Primal scene dreams of patients in analysis often fulfil a defensive function importantly related to the transference. In his patients the author has found that such dreams promptly followed transference interpretations regarding feelings of dependency and desertion, feelings occasioned by the analyst's vacations and schedule changes. At such times the patients uniformly were in a transference phase of passive-dependent, oral helplessness. Their states of regression were such that they could not employ any form of overt negation by which to ward off or deny the interpretation. Instead, the interpretation and the feelings of being abandoned, unwanted, and left out were passively accepted. Denial came only in the primitive form of a primal scene dream as though to say: 'You are wrong. I was not left out; I was really there. I even took part in it.' Both the gratification