A psychoanalytic session is described where both the analyst and analysand experienced a dream-like state associated with the theme of childhood illness. The analyst's countertransference took the form of a hypnogogic reverie concerning a dying boy's plea for his help, while the analysand's transference reaction was to re-experience the analyst as the negligent

anaclitic father and himself the neglected child. The analyst's frustrated reverie and the patient's frightened angry response was a regressive expression of what previously had been unconsciously shared, but not totally congruent, fantasies.