It is perhaps possible that more exact information on this important subject might be forthcoming as the result of careful investigations into such questions as the following:
(1) To what extent (if at all) do children display--in dreams, phantasies or otherwise--knowledge as to the circumstances of their birth and pre-natal life which they could not possibly have obtained except from memory of their own past experience?
(2) Do the phantasies of prematurely born children differ in any way from those of children born at the end of the normal term? If, for instance, there really exist any memory traces of the later period of gestation or of the process of birth, it might be expected that they would be less vivid than usual in prematurely born children, owing to the less developed condition of their brain at the time of birth.
(3) Are the phantasies concerning birth in any way more vivid or frequent or of greater emotional intensity in those whose birth has been a process of difficulty and long duration than in those who have enjoyed an easy delivery?
(4) Do the womb phantasies of twins indicate any knowledge of the unusual conditions of their pre-natal life?
(5) Do the phantasies of children who have been removed from the womb by Caesarian section reveal any peculiarities corresponding to the absence of the usual birth process?]
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INITIATION AND INITIATION RITES
[Sidenote: The psychological significance of initiation]
The phantasies of return to the womb and of re-birth, with which we have just been concerned, are intimately connected with another phantasy which is met with surprisingly often in the investigation of dreams and other manifestations of the Unconscious--that of initiation. The idea of initiation corresponds to a wish that is very deeply rooted in the human mind. In the psycho-analytic study of individuals it is found perhaps most frequently in the shape of a desire for sexual initiation at the hands of the parents (or of obvious substitutes for these); such initiation constituting (in the mind of the phantasy maker) at once a removal of the prohibition which the parents had formerly laid upon all manifestations of sexuality and an invitation to penetrate those mysteries of sexual, reproductive and adult life generally, which they have hitherto jealously guarded for themselves.