D. Why Dreams Are Forgotten After Waking
That a dream fades away in the morning is proverbial. It is, indeed, possible to recall it. For we know the dream, of course, only by recalling it after waking; but we very often believe that we remember it incompletely, that during the night there was more of it than we remember. We may observe how the memory of a dream which in the morning was still vivid fades in the course of the day, leaving only a few trifling remnants. We are often aware that we have been dreaming, but we do not know of what we have dreamed; and we are so well used to this fact - that the dream is liable to be forgotten - that we do not reject as absurd the possibility that we may have been dreaming even when, in the morning, we know nothing either of the content of the dream or of the fact that we have dreamed. On the other hand, it often happens that dreams manifest an extraordinary power of maintaining themselves in the memory. I have had occasion to analyse, with my patients, dreams which occurred to them twenty-five years or more previously, and I can remember a dream of my own which is divided from the present day by at least thirty-seven years, and yet has lost nothing of its freshness in my memory. All this is very remarkable, and for the present incomprehensible.
The forgetting of dreams is treated in the most detailed manner by Strumpell. This forgetting is evidently a complex phenomenon; for Strumpell attributes it not to a single cause, but to quite a number of causes.
That a dream fades away in the morning is proverbial. It is, indeed, possible to recall it. For we know the dream, of course, only by recalling it after waking; but we very often believe that we remember it incompletely, that during the night there was more of it than we remember. We may observe how the memory of a dream which in the morning was still vivid fades in the course of the day, leaving only a few trifling remnants. We are often aware that we have been dreaming, but we do not know of what we have dreamed; and we are so well used to this fact - that the dream is liable to be forgotten - that we do not reject as absurd the possibility that we may have been dreaming even when, in the morning, we know nothing either of the content of the dream or of the fact that we have dreamed. On the other hand, it often happens that dreams manifest an extraordinary power of maintaining themselves in the memory. I have had occasion to analyse, with my patients, dreams which occurred to them twenty-five years or more previously, and I can remember a dream of my own which is divided from the present day by at least thirty-seven years, and yet has lost nothing of its freshness in my memory. All this is very remarkable, and for the present incomprehensible.
The forgetting of dreams is treated in the most detailed manner by Strumpell. This forgetting is evidently a complex phenomenon; for Strumpell attributes it not to a single cause, but to quite a number of causes.
In the first place, all those factors which induce forgetfulness in the waking state determine also the forgetting of dreams. In the waking state we
commonly very soon forget a great many sensations and perceptions because they are too slight to remember, and because they are charged with
only a slight amount of emotional feeling. This is true also of many dream-images; they are forgotten because they are too weak, while the
stronger images in their neighbourhood are remembered. However, the factor of intensity is in itself not the only determinant of the preservation
of dream-images; Strumpell, as well as other authors (Calkins), admits that dream-images are often rapidly forgotten although they are known to
have been vivid, whereas, among those that are retained in the memory, there are many that are very shadowy and unmeaning. Besides, in the
waking state one is wont to forget rather easily things that have happened only once, and to remember more readily things which occur
repeatedly. But most dream-images are unique experiences,[21] and this peculiarity would contribute towards the forgetting of all dreams equally.
Of much greater significance is a third cause of forgetting. In order that feelings, representations, ideas and the like should attain a certain degree
of memorability, it is important that they should not remain isolated, but that they should enter into connections and associations of an appropriate
nature. If the words of a verse of poetry are taken and mixed together, it will be very difficult to remember them. "Properly placed, in a significant
sequence, one word helps another, and the whole, making sense, remains and is easily and lastingly fixed in the memory. Contradictions, as a
rule, are retained with just as much difficulty and just as rarely as things that are confused and disorderly." Now dreams, in most cases, lack sense
and order. Dream-compositions, by their very nature, are insusceptible of being remembered, and they are forgotten because as a rule they fall to
pieces the very next moment. To be sure, these conclusions are not entirely consistent with Radestock's observation (p. 168), that we most readily
retain just those dreams which are most peculiar.
According to Strumpell, other factors, deriving from the relation of the dream to the waking state, are even more effective in causing us to forget our dreams. The forgetfulness of dreams manifested by the waking consciousness is evidently merely the counterpart of the fact already mentioned, namely, that the dream hardly ever takes over an orderly series of memories from the waking state, but only certain details of these memories, which it removes from the habitual psychic connections in which they are remembered in the waking state. The dream-composition, therefore, has no place in the community of the psychic series which fill the mind. It lacks all mnemonic aids. "In this manner the dream-structure rises, as it were, from the soil of our psychic life, and floats in psychic space like a cloud in the sky, quickly dispelled by the first breath of reawakening life" (p. 87). This situation is accentuated by the fact that on waking the attention is immediately besieged by the inrushing world of sensation, so that very few dream-images are capable of withstanding its force. They fade away before the impressions of the new day like the stars before the light of the sun.
Finally, we should remember that the fact that most people take but little interest in their dreams is conducive to the forgetting of dreams. Anyone who for some time applies himself to the investigation of dreams, and takes a special interest in them, usually dreams more during that period than at any other; he remembers his dreams more easily and more frequently.
Two other reasons for the forgetting of dreams, which Bonatelli (cited by Benini) adds to those adduced by Strumpell, have already been included in those enumerated above; namely, (1) that the difference of the general sensation in the sleeping and the waking state is unfavourable to mutual reproduction, and (2) that the different arrangement of the material in the dream makes the dream untranslatable, so to speak, for the waking consciousness.
It is therefore all the more remarkable, as Strumpell himself observes, that, in spite of all these reasons for forgetting the dream, so many dreams are retained in the memory. The continual efforts of those who have written on the subject to formulate laws for the remembering of dreams amount to an admission that here, too, there is something puzzling and unexplained. Certain peculiarities relating to the remembering of dreams have attracted particular attention of late; for example, the fact that the dream which is believed to be forgotten in the morning may be recalled in the course of the day on the occasion of some perception which accidentally touches the forgotten content of the dream (Radestock, Tissie). But the whole recollection of dreams is open to an objection which is calculated greatly to depreciate its value in critical eyes. One may doubt whether our memory, which omits so much from the dream, does not falsify what it retains.
This doubt as to the exactness of the reproduction of dreams is expressed by Strumpell when he says: "It may therefore easily happen that the waking consciousness involuntarily interpolates a great many things in the recollection of the dream; one imagines that one has dreamt all sorts of things which the actual dream did not contain."
Jessen (p. 547) expresses himself in very decided terms:
"Moreover, we must not lose sight of the fact, hitherto little heeded, that in the investigation and interpretation of coherent and logical dreams we almost always take liberties with the truth when we recall a dream to memory. Unconsciously and unintentionally we fill up the gaps and supplement the dream-images. Rarely, and perhaps never, has a connected dream been as connected as it appears to us in memory. Even the most truth-loving person can hardly relate a dream without exaggerating and embellishing it in some degree. The human mind so greatly tends to perceive everything in a connected form that it intentionally supplies the missing links in any dream which is in some degree incoherent."
