A Note on the Connection Between Preliminary Communications and Subsequently Reported Dreams1

Occasionally analytic patients make some comment, at the outset of an hour, which they consider of a preliminary or causal nature and somewhat separate from their usual associations. Such a remark may be made in connection with the salutation, or during the few moments it takes to reach the couch, or is otherwise set aside from the rest of the material. Quite often this remark proves to have a latent content which is closely related to a dream which is reported later in the hour, and one's cognizance of this relationship can lead to clearer understanding. The following clinical examples are offered to illustrate this point.

• 1A patient opened his hour by remarking that he had been frightened on his way to his session. He was a little late, had crossed the street against the signal, and had feared that one of the cars, passing close, might hit him. Later in the hour he said he had dreamed the night before but remembered only that he was arguing with me. The dream had been provoked by his reading a book by a man who argued with Freud a great deal during his analysis. He envied this man's daring. He reported a fantasy that he might be attacked by a rejected suitor of a woman he was interested in. The street itself he had crossed hundreds of times without finding it necessary to make any comment about it. His pervasive feeling at this time was that I would punish him for sexual wishes. His initial comment, therefore, meant that he was afraid that I would hit him for defying me. This fear was displaced from me to the traffic and thereby became accessible to