… [October 3] Very little is still happening to me externally, but internally something most interesting. For the last four days my self-analysis, which I consider indispensable for throwing light upon the whole problem, has proceeded in dreams and has presented me with the most valuable inferences and clues. At some points I have a feeling of being at the end, and so far, too, I have always known where the dream of the next night would take things up. To describe it in writing is more difficult than anything else, and also it would be far too diffuse. I can only say shortly that der Alte [my father]played no active part in my case, but that no doubt I drew an inference by analogy from myself on to him; that the ‘prime originator’ [of my troubles] was a woman, ugly, elderly, but clever, who told me a great deal about God Almighty and Hell and who gave me a high opinion of my own capacities;2 that later (between the ages of two and two-and-a-half) my libido was stirred up