The observations of V. Eggers, though of course independently conceived, read almost like a translation of Jessen's words:
"...L'observation des reves a ses difficultes speciales et le seul moyen d'eviter toute erreur en pareille matiere est de confier au papier sans le moindre retard ce que l'on vient d'eprouver et de remarquer; sinon, l'oubli vient vite ou total ou partiel; l'oubli total est sans gravite; mais l'oubli
According to Strumpell, other factors, deriving from the relation of the dream to the waking state, are even more effective in causing us to forget our dreams. The forgetfulness of dreams manifested by the waking consciousness is evidently merely the counterpart of the fact already mentioned, namely, that the dream hardly ever takes over an orderly series of memories from the waking state, but only certain details of these memories, which it removes from the habitual psychic connections in which they are remembered in the waking state. The dream-composition, therefore, has no place in the community of the psychic series which fill the mind. It lacks all mnemonic aids. "In this manner the dream-structure rises, as it were, from the soil of our psychic life, and floats in psychic space like a cloud in the sky, quickly dispelled by the first breath of reawakening life" (p. 87). This situation is accentuated by the fact that on waking the attention is immediately besieged by the inrushing world of sensation, so that very few dream-images are capable of withstanding its force. They fade away before the impressions of the new day like the stars before the light of the sun.
Finally, we should remember that the fact that most people take but little interest in their dreams is conducive to the forgetting of dreams. Anyone who for some time applies himself to the investigation of dreams, and takes a special interest in them, usually dreams more during that period than at any other; he remembers his dreams more easily and more frequently.
Two other reasons for the forgetting of dreams, which Bonatelli (cited by Benini) adds to those adduced by Strumpell, have already been included in those enumerated above; namely, (1) that the difference of the general sensation in the sleeping and the waking state is unfavourable to mutual reproduction, and (2) that the different arrangement of the material in the dream makes the dream untranslatable, so to speak, for the waking consciousness.
It is therefore all the more remarkable, as Strumpell himself observes, that, in spite of all these reasons for forgetting the dream, so many dreams are retained in the memory. The continual efforts of those who have written on the subject to formulate laws for the remembering of dreams amount to an admission that here, too, there is something puzzling and unexplained. Certain peculiarities relating to the remembering of dreams have attracted particular attention of late; for example, the fact that the dream which is believed to be forgotten in the morning may be recalled in the course of the day on the occasion of some perception which accidentally touches the forgotten content of the dream (Radestock, Tissie). But the whole recollection of dreams is open to an objection which is calculated greatly to depreciate its value in critical eyes. One may doubt whether our memory, which omits so much from the dream, does not falsify what it retains.
This doubt as to the exactness of the reproduction of dreams is expressed by Strumpell when he says: "It may therefore easily happen that the waking consciousness involuntarily interpolates a great many things in the recollection of the dream; one imagines that one has dreamt all sorts of things which the actual dream did not contain."
Jessen (p. 547) expresses himself in very decided terms:
"Moreover, we must not lose sight of the fact, hitherto little heeded, that in the investigation and interpretation of coherent and logical dreams we almost always take liberties with the truth when we recall a dream to memory. Unconsciously and unintentionally we fill up the gaps and supplement the dream-images. Rarely, and perhaps never, has a connected dream been as connected as it appears to us in memory. Even the most truth-loving person can hardly relate a dream without exaggerating and embellishing it in some degree. The human mind so greatly tends to perceive everything in a connected form that it intentionally supplies the missing links in any dream which is in some degree incoherent."
The observations of V. Eggers, though of course independently conceived, read almost like a translation of Jessen's words:
"...L'observation des reves a ses difficultes speciales et le seul moyen d'eviter toute erreur en pareille matiere est de confier au papier sans le moindre retard ce que l'on vient d'eprouver et de remarquer; sinon, l'oubli vient vite ou total ou partiel; l'oubli total est sans gravite; mais l'oubli
partiel est perfide: car si l'on se met ensuite a raconter ce que l'on n'a pas oublie, on est expose a completer par imagination les fragments
incoherents et disjoints fourni par la memoire... on devient artiste a son insu, et le recit, periodiquement repete s'impose a la creance de son auteur,
qui, de bonne foi, le presente comme un fait authentique, dument etabli selon les bonnes methodes...."[22]
Similarly Spitta, who seems to think that it is only in the attempt to reproduce the dream that we bring order and arrangement into loosely associated dream-elements--"turning juxtaposition into concatenation; that is, adding the process of logical connection which is absent in the dream."
Since we can test the reliability of our memory only by objective means, and since such a test is impossible in the case of dreams, which are our own personal experience, and for which we know no other source than our memory, what value do our recollections of our dreams possess?
E. The Psychological Peculiarities of Dreams
In our scientific investigation of dreams we start with the assumption that dreams are a phenomenon of our own psychic activity; yet the completed dream appears to us as something alien, whose authorship we are so little inclined to recognize that we should be just as willing to say "A dream came to me," as "I dreamed." Whence this "psychic strangeness" of dreams? According to our exposition of the sources of dreams, we must assume that it is not determined by the material which finds its way into the dream-content, since this is for the most part common both to dream-life and waking life. We might ask ourselves whether this impression is not evoked by modifications of the psychic processes in dreams, and we might even attempt to suggest that the existence of such changes is the psychological characteristic of dreams.
No one has more strongly emphasized the essential difference between dream-life and waking life and drawn more far reaching conclusions from this difference than G. Th. Fechner in certain observations contained in his Elemente der Psychophysik (Part II, p. 520). He believes that "neither the simple depression of conscious psychic life under the main threshold," nor the distraction of the attention from the influences of the outer world, suffices to explain the peculiarities of dream-life as compared with waking life. He believes, rather, that the arena of dreams is other than the arena of the waking life of the mind. "If the arena of psychophysical activity were the same during the sleeping and the waking state, the dream, in my opinion, could only be a continuation of the waking ideational life at a lower degree of intensity, so that it would have to partake of the form and material of the latter. But this is by no means the case."
What Fechner really meant by such a transposition of the psychic activity has never been made clear, nor has anybody else, to my knowledge, followed the path which he indicates in this remark. An anatomical interpretation in the sense of physiological localization in the brain, or even a histological stratification of the cerebral cortex, must of course be excluded. The idea might, however, prove ingenious and fruitful if it could refer to a psychical apparatus built up of a number of successive and connected systems.
Other authors have been content to give prominence to this or that palpable psychological peculiarity of the dream-life, and even to take this as a starting-point for more comprehensive attempts at explanation.
