We have selected four dreams, typical of this period in the therapy, to illustrate the different mechanisms used by the patient to incorporate the penis. The particular dreams that follow are self evident in their symbolism, and it is precisely for that reason that we have selected them. In the first dream the patient made use of oral incorporation:

She went to a parking lot to get her car, but it was gone. There was an empty space where her car had been. She began to search for it. She saw a car all smashed up and thought at first that it was hers, but then it turned out not to be. She looked and looked, but couldn't find it. Suddenly, she felt something stuck in her throat. It was some kind of food, but it felt like rubber. She tried to swallow it, but it wouldn't go down. She reached in with a finger and pulled it out. Then she saw that it was a condom.

The patient was revolted by the dream. She awoke with a mild globus hystericus that lasted most of the day. At first, in her associations, she confused the intent to incorporate the penis with the sexual act of fellatio, and felt that that was the reason she had been so revolted by the dream and why she had suffered the globus symptom. The motivational context in which the dream occurred, however, had nothing to do with sex, and, in such cases, the therapist must take care not to compound the confusion. The dream was therefore interpreted as a reparative attempt to undo the castration. In the second dream the patient made use of a vaginal incorporation that aroused a fear of retaliation:

There was a watery space in her garden where nothing would grow. The man next door had a rose bed with long stemmed roses. She was sure one of them would grow in her empty space. She sneaked into his yard and sliced off a rose stem with a razor. She stuck it into the space in her garden, but it, too, failed to grow. She asked her husband to replant it, but deeper; maybe then it would grow. She noticed a policeman watching from across the street. Her husband said, "He's going to arrest you. This rose isn't your property. You better put it back where you got it from."

The patient related the dream to her husband's request for intercourse the night before. She had refused the request and he had become very annoyed. As a matter of fact, she had not had intercourse for three months, ever since the onset of the acute castration anxiety. At the time of the present dream, however, her withdrawal from intercourse seemed to be related not only to the fear of maternal castration, but also to the fear of retaliation from the husband because of her desire to remove his penis and attach it to herself. The underlying fantasy here is a vagina dentata fantasy, which is a common cause of sexual inhibition in women patients with masculine aspirations. (see THE POWER MOTIVATION PART IV)