In many myths and rituals, looking is tabooed, either as a protection against the aggression of the weaker one or as a prohibition of incest. These themes occur in the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, the Gorgon's head, Ham cursed for looking at Noah's nakedness, Lot's wife, Peeping Tom, the Elevation of the Host, the blessing of the faithful by the rabbi, and others. A woman whose mother had died shortly after her birth dreamed of descending the steps leading to her father's stables, followed by a white mare which disappeared because the dreamer failed to watch it; the mare then ascended to the living quarters above. Analysis of the dream revealed the identification of the mare with the mother: 'I lost her for not loving her enough'. In descending to a symbolic Hades, the patient permitted the mother to return to life; this is punishment for the Oedipally desired death. The patient restored mother to father, in further expiation of that aggression and of the sin of incest.