234 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



(a) Even during the years in which he had temper tantrums, John was most 

 of the time an extremely nice boy, liked both by adults and by children and 

 doing rather well in school. This finding suggests that his tantrums repre- 

 sented an admittedly neurotic attempt to come to terms with a difficult situation 

 and to control his impulses. Otherwise stated, John's tantrums appear to have 

 been simple hysterical manifestations, rather than symptoms of a severe disor- 

 ganization of his personality. 



(&) The temper tantrums disappeared completely as soon as it became pos- 

 sible for the adults to spend more time at home, and for John — who was by then 

 about 10 years old — to move around more freely by himself, visiting and play- 

 ing more often with other children. 



(c) Although, as John well knew, his temper tantrums led many Mohave 

 Indians to expect that he would become a shaman, and would therefore behave 

 even worse during his adolescence, he actually became an extremely nice adoles- 

 cent, friendly, alert, generous, and responsible in every way, and did not develop 

 into a shaman.** 



(d) Although his internal conflicts were not abolished, he eventually devel- 

 oped sufficient internal controls to "dream out" his conflicts, hostile impulses, 

 and wishes for punishment, instead of having to "act them out" through con- 

 tinued misbehavior. 



This last finding leads directly to a closer scrutiny of John's dreams, which 

 were recorded approximately when he reached puberty. 



(3) Dreams. — The following dreams were dreamed and recorded by John dur- 

 ing his early teens and are reproduced verbatim : 



(a) I dreamed that I lived in a tent near a ditch and there was a girl lived 

 near us that (who) goes to school and there were many children besides her. 

 We were playing on the ditch bank and a storm came and we were laying 

 (lying) together in the ditch and it started to rain and the water came down 

 the ditch and it carry us both and we (were) saw a fall and were just about to 

 go of (off) when they caught us and I woke up and I nearly fell out of bed. 



(6) My mother and I were home and (the father figure) was gone and left 

 us alone and my mother was crying and she went and tore down the house and 

 left me in the house and she went away, locked me in the house and I stayed in 

 the house two weeks and I was hungry and thirsty and I was choking and I 

 woke up and I couldn't breathe for a long time. Then when I went to sleep 

 I dream I was sleeping in the house and I kept on talking to myself and my 

 mother was trying to wake me up ant (and) it was morning. 



(c) (The night of November 9-10, 1938) I was home alone and a man told 

 me a lady died. I (it) was a lady named D. S. and we went to the cry house 

 and all of a sudden her hand started to move and she uncovered herself and 

 she had a cement all over her head and to (two) holes for her eyes and mouth. 

 Another boy and I started to go and it (she) started after us and every time I 

 went slower and slower and she caught me and she was choking me and I 

 couldn't breath and I wcke up and I couldn't get my breath back till a long 

 time. 



The principal scientific significance of these dreams is that they appear to 

 be the only immediately recorded dream experiences of a non-Occidental who, 

 later on, had a psychotic episode. With the wisdom of hindsight, it is possible 

 to say that the high level of anxiety that is made manifest through these 

 dreams — and also through certain of his drawings (see above) — foreshadows 



'" A furthpr reason why John did not become n shaman was that he was too aecultnrated 

 to do 80. This, however, Is not highly relevant in the present context. 