It has been justly remarked that one of the chief peculiarities of dream-life makes its appearance even in the state of falling asleep, and may be defined as the sleep-heralding phenomenon. According to Schleiermacher (p. 351), the distinguishing characteristic of the waking state is the fact that its psychic activity occurs in the form of ideas rather than in that of images. But the dream thinks mainly in visual images, and it may be noted that with the approach of sleep the voluntary activities become impeded in proportion as involuntary representations make their appearance, the latter belonging entirely to the category of images. The incapacity for such ideational activities as we feel to be deliberately willed, and the emergence of visual images, which is regularly connected with this distraction - these are two constant characteristics of dreams, and on psychological analysis we are compelled to recognize them as essential characteristics of dream-life. As for the images themselves the hypnogogic hallucinations - we have learned that even in their content they are identical with dream-images.[23]
Dreams, then, think preponderantly, but not exclusively, in visual images. They make use also of auditory images, and, to a lesser extent, of the other sensory impressions. Moreover, in dreams, as in the waking state, many things are simply thought or imagined (probably with the help of remnants of verbal conceptions). Characteristic of dreams, however, are only those elements of their contents which behave like images, that is, which more closely resemble perceptions than mnemonic representations. Without entering upon a discussion of the nature of hallucinations - a discussion familiar to every psychiatrist - we may say, with every well-informed authority, that the dream hallucinates- that is, that it replaces thoughts by hallucinations. In this respect visual and acoustic impressions behave in the same way. It has been observed that the recollection of a succession of notes heard as we are falling asleep becomes transformed, when we have fallen asleep, into a hallucination of the same melody, to give place, each time we wake, to the fainter and qualitatively different representations of the memory, and resuming, each time we doze off again, its hallucinatory character.
The transformation of an idea into a hallucination is not the only departure of the dream from the more or less corresponding waking thought. From these images the dream creates a situation; it represents something as actually present; it dramatizes an idea, as Spitta (p. 145) puts it. But the peculiar character of this aspect of the dream-life is completely intelligible only if we admit that in dreaming we do not as a rule (the exceptions call for special examination) suppose ourselves to be thinking, but actually experiencing; that is, we accept the hallucination in
Similarly Spitta, who seems to think that it is only in the attempt to reproduce the dream that we bring order and arrangement into loosely associated dream-elements--"turning juxtaposition into concatenation; that is, adding the process of logical connection which is absent in the dream."
Since we can test the reliability of our memory only by objective means, and since such a test is impossible in the case of dreams, which are our own personal experience, and for which we know no other source than our memory, what value do our recollections of our dreams possess?
E. The Psychological Peculiarities of Dreams
In our scientific investigation of dreams we start with the assumption that dreams are a phenomenon of our own psychic activity; yet the completed dream appears to us as something alien, whose authorship we are so little inclined to recognize that we should be just as willing to say "A dream came to me," as "I dreamed." Whence this "psychic strangeness" of dreams? According to our exposition of the sources of dreams, we must assume that it is not determined by the material which finds its way into the dream-content, since this is for the most part common both to dream-life and waking life. We might ask ourselves whether this impression is not evoked by modifications of the psychic processes in dreams, and we might even attempt to suggest that the existence of such changes is the psychological characteristic of dreams.
No one has more strongly emphasized the essential difference between dream-life and waking life and drawn more far reaching conclusions from this difference than G. Th. Fechner in certain observations contained in his Elemente der Psychophysik (Part II, p. 520). He believes that "neither the simple depression of conscious psychic life under the main threshold," nor the distraction of the attention from the influences of the outer world, suffices to explain the peculiarities of dream-life as compared with waking life. He believes, rather, that the arena of dreams is other than the arena of the waking life of the mind. "If the arena of psychophysical activity were the same during the sleeping and the waking state, the dream, in my opinion, could only be a continuation of the waking ideational life at a lower degree of intensity, so that it would have to partake of the form and material of the latter. But this is by no means the case."
What Fechner really meant by such a transposition of the psychic activity has never been made clear, nor has anybody else, to my knowledge, followed the path which he indicates in this remark. An anatomical interpretation in the sense of physiological localization in the brain, or even a histological stratification of the cerebral cortex, must of course be excluded. The idea might, however, prove ingenious and fruitful if it could refer to a psychical apparatus built up of a number of successive and connected systems.
Other authors have been content to give prominence to this or that palpable psychological peculiarity of the dream-life, and even to take this as a starting-point for more comprehensive attempts at explanation.
It has been justly remarked that one of the chief peculiarities of dream-life makes its appearance even in the state of falling asleep, and may be defined as the sleep-heralding phenomenon. According to Schleiermacher (p. 351), the distinguishing characteristic of the waking state is the fact that its psychic activity occurs in the form of ideas rather than in that of images. But the dream thinks mainly in visual images, and it may be noted that with the approach of sleep the voluntary activities become impeded in proportion as involuntary representations make their appearance, the latter belonging entirely to the category of images. The incapacity for such ideational activities as we feel to be deliberately willed, and the emergence of visual images, which is regularly connected with this distraction - these are two constant characteristics of dreams, and on psychological analysis we are compelled to recognize them as essential characteristics of dream-life. As for the images themselves the hypnogogic hallucinations - we have learned that even in their content they are identical with dream-images.[23]
Dreams, then, think preponderantly, but not exclusively, in visual images. They make use also of auditory images, and, to a lesser extent, of the other sensory impressions. Moreover, in dreams, as in the waking state, many things are simply thought or imagined (probably with the help of remnants of verbal conceptions). Characteristic of dreams, however, are only those elements of their contents which behave like images, that is, which more closely resemble perceptions than mnemonic representations. Without entering upon a discussion of the nature of hallucinations - a discussion familiar to every psychiatrist - we may say, with every well-informed authority, that the dream hallucinates- that is, that it replaces thoughts by hallucinations. In this respect visual and acoustic impressions behave in the same way. It has been observed that the recollection of a succession of notes heard as we are falling asleep becomes transformed, when we have fallen asleep, into a hallucination of the same melody, to give place, each time we wake, to the fainter and qualitatively different representations of the memory, and resuming, each time we doze off again, its hallucinatory character.
The transformation of an idea into a hallucination is not the only departure of the dream from the more or less corresponding waking thought. From these images the dream creates a situation; it represents something as actually present; it dramatizes an idea, as Spitta (p. 145) puts it. But the peculiar character of this aspect of the dream-life is completely intelligible only if we admit that in dreaming we do not as a rule (the exceptions call for special examination) suppose ourselves to be thinking, but actually experiencing; that is, we accept the hallucination in
perfectly good faith. The criticism that one has experienced nothing, but that one has merely been thinking in a peculiar manner - dreaming -
occurs to us only on waking. It is this characteristic which distinguishes the genuine dream from the day-dream, which is never confused with
reality.
The characteristics of the dream-life thus far considered have been summed up by Burdach (p. 476) as follows: "As characteristic features of the dream we may state (a) that the subjective activity of our psyche appears as objective, inasmuch as our perceptive faculties apprehend the products of phantasy as though they were sensory activities... (b) that sleep abrogates our voluntary action; hence falling asleep involves a certain degree of passivity... The images of sleep are conditioned by the relaxation of our powers of will."
