'Clemency on the way to the gallows': death, dreams and dissociation

The survivor of a decade of childhood sexual trauma and violence, perpetrated by a monstrous father, produced a series of dreams in the final year of a ten-year analysis. They illuminated the 'death drive' beneath a lifelong preoccupation with dying and fantasies of submission to death, perpetuated by the promise of hoped-for freedom from pain and release from a life of suffering. The initial dream involved the collapse of a team of white horses drawing him in a pillory cart to his own hanging for a crime he did not commit. It signified the collapse of a fragile psychological system based on his role as the 'sacrificial lamb,' protecting a (not so) innocent mother. The raw truth was now unconcealed: primal, violent, and terrifying dreams and affects emerged where he was now the murderous aggressor. His dreams would become primary agents for an instinctive, life-giving authenticity to emerge, offering him clemency from the shattering repetitions of persecution and dissociation.