Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

June 28, 1960. CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE MANIFEST DREAM. Rudolph M. Loewenstein, M.D., Chairman.

At this meeting a section of the Kris Study Group reported on problems relating to the manifest content of the dream. Dr. Ruth Spielmeyer summarized the main topics studied by the group, emphasizing that the manifest content of the dream cannot be understood in isolation. Dr. Bernard D. Fine reported a series of ten dreams which a patient had just before a dreaded summer separation. The dreamer showed a consistent attitude of ridicule and derision. Dreams centered around Jewish-non-Jewish, feminine-masculine, phallic, and castration problems. Narcissistic features were constantly reiterated in the manifest content, and were related to painful narcissistic experiences in childhood. The 'style' of the patient's dreaming was shown by a general character of extended stories; secondary revision played a major role and the dreams had a dramatic and teasing quality.

Dr. Milton Horowitz presented a group of dreams of another patient. The manifest content of certain 'unusual' dreams, to which the patient consistently had few if any associations, led to the reconstruction of a traumatic incident in childhood when the patient surprised her mother in an illicit sexual scene. She was told not to tell her father. Interpretation of this and other details produced a series of confirmatory fantasies. In addition to the unusual situation of a reconstruction being made on isolated elements of the manifest content of a group of dreams, the clinical material can be profitably contrasted to the series of dreams presented by Dr. Fine. The style of dreaming of Dr. Horowitz's patient was characterized by a splitting off from her current life, with sparse associations, unclear day residue material, and stereotyped repetitions of certain elements specific to the trauma.

Dr. Jules Glenn and Dr. Isidor Bernstein discussed the relationship of masturbation fantasies to the manifest co