The Polyphony of Dreams

During a “fourth analysis”,1 an analyst spoke about the strangeness of her experience when a patient recounted a nightmare to her. The night before, this analyst had had a dream that had a direct bearing on her personal history and it had made her think immediately about this patient towards whom she felt a great sense of empathy. This patient had, in fact, just suffered a sudden trauma: the loss of an adolescent child. The analyst found her patient's dream as poignant as her own. The patient described how she was on her knees, with her head on the analyst's knees, in front of the door of her office. She was like a little girl sobbing without being able to stop. A continuous whimpering sound came from her throat. In the dream, the analyst was much older than she was in reality; she did not speak, but she had placed her hand on her hair. People were coming and going all around without paying attention to what was happening. Suddenly the patient cried out: “But why? Why? Why?” As a result of her cry, she woke up in tears. The aged analyst reminded her of her grandmother who had partly brought her up but had never been capable of making any gesture of affection. Moreover, the patient herself would never have dared to make such a gesture of abandonment with her.

The analyst was troubled by the proximity of this dream with the one she had had the same night. A long time ago, she herself had lost a young child and had then felt very alone. Her patient's trauma had reopened a wound in her. In her own dream, a very old woman was rocking her gently like an infant. She was indeed feeling sad and lost. Around her people from her family and colleagues were passing by; they were indifferent and seemed not to notice anything; her husband was also there, wearing a haughty and cold expression that she had never seen before. Bursting into irrepressible tears onto the old woman's shoulder, she repeated the words: “Why? Why?” After hearing the old lady explain to her kindly and firmly: