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A study was made of two typical anxiety dreams, dreams of falling and dreams of being attacked from without, in roughly four thousand people, including selectees at induction, military patients, children and mothers. The method consisted of direct brief questioning about consciously remembered dreams and various expressions of overt acts of aggression and hostility toward
either parent. The hypothesis was advanced that the falling dream might reflect chiefly fear over loss of love or support from the mother and the dreams of being attacked, fear of castration by the father—corresponding to the two commonly known psychic threats in the infant. It was therefore anticipated that the tendency in people with predominantly falling dreams would be to inhibit aggression toward the mother and to express it more overtly toward the father while the opposite would be true of those dreams of being attacked. The answers obtained supported the tentative hypothesis. The limitations and inconclusiveness of the methodology were recognized. It was suggested that the eliciting of a person's predominant anxiety dream might be of use in the diagnostic psychiatric interview.