The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the obstacle lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult to cross which impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross the boundary. It is true that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril threatens, namely, something "animal" (non-human or super-human) which moves backwards and goes into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw down the dreamer as a whole personality. This danger is, moreover, like the deadly disease of cancer, which begins secretly somewhere, and is incurable (overpowering). The patient imagines that her friend hinders her, pulling her down. So long as this is her belief she must perforce influence her friend, "draw her up," teach, improve, educate her, and make futile and impractically idealistic efforts in order to avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend makes similar endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of them keep jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly over the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself, the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the fault lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on the subjective plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it shows the patient that she has something in herself that is hindering her from crossing the boundary; that is, from getting out of the one position or attitude into another. To interpret change of place as change of attitude is supported by the mode of expression in certain primitive languages, where, _e.g._, the phrase "I am on the point of going," is "I am at the place of going." In order to understand the language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the psychology of primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This is so because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the residual potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of the evolution of man.
Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab with the friend), and also something that came to light in the mother. Whether both mother and friend really have this quality in them is irrelevant as regards the patient. The situation will only be changed when the patient herself has changed. Nothing can be changed in the mother because she is dead. The friend cannot be urged to alter; if she wants to alter herself, that is her own affair. The fact that the quality in question is associated with the mother indicates that it is something infantile. What is there in common in the patient's relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to both is a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is a part of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor humanized, retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct, because it has not yet been tamed by domestication. An _animal_ is a perfectly appropriate symbol for this rôle of libido. But why is the animal a crab in this particular instance? The patient associates cancer with it, of which disease Mrs. X. died at the age the patient has just reached. It may, therefore, well be that this is an allusion to an identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make inquiries about this Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about her: Mrs. X. was widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life. She had a number of adventures with men, especially with one particular man, a gifted artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who always impressed her as very fascinating and weird.
An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and Mrs. X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former fantasies and dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a frivolous vein in her, although anxiously repressing it, because she vaguely feared it might seduce her to an immoral life. We have now gained a further essential contribution for a right understanding of the "animal" rôle, which evidently represents an untamed, instinctive greed, which in this case is directed to men. At the same time we understand a further reason why she cannot let go of her friend. She must cling to her in order not to fall a prey to this other tendency, which seems so much more dangerous. By these means she remains at an infantile homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence. (Experience proves this erection of defences to be one of the most effective motives for the retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this missing libido in the animal rôle lies her well-being, the germ of her future healthy personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.
But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X., having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment of fate for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not confessing to this feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the patient pulled a long face, beneath which a "human, all too human," malicious satisfaction was hidden. As a punishment for this tendency the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s example as a warning, deterred herself from living and from further development, and burdened herself with the misery of this unsatisfying friendship. Of course this concatenation had not been consciously clear to her, otherwise she would never have acted as she had done. The truth of this conclusion can be proved by the material.
The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and which led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be one of the essential incentives to the identification, if we call to mind that the patient had already told us what a striking impression she had received from the artist. A fascination of this kind is never exclusively exercised by one person only upon the other. It is a phenomenon of reciprocal relation between two persons in so far as the fascinated person must provide a suitable predisposition. But she must be unconscious of this predisposition, otherwise there will be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of compulsion which lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the will, but a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and forcing itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist. She becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him _as man_. Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream, where we met an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact, the patient plays a thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being the active one who continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and occasionally even forcing her somewhat violently to some course that only the patient desires. Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her external appearance and otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally of a somewhat masculine type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than that of her friend. She now describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman, her gentleness and amiability being comparable to that of her friend, so she thinks. This gives us a new clue. The patient is obviously playing towards her friend the artist's part towards Mrs. X. Thus she unconsciously completes her identification with Mrs. X. and her lover. In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous vein which she had repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously, however, but is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.
We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction. The crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are always seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The "crab goes backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous with illness, she became nervous through it (hence the association of illness).
Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective plane. But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by applying the _subjective_ interpretation, which thereby proves itself to be an important heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might rest quite satisfied with the result we have already reached. But we seek here to satisfy all the requirements of the theory. Not all the associations have yet been used; neither is the significance of the choice of symbols yet demonstrated sufficiently.
We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden under the water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first. She had not at first perceived the unconscious relations that have just been elucidated; they lay hidden in the water. But the stream is the obstacle preventing her from going across. It is precisely the unconscious relations binding her to her friend that have been hindering her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In this case, therefore, the water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to say, the _being unconscious_ the being hidden, for the crab is also something unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the unconscious.
