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Previous observations derived from direct questioning of military draft selectees, military patients, and children and mothers at child guidance clinics regarding their dreams of falling from heights and of being attacked led Harris to speculate about the possible concurrence and relationship of predominantly falling dreams and certain characterological traits. Some of his data, he felt, suggested that the typical anxiety dream of falling might reflect the danger of loss of love or of separation from the loved one, or supporting object.
The clinical impressions in this paper are based mostly on conscious material derived during diagnostic interviews from the above sources. Comparing individuals who have predominantly unpleasant falling dreams with those having predominantly unpleasant dreams of being attacked, Harris finds three characteristics more frequently in the former group: 1, comparative inability to express overt defiance, especially in the mother-child relationship; 2, a tendency to express feelings in a full, naïve, uninhibited manner; 3, a tendency to use defensiveness as a method of protecting self-esteem. There are some tentative theoretical formulations offered by the author to explain the above impressions.
He submits these observations and impressions partly as a stimulus for more detailed psychoanalytic study since he realizes the limitation of the methodological approach in his study.