Sigmund Freud kommer på sporet av noe viktig i sin selvanalyse når han husker at han så sin mor naken i en togkupé som liten gutt

Sigmund Freud fortsetter sin intense selvanalyse. Han skriver til sin venn Wilhelm Fliess i Berlin om hvordan han nå har frisatt sin far, og identifisert sine første seksuelle følelser for sin mor Amalia, som han husker han så naken på en togtur da han var en liten gutt. Han skriver også om sine sterke følelser av sjalusi overfor sin lillebror, som siden ble syk og døde.

Freud befinner seg midt i en voldsom reorientering i sitt faglige virke nå. Han har ikke vært særlig drikkferdig før, men nå "søker han styrke i en flaske Barolo" og selskap i "sin venn Marsala". Men ingen av disse styrkemidlene ser ut til å fungere særlig bra. Humøret hans er like foranderlig som "landskapet sett fra et tog", mens drømmene natt etter natt avslærer grovheten i hans eget erotiske begjær. Samtidig blir han stadig mer sikker på at han nærmer seg sannheten, og ikke bare den sannheten som angår ham selv. Og i dag skriver han altså til sin fortrolige venn om begjæret etter sin egen mor, Amalia. Nå skjønner han at dette begjæret må ha blitt vekket en gang mellom to- og treårsdagen hans, på en togreise fra Leizpig til Wien, da mor og sønn tilbrakte natten sammen, og han må ha fått et glimt av sin mor naken. Han har imidlertid ennå ikke fått tak i hva som ligger til grunn for denne historien.

Han skriver blant annet (her gjengitt i engelsk oversettelse -- originalen er på tysk):

"There is still very little happening to me externally, but internally something very interesting. For the last four days my self-analysis, which I consider indispensible for the clarification of the whole problem, has continued in dreams and has presented me with the most valuable elucidations and clues. At certain points I have the feeling of being at the end, and so far I have always known where the next dream-night would continue.

To put it in writing is more difficult than anything else for me; it also would take me too far afield.

I can only indicate that the old man plays no active part in my case, but that no doubt I drew an inference from myself onto him; that in my case the "prime originator" was an ugly, elderly, but very clever woman, who told me a great deal about God Almightly and who instilled in me a high opinion of my own capacities; that later (between two and two and a half years) my libido toward matrem was awakened, namely, on the occasion of a journey with her from Leipzig to Vienna, during which we must have spent the night together and there must have been an opportunity of seeing her nudam (you inferred the consequences of this for your son long ago, as a remark revealed to me); that I greeted my one-year-younger brother (who died after a few months) with adverse wishes and genuine childhood jealousy; and that his death left the germ of [self-]reproaches in me.

I have also long known the companion of my misdeeds between the ages of one and two years; it is my nephew, a year older than myself, who is now living in Manchester and who visited us in Vienna when I was fourteen years old. The two of us seem occasionally to have behaved cruelly to my niece, who was a year younger. This nephew and this younger brother have determined, then, what is neurotic, but also what is intense, in all my friendships [a prescient admission given the development of this friendship].

You yourself have seen my travel anxiety at its height.

I have not yet grasped anything at all of the scenes themselves at which lie at the bottom of the story. If they come [to light] and I succeed in resolving my own hysteria, then I shall be grateful to the old woman who provided me at such an early age with the means for living and going on living.

As you can see, the old liking [?] is breaking through again today. I cannot convey to you any idea of the intellectual beauty of this work."