It now remains to account for the credulity of the mind in respect to the dream-hallucinations which are able to make their appearance only after the suspension of certain voluntary powers. Strumpell asserts that in this respect the psyche behaves correctly and in conformity with its mechanism. The dream-elements are by no means mere representations, but true and actual experiences of the psyche, similar to those which come to the waking state by way of the senses (p. 34). Whereas in the waking state the mind thinks and imagines by means of verbal images and language, in dreams it thinks and imagines in actual perceptual images (p. 35). Dreams, moreover, reveal a spatial consciousness, inasmuch as in dreams, just as in the waking state, sensations and images are transposed into outer space (p. 36). It must therefore be admitted that in dreams the mind preserves the same attitude in respect of images and perceptions as in the waking state (p. 43). And if it forms erroneous conclusions in respect of these images and perceptions, this is due to the fact that in sleep it is deprived of that criterion which alone can distinguish between sensory perceptions emanating from within and those coming from without. It is unable to subject its images to those tests which alone can prove their objective reality. Further, it neglects to differentiate between those images which can be exchanged at will and those in respect of which there is no free choice. It errs because it cannot apply the law of causality to the content of its dreams (p. 58). In brief, its alienation from the outer world is the very reason for its belief in its subjective dream-world.
Delboeuf arrives at the same conclusion through a somewhat different line of argument. We believe in the reality of dream-pictures because in sleep we have no other impressions with which to compare them; because we are cut off from the outer world. But it is not because we are unable, when asleep, to test our hallucinations that we believe in their reality. Dreams can make us believe that we are applying such tests - that we are touching, say, the rose that we see in our dream; and yet we are dreaming. According to Delboeuf there is no valid criterion that can show whether something is a dream or a waking reality, except - and that only pragmatically - the fact of waking. "I conclude that all that has been experienced between falling asleep and waking is a delusion, if I find on waking that I am lying undressed in bed" (p. 84). "I considered the images of my dream real while I was asleep on account of the unsleeping mental habit of assuming an outer world with which I can contrast my ego."[24]
If the turning-away from the outer world is accepted as the decisive cause of the most conspicuous characteristics of our dreams, it will be worth our while to consider certain subtle observations of Burdach's, which will throw some light on the relation of the sleeping psyche to the outer world, and at the same time serve to prevent our over-estimating the importance of the above deductions. "Sleep," says Burdach, "results only under the condition that the mind is not excited by sensory stimuli... yet it is not so much a lack of sensory stimuli that conditions sleep as a lack of interest in them;[25] some sensory impressions are even necessary in so far as they serve to calm the mind; thus the miller can fall asleep only when he hears the clatter of his mill, and he who finds it necessary, as a matter of precaution, to burn a light at night, cannot fall asleep in the dark" (p. 457).
"During sleep the psyche isolates itself from the outer world, and withdraws from the periphery.... Nevertheless, the connection is not entirely broken; if one did not hear and feel during sleep, but only after waking, one would assuredly never be awakened at all. The continuance of sensation is even more plainly shown by the fact that we are not always awakened by the mere force of the sensory impression, but by its relation to the psyche. An indifferent word does not arouse the sleeper, but if called by name he wakes... so that even in sleep the psyche discriminates between sensations.... Hence one may even be awakened by the obliteration of a sensory stimulus, if this is related to anything of imagined importance. Thus one man wakes when the nightlight is extinguished, and the miller when his mill comes to a standstill; that is, waking is due to the cessation of a sensory activity, and this presupposes that the activity has been perceived, but has not disturbed the mind, its effect being indifferent, or actually reassuring" (p. 46, etc.).
Even if we are willing to disregard these by no means trifling objections, we must yet admit that the qualities of dream-life hitherto considered, which are attributed to withdrawal from the outer world, cannot fully account for the strangeness of dreams. For otherwise it would be possible to reconvert the hallucinations of the dream into mental images, and the situations of the dream into thoughts, and thus to achieve the task of dream- interpretation. Now this is precisely what we do when we reproduce a dream from memory after waking, and no matter whether we are fully or only partially successful in this retranslation, the dream still remains as mysterious as before.
Furthermore, all writers unhesitatingly assume that still other and profounder changes take place in the plastic material of waking life. Strumpell seeks to isolate one of these changes as follows: (p. 17) "With the cessation of active sensory perception and of normal consciousness, the psyche is deprived of the soil in which its feelings, desires, interests, and activities are rooted. Those psychic states, feelings, interests, and valuations, which in the waking state adhere to memory-images, succumb to an obscuring pressure, in consequence of which their connection with these images is severed; the perceptual images of things, persons, localities, events and actions of the waking state are, individually, abundantly reproduced, but none of these brings with it its psychic value. Deprived of this, they hover in the mind dependent on their own resources..."
The characteristics of the dream-life thus far considered have been summed up by Burdach (p. 476) as follows: "As characteristic features of the dream we may state (a) that the subjective activity of our psyche appears as objective, inasmuch as our perceptive faculties apprehend the products of phantasy as though they were sensory activities... (b) that sleep abrogates our voluntary action; hence falling asleep involves a certain degree of passivity... The images of sleep are conditioned by the relaxation of our powers of will."
It now remains to account for the credulity of the mind in respect to the dream-hallucinations which are able to make their appearance only after the suspension of certain voluntary powers. Strumpell asserts that in this respect the psyche behaves correctly and in conformity with its mechanism. The dream-elements are by no means mere representations, but true and actual experiences of the psyche, similar to those which come to the waking state by way of the senses (p. 34). Whereas in the waking state the mind thinks and imagines by means of verbal images and language, in dreams it thinks and imagines in actual perceptual images (p. 35). Dreams, moreover, reveal a spatial consciousness, inasmuch as in dreams, just as in the waking state, sensations and images are transposed into outer space (p. 36). It must therefore be admitted that in dreams the mind preserves the same attitude in respect of images and perceptions as in the waking state (p. 43). And if it forms erroneous conclusions in respect of these images and perceptions, this is due to the fact that in sleep it is deprived of that criterion which alone can distinguish between sensory perceptions emanating from within and those coming from without. It is unable to subject its images to those tests which alone can prove their objective reality. Further, it neglects to differentiate between those images which can be exchanged at will and those in respect of which there is no free choice. It errs because it cannot apply the law of causality to the content of its dreams (p. 58). In brief, its alienation from the outer world is the very reason for its belief in its subjective dream-world.
