s
back to the incubus dream. The solution of the tormenting riddle, the
magic word that banishes the ghost, is the cry of awakening, by which the
sleeper is freed from the oppressing dream, the incubus. The prototype of
the tormenting riddle propounder is, according to Laistner, the Sphinx.
Sphinx, dragon, giants, man eaters, etc., are analogous figures in myths.
They are what afflict the heroes, and what he has to battle with. The
corresponding figure in our parable is the lion.

Although the wanderer has brilliantly stood the test, the elders (Sec. 5)
do not admit him into their college (the motive of denial recurs later);
but enter him for the battle with the lion. This is surely a
personification of the same obstructions as the elders themselves. In them
we have, so to speak, before us the dragon (to be subdued) in a plural
form. Analogous multiplying of the dragon is found, for example, in
Stucken [in the astral myth]. Typical dragon fighters are Jason, Joshua,
Samson, Indra; and their dragon enemies are multitudes like the armed men
from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Jason, the Amorites for Joshua,
the Philistines in the case of Samson, the Dasas in that of Indra. We know
that for the wanderer the assemblage of elders is to be conceived chiefly
as the father, and the same is true now of the lion (king of animals,
royal beast, also in hermetic sense) who has as lion been already
appropriated to the father symbol. Kaiser, king, giants, etc., are wont in
dreams to represent the father. Accordingly large animals, especially wild
beasts or beasts of prey, are accustomed to appear in dreams with this
significance.

Stekel [Spr. Tr.] contributes the following dream of the patient Omicron:
"I was at home. My family had preserved a dead bear. His head was of wood
and out of his belly grew a mighty tree, which looked very old. Around the
animal's neck was a chain. I pulled at it, and afterwards was afraid that
I had possibly choked him, in spite of the fact that he was long dead."

And the following interpretation of it derived through analysis: "The bear
is a growler, i.e., his father, who has told him many a lie about the
genesis of babies. He reviles him for it. He was a blockhead, he had a
wooden head. The mighty tree is the phallus. The chain is marriage. He was
a henpecked husband, a tamed bear. Mother held him by the chain. This
chain (the bond ? of marriage) Omicron desired to sunder. (Incest
thoughts.) When