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achievement and other kinds of sublimatory activities. Tolstoy, for example, leapt out of a window at the age of nine in an attempt to fly and suffered a concussion. However, he almost never relinquished the literal belief that he could fly. He had ecstatic notions about merging with the moon, which Tolpin relates to the fantasy of mystical merger with his mother, whom he lost at the age of two. This early grandiose notion was, of course, channeled into extraordinary mastery and creativity in the area of writing. Winston Churchill had a similar background, and at eighteen jumped off a bridge onto treetops. This early grandiosity was gradually transformed from the realm of action into the realm of thought, as in his stirring speeches, e.g., “We shall never surrender.” Tolpin provides another example of a six-year-old child who leapt off a merry-go-round in an effort to fly and became furious with his mother because he could not. This wish to fly was later transformed into a wish to fly an airplane. The fascination with out-of-body “travel” seen in Monroe is likely an adult derivative of this Daedalus fantasy. His childhood grandiose wish is transformed not only into out-of-body experiences as an adult but also into the creation of an institute devoted to the study of these and other esoteric experiences. Hence, in Monroe we see perhaps a more direct translation of the childhood wish to fly into an adult form of the grandiose wish. However, he has used this interest adaptively and productively rather than in a self-destructive or counterproductive way. It may be that this persistent grandiose wish to fly is more likely to be operative as a determinant in those subjects who have the esoteric variety of out-of-body experience, i.e., travels to distant locations and through other realms which are fantastic and inexplicable. This determinant may not apply to the more mundane experiences where one simply finds himself floating on the ceiling above his body. If one of the determinants of Monroe’s out-of-body experience is this persistent wish to escape the shackles of the earthbound physical form, what are some of the others? His history indicates that he was free from childhood trauma and in fact somewhat indulged with creature comforts. His mother, a dynamic and successful physician, had a certain outlook on life which tended to avoid ugliness and unpleasantness. This attribute also emerges in an analysis of Monroe’s personality. Both Monroe and his mother used the defenses of denial and avoidance to a significant extent. These hypomanic defenses against aggression, tragedy, and destructiveness were further demonstrated in projective psychological testing. The Rorschach tests indicated that Monroe was a man who avoids many aspects of his