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The term "[[primal ]] [[fantasies]]" connotes those [[fantasy ]] [[formations ]] (observation of [[sexual ]] intercourse between the [[parents]], [[seduction]], [[castration]]) which are typical in [[character ]] in that they transcend [[individual ]] variations and which in [[Freud]]'s hypothesis are part of a phylogenetic inheritance.Though evoked in "A [[Case ]] of [[Paranoia]]" (1915f), the [[notion ]] of primal fantasies was essentially bound up with Freud's reflections on the primal [[scene]], as developed in connection with the "[[Wolf Man]]" case (1918b [1914]) and reviewed during the same period in the <i>Introductory Lectures</i> (1916-17a).The [[subject ]] of primal fantasies brings up [[three ]] issues: the [[idea ]] of "typical" [[mental ]] formations analogous to the sexual theories of [[childhood]]; an "origin" of such fantasies antedating the individual's direct [[experience ]] (phylogenetic inheritance); and the matter of "origins" in a general [[sense ]] (what Laplanche and Pontalis [1964] call "fantasies of origins").If fantasies arose simply from the individual's [[particular ]] experience, the [[work ]] of [[analysis ]] would be exceedingly complicated; it is precisely the recurrent [[structures ]] of fantasy narratives and their [[association ]] with specific psychopathological formations that makes [[them ]] analyzable. Without going so far as to create a taxonomy, we may say that fantasies are central to [[complexes ]] with a general character. In the case of the primal fantasies, however, Freud posited their [[universality ]] inasmuch as they were characteristic of "all neurotics, and probably of all [[human ]] beings" (1915f, p. 269). It was for this [[reason]], he argued, that primal fantasies must perforce belong to a shared phylogenetic heritage. "It seems to me quite possible that all the things that are told to us to-day in analysis as [[phantasy ]] . . . were once [[real ]] occurrences in the primaeval [[times ]] of the human [[family]], and that [[children ]] in their phantasies are simply filling in the gaps in individual [[truth ]] with prehistoric truth" (1916-17a. p. 371).What is meant, then, are inherited mnemic traces that the [[child ]] calls up in [[order ]] to account for the enigmas he or she encounters: the [[difference ]] between the [[sexes]], the [[nature ]] of [[sexual relations]], and so on. As [[Jean Laplanche ]] and J.-B. Pontalis point out, Freud here found himself once again between the rock of actual events and the hard [[place ]] of constitutional factors. Transmission may occur, however, via the [[unconscious ]] of the parents (see "[[Identification ]] Fantasies," [[Alain ]] de Mijolla [1981]). Fantasies of this kind tend to echo [[myth ]] or [[tragedy ]] ([[Sophocles]], [[Shakespeare]]), for the same questions addressed there [[about ]] the origins of things invariably recur in them: "Fantasies of origins: the [[primal scene ]] pictures the origin of the individual; fantasies of seduction, the origin and upsurge of [[sexuality]]; fantasies of castration, the origin of the [[difference between the sexes]]" (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1974, p. 19). The universality of primal fantasies is underscored by the anonymity of the persons involved (1919e), clearly marking such fantasies off from fantasies in which the subject plays a leading part, even from instances where analysis of a fantasy uncovers the [[presence ]] of the fantasizing subject. This curious characteristic lends these fantasies a seeming incontestability suggesting that they indeed originate from a source [[other ]] than the individual [[imagination]].The notion of primal fantasy constitutes a link between the [[psychoanalysis ]] of [[social ]] groups and that of individuals, between [[prehistory ]] and the [[history ]] of particular [[subjects]].Freud deployed the phylogenetic [[thesis ]] as a counterargument to the Jungian idea of retrospective fantasies (<i>zurückphantasieren</i>), but in a sense he remained himself trapped by this antithesis. Indeed the [[psychoanalytical ]] conception of the "primal," as later elaborated, notably by Melanie [[Klein]], abandoned the argument from phylogenesis.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1915f). A case of paranoia running counter to the [[psycho]]-[[analytic ]] [[theory ]] of the disease. SE, 14: 263-272.

# ——. (1918b [1914]). From the history of an [[infantile ]] [[neurosis]]. SE, 17: 1-122.# ——. (1919e). "A child is [[being ]] beaten": A contribution to the study of the origin of sexual perversions. SE, 17: 175-204.