Delboeuf arrives at the same conclusion through a somewhat different line of argument. We believe in the reality of dream-pictures because in sleep we have no other impressions with which to compare them; because we are cut off from the outer world. But it is not because we are unable, when asleep, to test our hallucinations that we believe in their reality. Dreams can make us believe that we are applying such tests - that we are touching, say, the rose that we see in our dream; and yet we are dreaming. According to Delboeuf there is no valid criterion that can show whether something is a dream or a waking reality, except - and that only pragmatically - the fact of waking. "I conclude that all that has been experienced between falling asleep and waking is a delusion, if I find on waking that I am lying undressed in bed" (p. 84). "I considered the images of my dream real while I was asleep on account of the unsleeping mental habit of assuming an outer world with which I can contrast my ego."[24]
If the turning-away from the outer world is accepted as the decisive cause of the most conspicuous characteristics of our dreams, it will be worth our while to consider certain subtle observations of Burdach's, which will throw some light on the relation of the sleeping psyche to the outer world, and at the same time serve to prevent our over-estimating the importance of the above deductions. "Sleep," says Burdach, "results only under the condition that the mind is not excited by sensory stimuli... yet it is not so much a lack of sensory stimuli that conditions sleep as a lack of interest in them;[25] some sensory impressions are even necessary in so far as they serve to calm the mind; thus the miller can fall asleep only when he hears the clatter of his mill, and he who finds it necessary, as a matter of precaution, to burn a light at night, cannot fall asleep in the dark" (p. 457).
"During sleep the psyche isolates itself from the outer world, and withdraws from the periphery.... Nevertheless, the connection is not entirely broken; if one did not hear and feel during sleep, but only after waking, one would assuredly never be awakened at all. The continuance of sensation is even more plainly shown by the fact that we are not always awakened by the mere force of the sensory impression, but by its relation to the psyche. An indifferent word does not arouse the sleeper, but if called by name he wakes... so that even in sleep the psyche discriminates between sensations.... Hence one may even be awakened by the obliteration of a sensory stimulus, if this is related to anything of imagined importance. Thus one man wakes when the nightlight is extinguished, and the miller when his mill comes to a standstill; that is, waking is due to the cessation of a sensory activity, and this presupposes that the activity has been perceived, but has not disturbed the mind, its effect being indifferent, or actually reassuring" (p. 46, etc.).
Even if we are willing to disregard these by no means trifling objections, we must yet admit that the qualities of dream-life hitherto considered, which are attributed to withdrawal from the outer world, cannot fully account for the strangeness of dreams. For otherwise it would be possible to reconvert the hallucinations of the dream into mental images, and the situations of the dream into thoughts, and thus to achieve the task of dream- interpretation. Now this is precisely what we do when we reproduce a dream from memory after waking, and no matter whether we are fully or only partially successful in this retranslation, the dream still remains as mysterious as before.
Furthermore, all writers unhesitatingly assume that still other and profounder changes take place in the plastic material of waking life. Strumpell seeks to isolate one of these changes as follows: (p. 17) "With the cessation of active sensory perception and of normal consciousness, the psyche is deprived of the soil in which its feelings, desires, interests, and activities are rooted. Those psychic states, feelings, interests, and valuations, which in the waking state adhere to memory-images, succumb to an obscuring pressure, in consequence of which their connection with these images is severed; the perceptual images of things, persons, localities, events and actions of the waking state are, individually, abundantly reproduced, but none of these brings with it its psychic value. Deprived of this, they hover in the mind dependent on their own resources..."
This annihilation of psychic values, which is in turn referred to a turning away from the outer world, is, according to Strumpell, very largely
responsible for the impression of strangeness with which the dream is coloured in our memory.
We have seen that the very fact of falling asleep involves a renunciation of one of the psychic activities - namely, the voluntary guidance of the flow of ideas. Thus the supposition obtrudes itself (though it is in any case a natural one) that the state of sleep may extend even to the psychic functions. One or another of these functions is perhaps entirely suspended; we have now to consider whether the rest continue to operate undisturbed, whether they are able to perform their normal work under the circumstances. The idea occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may be explained by the restricted activity of the psyche during sleep, and the impression made by the dream upon our waking judgment tends to confirm this view. The dream is incoherent; it reconciles, without hesitation, the worst contradictions; it admits impossibilities; it disregards the authoritative knowledge of the waking state, and it shows us as ethically and morally obtuse. He who should behave in the waking state as his dreams represent him as behaving would be considered insane. He who in the waking state should speak as he does in his dreams, or relate such things as occur in his dreams, would impress us as a feeble-minded or muddle-headed person. It seems to us, then, that we are merely speaking in accordance with the facts of the case when we rate psychic activity in dreams very low, and especially when we assert that in dreams the higher intellectual activities are suspended or at least greatly impaired.
With unusual unanimity (the exceptions will be dealt with elsewhere) the writers on the subject have pronounced such judgments as lead immediately to a definite theory or explanation of dream-life. It is now time to supplement the resume which I have just given by a series of quotations from a number of authors - philosophers and physicians - bearing upon the psychological characteristics of the dream.
According to Lemoine, the incoherence of the dream-images is the sole essential characteristic of the dream.
Maury agrees with him (Le Sommeil, p. 163): "Il n'y a pas des reves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque incoherence, quelque
absurdite."[26]
According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta, the dream lacks any intelligible objective coherence.
Dugas says: "Les reve, c'est l'anarchie psychique, affective et mentale, c'est le jeu des fonctions livrees a elles-memes et s'exercant sans controle
et sans but; dans le reve l'esprit est un automate spirituel."[27]
"The relaxation, dissolution, and promiscuous confusion of the world of ideas and images held together in waking life by the logical power of the central ego" is conceded even by Volkelt (p. 14), according to whose theory the psychic activity during sleep appears to be by no means aimless.
The absurdity of the associations of ideas which occur in dreams can hardly be more strongly stigmatized than it was by Cicero (De Divinatione, II. lxxi): "Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare."[28]
Fechner says (p. 522): "It is as though the psychological activity of the brain of a reasonable person were to migrate into that of a fool."
Radestock (p. 145): "It seems indeed impossible to recognize any stable laws in this preposterous behaviour. Withdrawing itself from the strict policing of the rational will that guides our waking ideas, and from the processes of attention, the dream, in crazy sport, whirls all things about in kaleidoscopic confusion."
Hildebrandt (p. 45): "What wonderful jumps the dreamer permits himself, for instance, in his chain of reasoning! With what unconcern he sees the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down! What ridiculous contradictions he is able to tolerate in the order of nature and of society, before things go too far, and the very excess of nonsense leads to an awakening! Sometimes we quite innocently calculate that three times three make twenty; and we are not in the least surprised if a dog recites poetry to us, if a dead person walks to his grave, or if a rock floats on the water. We solemnly go to visit the duchy of Bernburg or the principality of Liechtenstein in order to inspect its navy; or we allow ourselves to be recruited as a volunteer by Charles XII just before the battle of Poltava."
