Under these circumstances, it may well seem to the child that his curiosity concerning the process by which he and other children came into the world could be most satisfactorily gratified by the experience in his own person of those events concerning which information is required. The motive thus aroused will then in many cases add very considerably to the fascination which the ideas of gestation and birth may already possess in virtue of their purely sexual significance. The desire thus satisfied may again in some cases be still further reinforced by the notion that the position of the child within the womb is a favourable one for finding out many things about the life of the mother and her relations to the father which may be otherwise difficult to discover; as in the not infrequent phantasy of observing the sexual act between the parents from this point of vantage. [Sidenote: Summary] Summarising our discussion as to the significance of the womb and birth phantasies, we have seen that they may have any or all of the following meanings:-- _As to the return to the womb_:-- (1) An expression of the tendency to withdraw from the labours and difficulties of life to the place where the greatest possible freedom from such troubles may be found; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:-- (a) the desire for the effortless gratification of all needs and wishes, (b) the desire for protection from the dangers of the outer world, (c) the equation of life after death with life before birth, the former being invested with all the supposed advantages of the latter. (2) A sexual significance, as representing:-- (a) the closest possible intimacy with the mother, (b) a means of attaining sexual intimacy with the father through fusion with the mother, (c) a means of satisfying sexual curiosity. _As to re-birth_:-- (1) A more or less symbolic significance; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:-- (a) the desire for a more vigorous and independent mode of life, involving greater freedom from the protecting and guarding influence of the parents and especially of the mother, (b) the desire for physical rejuvenation (of the individual, of the race, or of the means of subsistence), (c) the desire for moral or religious improvement or conversion. (2) A more literal significance, in which the emphasis may be laid upon:-- (a) a directly sexual pleasure in the contemplation of the act, the process of birth being treated as a substitute for sexual intercourse, (b) the possibility of satisfying sexual curiosity[69]. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 46: "The Interpretation of Dreams," 243 ff.]