XI. Dream-Narrative and Dream-Continuity

One of the most impressive evidences of the intrinsic continuity of the process of unconscious phantasy is to be found in the striking links between dreams of the same night or even of successive nights. Attention to this continuity plays a considerable role in the creative use of dream material in analytical work and opens many problems for research, not only in the field of psycho-analysis but in related fields such as linguistics, aesthetics and politics. In speaking of continuity I do not mean to refer to continuity of meaning, but rather continuity of form. Dreams often give an impression, when set out in sequence, of being like an artist's sketches made during the organization of a major composition, or the drawings by children in analysis. It can be seen that a number of central formal structures are being drawn up into juxtapositions in order to create a space scintillating with potentiated meaning. Sometimes words and visual forms are seen to interact, as I will shortly demonstrate. At other times spaces are being created as containers of meaning. At other times the movements from one type of space to another, and the emotional difficulties of making such moves, are made apparent.

With this preamble in mind I would like to present a short dream sequence in order to examine the particular question: what increment to our tools of comprehension is gained by viewing dreams as a narrative whose continuity we are able to sample periodically?

The patient is a man in his late thirties, a professional engineer living in a small town some two hours from Oxford and only initially able to come to analysis twice a week pending a change in his life brought about by an estrangement from his wife and the commencement of a new relationship. The upheaval has unbalanced him in various subtle ways, making him willing to accept the advice of his clergyman aimed at salvaging his marriage. This had deteriorated slowly but relentlessly in the years following the birth of his daughte