Binz (p. 33), referring to the theory of dreams resulting from these impressions, says: "Of ten dreams nine at least have an absurd content. We unite in them persons or things which do not bear the slightest relation to one another. In the next moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the grouping changes to one, if possible, even more nonsensical and irrational than before; and so the shifting play of the drowsy brain continues, until we wake, put a hand to our forehead, and ask ourselves whether we still really possess the faculty of rational imagination and thought."
Maury, Le Sommeil (p. 50) makes, in respect of the relation of the dream-image to the waking thoughts, a comparison which a physician will find especially impressive: "La production de ces images que chez l'homme eveille fait le plus souvent naitre la volonte, correspond, pour l'intelligence, a ce que sont pour la motilite certains mouvements que nous offrent la choree et les affections paralytiques...."[29] For the rest, he considers the dream "toute une serie de degradations de la faculte pensante et raisonnante"[30] (p. 27).
We have seen that the very fact of falling asleep involves a renunciation of one of the psychic activities - namely, the voluntary guidance of the flow of ideas. Thus the supposition obtrudes itself (though it is in any case a natural one) that the state of sleep may extend even to the psychic functions. One or another of these functions is perhaps entirely suspended; we have now to consider whether the rest continue to operate undisturbed, whether they are able to perform their normal work under the circumstances. The idea occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may be explained by the restricted activity of the psyche during sleep, and the impression made by the dream upon our waking judgment tends to confirm this view. The dream is incoherent; it reconciles, without hesitation, the worst contradictions; it admits impossibilities; it disregards the authoritative knowledge of the waking state, and it shows us as ethically and morally obtuse. He who should behave in the waking state as his dreams represent him as behaving would be considered insane. He who in the waking state should speak as he does in his dreams, or relate such things as occur in his dreams, would impress us as a feeble-minded or muddle-headed person. It seems to us, then, that we are merely speaking in accordance with the facts of the case when we rate psychic activity in dreams very low, and especially when we assert that in dreams the higher intellectual activities are suspended or at least greatly impaired.
With unusual unanimity (the exceptions will be dealt with elsewhere) the writers on the subject have pronounced such judgments as lead immediately to a definite theory or explanation of dream-life. It is now time to supplement the resume which I have just given by a series of quotations from a number of authors - philosophers and physicians - bearing upon the psychological characteristics of the dream.
According to Lemoine, the incoherence of the dream-images is the sole essential characteristic of the dream.
Maury agrees with him (Le Sommeil, p. 163): "Il n'y a pas des reves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque incoherence, quelque
absurdite."[26]
According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta, the dream lacks any intelligible objective coherence.
Dugas says: "Les reve, c'est l'anarchie psychique, affective et mentale, c'est le jeu des fonctions livrees a elles-memes et s'exercant sans controle
et sans but; dans le reve l'esprit est un automate spirituel."[27]
"The relaxation, dissolution, and promiscuous confusion of the world of ideas and images held together in waking life by the logical power of the central ego" is conceded even by Volkelt (p. 14), according to whose theory the psychic activity during sleep appears to be by no means aimless.
The absurdity of the associations of ideas which occur in dreams can hardly be more strongly stigmatized than it was by Cicero (De Divinatione, II. lxxi): "Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare."[28]
Fechner says (p. 522): "It is as though the psychological activity of the brain of a reasonable person were to migrate into that of a fool."
Radestock (p. 145): "It seems indeed impossible to recognize any stable laws in this preposterous behaviour. Withdrawing itself from the strict policing of the rational will that guides our waking ideas, and from the processes of attention, the dream, in crazy sport, whirls all things about in kaleidoscopic confusion."
Hildebrandt (p. 45): "What wonderful jumps the dreamer permits himself, for instance, in his chain of reasoning! With what unconcern he sees the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down! What ridiculous contradictions he is able to tolerate in the order of nature and of society, before things go too far, and the very excess of nonsense leads to an awakening! Sometimes we quite innocently calculate that three times three make twenty; and we are not in the least surprised if a dog recites poetry to us, if a dead person walks to his grave, or if a rock floats on the water. We solemnly go to visit the duchy of Bernburg or the principality of Liechtenstein in order to inspect its navy; or we allow ourselves to be recruited as a volunteer by Charles XII just before the battle of Poltava."
Binz (p. 33), referring to the theory of dreams resulting from these impressions, says: "Of ten dreams nine at least have an absurd content. We unite in them persons or things which do not bear the slightest relation to one another. In the next moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the grouping changes to one, if possible, even more nonsensical and irrational than before; and so the shifting play of the drowsy brain continues, until we wake, put a hand to our forehead, and ask ourselves whether we still really possess the faculty of rational imagination and thought."
Maury, Le Sommeil (p. 50) makes, in respect of the relation of the dream-image to the waking thoughts, a comparison which a physician will find especially impressive: "La production de ces images que chez l'homme eveille fait le plus souvent naitre la volonte, correspond, pour l'intelligence, a ce que sont pour la motilite certains mouvements que nous offrent la choree et les affections paralytiques...."[29] For the rest, he considers the dream "toute une serie de degradations de la faculte pensante et raisonnante"[30] (p. 27).
It is hardly necessary to cite the utterances of those authors who repeat Maury's assertion in respect of the higher individual psychic activities.
According to Strumpell, in dreams - and even, of course, where the nonsensical nature of the dream is not obvious - all the logical operations of
the mind, based on relations and associations, recede into the background (p. 26). According to Spitta (p. 148) ideas in dreams are entirely
withdrawn from the laws of causality; while Radestock and others emphasize the feebleness of judgment and logical inference peculiar to dreams.
According to Jodl (p. 123), there is no criticism in dreams, no correcting of a series of perceptions by the content of consciousness as a whole.
The same author states that "All the activities of consciousness occur in dreams, but they are imperfect, inhibited, and mutually isolated." The
contradictions of our conscious knowledge which occur in dreams are explained by Stricker and many others on the ground that facts are
forgotten in dreams, or that the logical relations between ideas are lost (p. 98), etc., etc.
Those authors who, in general, judge so unfavourably of the psychic activities of the dreamer nevertheless agree that dreams do retain a certain remnant of psychic activity. Wundt, whose teaching has influenced so many other investigators of dream-problems, expressly admits this. We may ask, what are the nature and composition of the remnants of normal psychic life which manifest themselves in dreams? It is pretty generally acknowledged that the reproductive faculty, the memory, seems to be the least affected in dreams; it may, indeed, show a certain superiority over the same function in waking life (see chapter I, B), even though some of the absurdities of dreams are to be explained by the forgetfulness of dream-life. According to Spitta, it is the sentimental life of the psyche which is not affected by sleep, and which thus directs our dreams. By sentiment (Gemut) he means "the constant sum of the emotions as the inmost subjective essence of the man" (p. 84).
