monly presented by
distortion as the entry of the child _into_ water; among many others,
the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known
illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water
at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening she had
experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy going into the
water induced a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of the
water, carrying him into the nursery, washing him and dressing him, and
installing him in her household.

The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning
the elopement, which belonged to the first half of the underlying latent
content; the first half of the dream corresponded with the second half
of the latent content, the birth phantasy. Besides this inversion in
order, further inversions took place in each half of the dream. In the
first half the child _entered_ the water, and then his head bobbed; in
the underlying dream thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then
the child left the water (a double inversion). In the second half her
husband left her; in the dream thoughts she left her husband.

Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking
forward to her first confinement. From a place in the floor of the house
a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path,
amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there
immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost
resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the
dreamer, to whom she has always stood in maternal relationship.

Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save,
especially to save from the water, is equivalent to giving birth when
dreamed by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when the dreamer is
a man.

Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before
going to bed, and which occasionally even disturb our sleep, originate
in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are the nightly visitors
who have awakened the child to set it on the chamber so that it may not
wet the bed, or have lifted the cover in order to see clearly how the
child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have been able to induce an
exact recollection of the nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of
these anxiety dreams. The robbers were always the father, the ghosts
more probably co