The second case is that of a soldier who had suffered from severe shock symptoms and had recovered. In conversation with the medical officer the soldier expressed his willingness, and even his desire, to return to the front, in full knowledge of the fact that the officer’s report in that sense would lead to his being sent back to fight. That night the patient was awakened by a terrifying dream, the true significance of which was certainly not adequately appreciated by him. Although he dreamt that he was afraid to go back to the front, apparently he did not realise that he was actually afraid—_i.e._, that the dream had any meaning. On examination it proved to be a detailed forecast of the imaginary incidents of his return to his regiment, and of his attempt to commit suicide when ordered to go to France. Here was a man who of his own initiative had asked his doctor to certify him as ready to go back, yet in his sleep the train of thought, started by the discussion of the possibility of his return, working subconsciously, had stirred up images of what this implied, and reinstated emotions of so terrifying a nature that in his dream he preferred suicide to facing the ordeal again. It may perhaps be allowable to quote in this connection the view of a German neurologist, Prof. Gaupp, on the “shock-cases” which have been sent back from the German front.[21] At the same time it is important to remind our readers that Gaupp is writing of a conscript army, the authorities in which are certainly not notorious for lenity to the individual; further, that up to the time of writing the present chapter, all the “shock” patients in Great Britain have been men who voluntarily elected to serve their country, the majority of them having enlisted in the earliest stages of the war. In discussing cases where nervous trouble, uncontrollable in nature and intensity, had led to the patients being kept in German hospitals for months, it was sometimes found that the mental foundation which was a causal factor of these troubles was a more or less conscious anxiety concerning the possibility of a return to the front.