Scholz (p. 37) sees in dreams a psychic activity which manifests itself in the "allegorizing interpretation" to which the dream-material is subjected. Siebeck (p. 11) likewise perceives in dreams a "supplementary interpretative activity" of the psyche, which applies itself to all that is observed and perceived. Any judgment of the part played in dreams by what is presumed to be the highest psychical function, i.e., consciousness, presents a peculiar difficulty. Since it is only through consciousness that we can know anything of dreams, there can be no doubt as to its being retained. Spitta, however, believes that only consciousness is retained in the dream, but not self-consciousness. Delboeuf confesses that he is unable to comprehend this distinction.
The laws of association which connect our mental images hold good also for what is represented in dreams; indeed, in dreams the dominance of these laws is more obvious and complete than in the waking state. Strumpell (p. 70) says: "Dreams would appear to proceed either exclusively in accordance with the laws of pure representation, or in accordance with the laws of organic stimuli accompanied by such representations; that is, without being influenced by reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, or moral judgment." The authors whose opinions I here reproduce conceive the formation of the dream somewhat as follows: The sum of sensory stimuli of varying origin (discussed elsewhere) that are operative in sleep at first awaken in the psyche a number of images which present themselves as hallucinations (according to Wundt, it is more correct to say "as illusions," because of their origin in external and internal stimuli). These combine with one another in accordance with the known laws of association, and, in accordance with the same laws, they in turn evoke a new series of representations (images). The whole of this material is then elaborated as far as possible by the still active remnant of the thinking and organizing faculties of the psyche (cf. Wundt and Weygandt). Thus far, however, no one has been successful in discerning the motive which would decide what particular law of association is to be obeyed by those images which do not originate in external stimuli.
But it has been repeatedly observed that the associations which connect the dream-images with one another are of a particular kind, differing from those found in the activities of the waking mind. Thus Volkelt (p. 15): "In dreams the ideas chase and seize upon one another on the strength of accidental similarities and barely perceptible connections. All dreams are pervaded by casual and unconstrained associations of this kind." Maury attaches great value to this characteristic of the connection of ideas, for it allows him to draw a closer analogy between the dream-life and certain mental derangements. He recognizes two main characteristics of "deliria": "(1) une action spontanee et comme automatique de l'esprit; (2) une association vicieuse et irreguliere des idees"[31] (p. 126). Maury gives us two excellent examples from his own dreams, in which the mere similarity of sound decides the connection between the dream-representations. Once he dreamed that he was on a pilgrimage (pelerinage) to Jerusalem, or to Mecca. After many adventures he found himself in the company of the chemist Pelletier; the latter, after some conversation, gave him a galvanized shovel (pelle) which became his great broadsword in the next portion of the dream (p. 137). In another dream he was walking along a highway where he read the distances on the kilometre-stones; presently he found himself at a grocer's who had a large pair of scales; a man put kilogramme weights into the scales, in order to weigh Maury; the grocer then said to him: "You are not in Paris, but on the island Gilolo." This was followed by a number of pictures, in which he saw the flower lobelia, and then General Lopez, of whose death he had read a little while previously. Finally he awoke as he was playing a game of lotto.[32]
We are, indeed, quite well aware that this low estimate of the psychic activities of the dream has not been allowed to pass without contradiction from various quarters. Yet here contradiction would seem rather difficult. It is not a matter of much significance that one of the depreciators of dream-life, Spitta (p. 118), should assure us that the same psychological laws which govern the waking state rule the dream also, or that another (Dugas) should state: "Le reve n'est pas deraison ni meme irraison pure,"[33] so long as neither of them has attempted to bring this opinion into harmony with the psychic anarchy and dissolution of all mental functions in the dream which they themselves have described. However, the possibility seems to have dawned upon others that the madness of the dream is perhaps not without its method- that it is perhaps only a disguise, a dramatic pretence, like that of Hamlet, to whose madness this perspicacious judgment refers. These authors must either have refrained from judging by appearances, or the appearances were, in their case, altogether different.
Those authors who, in general, judge so unfavourably of the psychic activities of the dreamer nevertheless agree that dreams do retain a certain remnant of psychic activity. Wundt, whose teaching has influenced so many other investigators of dream-problems, expressly admits this. We may ask, what are the nature and composition of the remnants of normal psychic life which manifest themselves in dreams? It is pretty generally acknowledged that the reproductive faculty, the memory, seems to be the least affected in dreams; it may, indeed, show a certain superiority over the same function in waking life (see chapter I, B), even though some of the absurdities of dreams are to be explained by the forgetfulness of dream-life. According to Spitta, it is the sentimental life of the psyche which is not affected by sleep, and which thus directs our dreams. By sentiment (Gemut) he means "the constant sum of the emotions as the inmost subjective essence of the man" (p. 84).
Scholz (p. 37) sees in dreams a psychic activity which manifests itself in the "allegorizing interpretation" to which the dream-material is subjected. Siebeck (p. 11) likewise perceives in dreams a "supplementary interpretative activity" of the psyche, which applies itself to all that is observed and perceived. Any judgment of the part played in dreams by what is presumed to be the highest psychical function, i.e., consciousness, presents a peculiar difficulty. Since it is only through consciousness that we can know anything of dreams, there can be no doubt as to its being retained. Spitta, however, believes that only consciousness is retained in the dream, but not self-consciousness. Delboeuf confesses that he is unable to comprehend this distinction.
The laws of association which connect our mental images hold good also for what is represented in dreams; indeed, in dreams the dominance of these laws is more obvious and complete than in the waking state. Strumpell (p. 70) says: "Dreams would appear to proceed either exclusively in accordance with the laws of pure representation, or in accordance with the laws of organic stimuli accompanied by such representations; that is, without being influenced by reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, or moral judgment." The authors whose opinions I here reproduce conceive the formation of the dream somewhat as follows: The sum of sensory stimuli of varying origin (discussed elsewhere) that are operative in sleep at first awaken in the psyche a number of images which present themselves as hallucinations (according to Wundt, it is more correct to say "as illusions," because of their origin in external and internal stimuli). These combine with one another in accordance with the known laws of association, and, in accordance with the same laws, they in turn evoke a new series of representations (images). The whole of this material is then elaborated as far as possible by the still active remnant of the thinking and organizing faculties of the psyche (cf. Wundt and Weygandt). Thus far, however, no one has been successful in discerning the motive which would decide what particular law of association is to be obeyed by those images which do not originate in external stimuli.
