Some little distance from the road, to the right, there stood a woman, apparently waiting for me. When I saw that, I turned back.

This woman was a prostitute whom he had been meeting for the past six days. Bushes are the devil's device; and, like Luther, he would consider it the devil's work were he to stumble. (To stumble, German, straucheln and Strauch, bush; there is thus an additional connection between bushes and stumbling in the German, based on semantics.) The woman stood at the edge of the bush. The symbolic representation of the vagina - narrow path edged with bushes - is very clear.

But the subject is also homosexual and the chief cause of his neurosis is his leaning towards a sister in whose company he has experienced his important trauma.7 The dream shows that he still has a considerable amount of resistance to overcome. A few days later, as already mentioned, his action belied the turning back incident at the end of the dream.

7It may cause some surprise that I should have occasion to dwell so much on incest. But I cannot do otherwise than record conscientiously everything that comes to my attention. The fact must also be taken into consideration that we are dealing chiefly with subjects burdened with ill health.