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Follow your heart, so that your facewill shine during your lifetime
At The End of his second year of analysis a thirty-two-year-old patient of mine had an expressive dream, on the symbolic contents of which I would like to make some comments. I might add that his analysis continued for another year after the dream.
Although he performed well his roles and social obligations in his profession of a medical practitioner and in his family life, his attitude to events in everyday life, prior to the occurrence of the dream was, in my view, characterised by a lack of true emotional participation, by a tendency to non-involvement, and by an attitude of neutrality.
The fact that his wife had had an affair with a fellow worker, a friend of the couple, constituted one of the grounds which led him to begin an analysis.
During the period immediately preceding the dream the analytic sessions were particularly arid, sterile and devoid of meaningful content. I even began to question their validity. After the emergence of the dream, however, a period ensued in which major transformations in his personality took place.
This is his report of the dream:
My skin was strange. It was of a different colour (grey). I was made of wax. The air conditioner was turned on, so that I realised that if the temperature increased I would melt. My heart was made of lead. Then I picked up the heart, put it aside, and turned the control of the air conditioner to ‘warm’. As the temperature increased I started to melt and melt, down to the skeleton. By the end, only the skeleton and the heart remained.