One day she divined the central idea of her ritual when she suddenly understood her rule not to let the bolster touch the back of the bed. The bolster had always seemed a woman to her, she said, and the upright back of the bedstead a man. She wished therefore, by a magic ceremony, as it were, to keep man and woman apart; that is to say, to separate the parents and prevent intercourse from occurring. Years before the institution of her ritual, she had attempted to achieve this end by a more direct method. She had simulated fear, or had exploited a tendency to fear, so that the door between her bedroom and that of her parents should not be closed. This regulation was still actually included in her present ritual; in this way she managed to make it possible to overhear her parents; a proceeding which at one time had caused her months of sleeplessness. Not content with disturbing her parents in this way, she at that time even succeeded occasionally in sleeping between the father and mother in their bed. “Bolster” and “bedstead” were then really prevented from coming together. As she finally grew too big to be comfortable in the same bed with the parents, she achieved the same thing by consciously simulating fear and getting her mother to change places with her and to give up to her her place by the father. This incident was undoubtedly the starting-point of phantasies, the effect of which was evident in the ritual. If the bolster was a woman, then the shaking of the eiderdown till all the feathers were at the bottom, making a protuberance there, also had a meaning. It meant impregnating a woman; she did not neglect, though, to obliterate the pregnancy again, for she had for years been terrified that intercourse between her parents might result in another child and present her with a rival. On the other hand, if the large bolster meant the mother then the small pillow could only represent the daughter. Why had this pillow to be placed diamond-wise upon the bolster and her head be laid exactly in its middle lengthways? She was easily reminded that a diamond is repeatedly used in drawings on walls to signify the open female genitals. The part of the man (the father) she thus played herself and replaced the male organ by her own head. (Cf. Symbolism of beheading for castration.)