A sexually impotent and timid man is studied from the point of view of an unresolved Oedipus complex. The patient came to treatment because his wife would awaken when he approached her sexually while she was asleep. Phobic elements of being buried alive and returning to the mother, and sadomasochistic elements of a necrophilic fantasy are developed. The patient slept with his mother as a child and wished to repeat the infantile skin erotism with his wife, but not to involve her as an active partner in coitus.