Dreams of the First World War: transitionnals narratives?

Historian Mireille Bélis has collected one hundred dream accounts dating from World War One, and asked a psychoanalyst to interpret them. A series of forty dreams noted by a young male intellectual attracted our attention. They exude an impression of “being there,” unlike the dynamic Jung referred to within the dream series he studied. In contrast with traumatic dreams which always present diurnal fear, these dreams evoke moments of familial bliss in peacetime. These dreams came down to us only because they were written down, usually in letters, addressed to a reader. They were therefore parts of a transference relationship. We suggest that these accounts serve the same purpose as Winnicott’s transitional objects. They are a go-between that connects the dreamer, submerged in distress, with a symbol of the good-enough mother he knew as an infant, enabling the dreamer to overcome the disorganizing forces of despair.