The author describes in detail his own nightmarish experience of Isakower phenomena in childhood and its legacies in adult life, relating them to their stimuli. Using memories associated with the earliest occurrence of the phenomenon he ascribes their nightmare quality to a linkage with oedipal strivings. The anxiety lessened and eventually disappeared as the formless mass of the Isakower phenomena became fused, soon after entering grade school, with a screen—that of the writing slate. Once the slate-screen was securely established as the main visual element, the figure of a slim dancing girl to be kissed could be projected upon it. In a final dream of this kind at the very end of the oedipal phase the dreamer kissed the girl good-bye.

The intellectual aspect of the screen evolving, as it did, directly from the Isakower phenomena suggests that preoccupation with intellectual pursuits may harbour the impetuous desire for the breast. Many traits of the logician reveal the oral component of this motivation and equate the breast with pure reason.