This elevation of our thoughts prepares us for having to deal with this very “common thing.” The _post-mortem_ feature of the rise in temperature corresponds to the words, “after his death” in the dream content. The most agonising of his sufferings had been a complete paralysis of the intestines (_obstruction_), which set in during the last weeks. All sorts of disrespectful thoughts are connected with this. A man of my own age who had lost his father while he was still at the Gymnasium, upon which occasion I was profoundly moved and tendered him my friendship, once told me, with derision, about the distress of a lady relative whose father had died on the street and had been brought home, where it turned out upon undressing the corpse, that at the moment of death, or _post-mortem_, an evacuation of the bowels had taken place. The daughter of the dead man was profoundly unhappy at having this ugly detail stain her memory of her father. We have now penetrated to the wish that is embodied in this dream. _To stand before one’s children pure and great after one’s death_, who would not wish that? What has become of the absurdity of the dream? The appearance of it has been caused only by the fact that a perfectly permissible mode of speech—in the case of which we are accustomed to ignore the absurdity that happens to exist between its parts—has been faithfully represented in the dream. Here, too, we are unable to deny that the semblance of absurdity is one which is desired and has been purposely brought about.[ES]