This communication reports some statistical observations and theoretical formulations concerning dreams about the analyst. Some twenty-one hundred dreams from seventeen patients treated by the author were collected. Those dreams in which the analyst appeared undisguised in the manifest content were studied in an attempt to delineate the circumstances under which they occurred. The incidence of this category was also compared with that of other categories

(e.g., orality dreams, heterosexual dreams, 'attacked' dreams) in the beginning, middle, and terminating phases of treatment. Harris finds support for the theses of previous analytic writers that 'analyst dreams' reflect the patient's desire for fusion with the mother (especially to ward off castration anxiety) and frequently are precipitated by countertransference problems. This paper is noteworthy among psychoanalytic contributions for its admirable methodology in combining the statistical, clinical, and theoretical approaches to a narrowly defined aspect of psychoanalytic practice.