The author examines unconscious links between Mary Shelley's internal conflicts and life experiences and what may have been their manifestations in the fictionalized characters she created in Frankenstein. The dream that inspired Shelley's Frankenstein is also analyzed as an account of her repetitive psychic struggles and a rich source of imagery driving the development of her novel. The author proposes that both dream and novel may have functioned to provide Shelley with a source of discharge, solace, and eventual acceptance of her losses.