This presentation of the case of an eight-year-old girl suffering from insomnia and fear of death was made to facilitate discussion of divergent techniques among a group of analysts. The death fear was fed by the intensity of the child's destructive impulses against mother and sister, and represented a punishment by the superego. With the decrease of the death fear, libidinal aspects of the relation to the father emerged in the form of the 'death feeling', and a frightening pleasurable sensation called 'the creeps', expressing the struggle against masturbation and the fear of self-injury. The interrelatedness of insomnia, death fear, and superego development was discernible in this early phase of the treatment. Seventeen drawings illustrate the case presentation.