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I shall use Freud's significant paper “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis”1 as a point of departure for further study. In the year 1904 during an unexpected trip, Freud was standing in front of the Acropolis and suddenly had the feeling “so all this really exists just the way we learned about it in school.” Analysis showed that this astonishment about reality had been displaced from another situation and actually meant “so it is really true that I was allowed to come to Athens.” He had been doubtful of this, not about the reality of the Acropolis. He compares his own emotional setting with that of “those wrecked by success.”2 He was afraid of something like the envy of the gods when his wishes to travel were fulfilled; and his feeling of guilt made him believe that it would not be right for him to experience the gratification of such a wish. The feeling that it was all “real” was to soothe the anxiety which made its appearance when his desire was fulfilled. The origin of this anxiety, i.e., feeling of guilt, was a consideration of filial duty. He thought he was not allowed to be more successful than his father.
Let us bear in mind the anxiety situation which, according to Freud, underlies such situations of doubts about reality: A wish which is inhibited by a sense of guilt is suddenly gratified, and a conflict results between the inclination to enjoy this gratification and the opposing feeling of guilt. And let us now examine other examples of similar experiences.
One of them concerns the screen memory of a patient who, as an adolescent boy, saw a girl wearing short socks which showed her legs. He thought in astonishment, “I must always remember that girls also have legs.”3 The second case concerns a woman patient who suffered from pseudologia fantastica. She often thought she had fabricated something which actually turned out