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Dr. V.'s dream which led to an important medical discovery is an example of true scientific creativity. This subject interests me greatly because of my association with the California Institute of Technology, where as a psychotherapist, administrative consultant and research worker I have seen hundreds of scientists and would-be scientists of all levels of training and scientific sophistication. After reading Dr. London's paper, I recalled a case where a dream led to a scientific discovery which seems to fit Freud's concept of dream-action. A young astro-physicist, who suffered from severe work inhibition had been in analysis with me for two years. He had done original and outstanding work early in his career but had been unable to produce anything of significance since receiving his doctorate degree five years previously.
It became clear that oedipal and castration anxieties were important determinants in his choice of profession. His mother had died suddenly when he was five years old. The analysis revealed that he sought his mother as he scanned the heavens with a telescope, first as a hobby and later as a profession.
Despite much evidence in the two years of analysis, he still denied his sexual desires for his mother, his wish to be with her even in death and his aggressive drives toward father.
He had been working for a year on a mathematical problem which was the keystone to validating his earlier discovery, which, if confirmed, would be extremely important. He felt he wasn't getting anywhere (which was true) and would berate himself as “impotent”; he felt he was “a boy trying to do a man's job.”
One day he came to his analytic hour in a highly elated state and began talking as soon as I greeted him. He began by saying that he had “the strangest dream last night and that everything is beginning to clear up.”
The dream was a long one. In essence it had to do with his looking through the telescope at the Palomar Observatory, which is located on top of a high mountain