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Having had three patients who produced flood dreams at crisis points in their treatment, I had the opportunity to study the significance of flooding in each case, and the factors prevailing before and after the flood. The work was done in 1965, coincident with Kluger's I.A.A.P. Congress paper on the symbology of flood dreams in therapy (KLUGER 5) but was not ready for publication.
Our approaches differ mainly in emphasis and, therefore, tend to complement each other's. She is more interested in illustrating the mythological motifs with case material and in the level of consciousness of the times, whereas I have been more interested in the patient's historical time in terms of development out of the waters of unconsciousness. This paper is therefore largely concerned with the interplay between unconscious fantasy on the infantile level and mythological motifs: on the dream-ego's participation in the drama as an indication of the level of ego development involved, and on the outcome of the flood as an indication for future growth.
A further joint interest is in the theme of ‘death and rebirth’ inherent in flood mythology. As Dr Kluger says, ‘The flood is a gigantic regression into the time before creation. It is a “death and rebirth happening”’ (KLUGER, 5, p. 44). For my patients it was a ‘birth’ into the world, for there was as yet little distinction between self and other, between ego and archetypal images, and therefore no ‘rebirth’ as a result of regression, a distinction with which Ulanov struggled in her recent paper (ULANOV 6).
The three patients I am going to describe were gravely disturbed. Two had been in mental hospitals, one said to be suffering from schizophrenia, and the other from a paranoid psychosis. The third had been carrying in her