, but other natural tasks are chosen by the libido itself, and that is what the libido exists for. If we avoid those tasks, the most active life can become useless, for we have to deal with the whole of the conditions of our human nature. Innumerable cases of neurasthenia from overwork can be traced back to this cause, for work done amid internal conflicts creates nervous exhaustion.

At the third interview the little girl related a dream she had had when she was five years old, and by which she was greatly impressed. She says, "I'll never forget this dream." The dream runs as follows: "I am in a wood with my little brother and we are looking for strawberries. Then a wolf came and jumped at me. I took to a staircase, the wolf after me. I fall down and the wolf bites my leg. I awoke in terror."

Before we go into the associations given by our little patient, I will try to form an arbitrary opinion about the possible content of the dream, and then compare our result afterwards with the associations given by the child. The beginning of the dream reminds us of the well-known German fairy-tale of Little Red-Ridinghood, which is, of course, known to the child. The wolf ate the grandmother first, then took her shape, and afterwards ate Little Red-Ridinghood. But the hunter killed the wolf, cut open the belly and Little Red-Ridinghood sprang out safe and sound. This motive is found in a great many fairy-tales, wide-*spread over the whole world, and it is the motive of the biblical story of Jonah. The original significance is astro-mythological: the sun is swallowed up by the sea, and in the morning is born again out of the water. Of course, the whole of astro-mythology is at the root but psychology, unconscious psychology, projected on to the heavens, for myths have never been and are never made consciously, but arise from man's unconscious. For this reason, we