CHAPTER VII
The Content of the Unconscious
The phantasies of adults are, in so far as they are conscious,
of great diversity and strongly individual. It is therefore nearly
impossible to give a general description of them. But it is very
different when we enter by means of analysis into the world of
his unconscious phantasies. The diversities of the phantasies are
indeed very great, but we do not find those individual peculiarities
which we find in the conscious self. We meet here with more
typical material which is not infrequently repeated in a similar
form in different people. Constantly recurring, for instance, are
ideas which are variations of the thoughts we encounter in
religion and mythology. This fact is so convincing that we say
we have discovered in these phantasies the same mechanisms
which once created mythological and religious ideas. I should
have to enter very much into detail in order to give you adequate
examples. I must refer you for these problems to my work,
"Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido." I will only mention
that, for instance, the central symbol of Christianity—self-sacrifice—plays
an important part in the phantasies of the unconscious.
The Viennese School describes this phenomenon by the
ambiguous term castration-complex. This paradoxical use of the
term follows from the particular attitude of this school toward
the question of unconscious sexuality. I have given special
attention to the problem in the book I have just mentioned; I
must here restrict myself to this incidental reference and hasten
to say something about the origin of the unconscious phantasy.
In the child's unconsciousness, the phantasies are considerably simplified, in relation to the proportions of the infantile surroundings. Thanks to the united efforts of the psychoanalytic school, we discovered that the most frequent phantasy of childhood is the so-called Œdipus-complex. This designation also seems as paradoxical as possible. We know that the tragic fate of Œdipus consisted in his loving his mother and slaying his father. This conflict of later life seems to be far remote from
