88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



On the other hand^ there are numerous delusions which are undoubt- 

 edly due to what Freud and his school call a "wish fulfilment." Bur- 

 row had described such a case. An unmarried woman for a number of 

 years had complained of weakness, indigestion, distension of the 

 abdomen, pain in the back and groin, which conditions, as far as could 

 be determined, were not associated with any abnormal physical state. 

 A psychoanalysis of this patient showed that she had had very great 

 desires to be married; her dreams were of marriage and of bearing 

 children; and her mental life had been colored by or made up largely 

 of these wishes. The physical conditions of which she complained were 

 taken by Burrow to be the outward signs of the conditions which she 

 hoped she might have, namely, those of pregnancy as a result of 

 marriage. Jones has also well described a case of a similar nature. 

 This woman exhibited erythrophobia, i. e., fear of red, and at the same 

 time she believed that she was responsible for or had actually caused 

 the death of her mother. A careful mental examination showed that 

 for many years she had been compelled to remain at home to take care 

 of her mother, who was an invalid, that because of this she had been 

 unable to have pleasures similar to those which she found girls of her 

 age were having, and from time to time these conditions led to rebel- 

 lious ideas. The health of her mother improved to such an extent that 

 she was enabled to go to college or school and thus again take up her 

 life in association with other girls. At school there was a debate in 

 which she took part and in which, as one of the contestants on one side, 

 she wore a red shield on her arm. Subsequent to this event she 

 dreamed of seeing her mother lying dead, in a room on the wall of 

 which there was a red shield. On account of worry over her dream, she 

 went home, taking the red shield with her. She was pleased to find 

 her mother very well and, laughingly explaining her fears, she pinned 

 the red shield on the wall of her mother's room. A day or two later 

 upon awakening in the morning, she went to see her mother and found 

 her dead in bed. Thence, it is explained, originated her belief that the 

 act of pinning the red badge upon her mother's wall had something to 

 do with the death of her mother, and thence also arose the fear of red. 

 It was also learned that because of the lack of pleasure in life she had 

 at times considered how much better off she would be if her mother were 

 dead, and perhaps had also unconsciously wished for such a solution of 

 her difiiculties. When, however, there was accomplished the actual 

 result which she had wished, her action in placing the red sliield upon 

 her mother's wall became prominent in her mind and she believed she 

 had been warned about this in her dream. 



Numerous other cases of a similar character might be cited. Most 

 if not all, delusions are interpreted by the Freudian school in this 

 manner. Brill, for example, interprets certain delusions of grandeur 