But it has been repeatedly observed that the associations which connect the dream-images with one another are of a particular kind, differing from those found in the activities of the waking mind. Thus Volkelt (p. 15): "In dreams the ideas chase and seize upon one another on the strength of accidental similarities and barely perceptible connections. All dreams are pervaded by casual and unconstrained associations of this kind." Maury attaches great value to this characteristic of the connection of ideas, for it allows him to draw a closer analogy between the dream-life and certain mental derangements. He recognizes two main characteristics of "deliria": "(1) une action spontanee et comme automatique de l'esprit; (2) une association vicieuse et irreguliere des idees"[31] (p. 126). Maury gives us two excellent examples from his own dreams, in which the mere similarity of sound decides the connection between the dream-representations. Once he dreamed that he was on a pilgrimage (pelerinage) to Jerusalem, or to Mecca. After many adventures he found himself in the company of the chemist Pelletier; the latter, after some conversation, gave him a galvanized shovel (pelle) which became his great broadsword in the next portion of the dream (p. 137). In another dream he was walking along a highway where he read the distances on the kilometre-stones; presently he found himself at a grocer's who had a large pair of scales; a man put kilogramme weights into the scales, in order to weigh Maury; the grocer then said to him: "You are not in Paris, but on the island Gilolo." This was followed by a number of pictures, in which he saw the flower lobelia, and then General Lopez, of whose death he had read a little while previously. Finally he awoke as he was playing a game of lotto.[32]
We are, indeed, quite well aware that this low estimate of the psychic activities of the dream has not been allowed to pass without contradiction from various quarters. Yet here contradiction would seem rather difficult. It is not a matter of much significance that one of the depreciators of dream-life, Spitta (p. 118), should assure us that the same psychological laws which govern the waking state rule the dream also, or that another (Dugas) should state: "Le reve n'est pas deraison ni meme irraison pure,"[33] so long as neither of them has attempted to bring this opinion into harmony with the psychic anarchy and dissolution of all mental functions in the dream which they themselves have described. However, the possibility seems to have dawned upon others that the madness of the dream is perhaps not without its method- that it is perhaps only a disguise, a dramatic pretence, like that of Hamlet, to whose madness this perspicacious judgment refers. These authors must either have refrained from judging by appearances, or the appearances were, in their case, altogether different.
Without lingering over its superficial absurdity, Havelock Ellis considers the dream as "an archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect
thoughts," the study of which may acquaint us with the primitive stages of the development of mental life. J. Sully (p. 362) presents the same
conception of the dream in a still more comprehensive and penetrating fashion. His statements deserve all the more consideration when it is added
that he, perhaps more than any other psychologist, was convinced of the veiled significance of the dream. "Now our dreams are a means of
conserving these successive personalities. When asleep we go back to the old ways of looking at things and of feeling about them, to impulses
and activities which long ago dominated us." A thinker like Delboeuf asserts - without, indeed, adducing proof in the face of contradictory data,
and hence without real justification - "Dans le sommeil, hormis la perception, toutes les facultes de l'esprit, intelligence, imagination, memoire,
volonte, moralite, restent intactes dans leur essence; seulement, elles s'appliquent a des objets imaginaires et mobiles. Le songeur est un acteur qui
joue a volonte les fous et les sages, les bourreaux et les victimes, les nains et les geants, les demons et les anges"[34] (p. 222). The Marquis
Hervey,[35] who is flatly contradicted by Maury, and whose essay I have been unable to obtain despite all my efforts, appears emphatically to
protest against the under-estimation of the psychic capacity in the dream. Maury speaks of him as follows (p. 19): "M. le Marquis Hervey prete a
l'intelligence durant le sommeil toute sa liberte d'action et d'attention, et il ne semble faire consister le sommeil que dans l'occlusion des sens,
dans leur fermeture au monde exterieur; en sorte que l'homme qui dort ne se distingue guere, selon sa maniere de voir, de l'homme qui laisse
vaguer sa pensee en se bouchant les sens; toute la difference qui separe alors la pensee ordinaire du celle du dormeur c'est que, chez celui-ci,
l'idee prend une forme visible, objective, et ressemble, a s'y meprendre, a la sensation determinee par les objets exterieurs; le souvenir revet
l'apparence du fait present."[36]
Maury adds, however, "qu'il y a une difference de plus et capitale a savoir que les facultes intellectuelles de l'homme endormi n'offrent pas l'equilibre qu'elles gardent chez l'homme eveille."[37]
In Vaschide, who gives us fully information as to Hervey's book, we find that this author expresses himself as follows, in respect to the apparent incoherence of dreams: "L'image du reve est la copie de l'idee. Le principal est l'idee; la vision n'est pas qu'accessoire. Ceci etabli, il faut savoir suivre la marche des idees, il faut savoir analyser le tissu des reves; l'incoherence devient alors comprehensible, les conceptions les plus fantasques deviennent des faits simples et parfaitement logiques"[38] (p. 146). And (p. 147): "Les reves les plus bizarres trouvent meme une explication des plus logiques quand on sait les analyser."[39]
J. Starke has drawn attention to the fact that a similar solution of the incoherence of dreams was put forward in 1799 by an old writer, Wolf Davidson, who was unknown to me (p. 136): "The peculiar leaps of our imaginings in the dream-state all have their cause in the laws of association, but this connection often occurs very obscurely in the soul, so that we frequently seem to observe a leap of the imagination where none really exists."
The evaluation of the dream as a psychic product in the literature of the subject varies over a very wide scale; it extends from the extreme of under-estimation, as we have already seen, through premonitions that it may have a value as yet unrevealed, to an exaggerated over-estimation, which sets the dream-life far above the capacities of waking life. In his psychological characterization of dream-life, Hildebrandt, as we know, groups it into three antinomies, and he combines in the third of these antinomies the two extreme points of this scale of values (p. 19): "It is the contrast between, on the one hand, an enhancement, an increase of potentiality, which often amounts to virtuosity, and on the other hand a decided diminution and enfeeblement of the psychic life, often to a sub-human level."
"As regards the first, who is there that cannot confirm from his own experience the fact that in the workings and weavings of the genius of dreams, there are sometimes exhibited a profundity and sincerity of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a clearness of view, a subtlety of observation and a readiness of wit, such as we should have modestly to deny that we always possessed in our waking life? Dreams have a wonderful poetry, an apposite allegory, an incomparable sense of humour, a delightful irony. They see the world in the light of a peculiar idealization, and often intensify the effect of their phenomena by the most ingenious understanding of the reality underlying them. They show us earthly beauty in a truly heavenly radiance, the sublime in its supremest majesty, and that which we know to be terrible in its most frightful form, while the ridiculous becomes indescribably and drastically comical. And on waking we are sometimes still so full of one of these impressions that it will occur to us that such things have never yet been offered to us by the real world."
One might here ask oneself: do these depreciatory remarks and these enthusiastic praises really refer to the self-same phenomenon? Have some writers overlooked the foolish and others the profound and sensitive dreams? And if both kinds of dreams do occur - that is, dreams that merit both these judgments - does it not seem idle to seek a psychological characterization of the dream? Would it not suffice to state that everything is possible in the dream, from the lowest degradation of the psychic life to its flight to heights unknown in the waking state? Convenient as such a solution might be, it has this against it: that behind the efforts of all the investigators of dreams there seems to lurk the assumption that there is in dreams some characteristic which is universally valid in its essential features, and which must eliminate all these contradictions.
It is unquestionably true that the mental capacities of dreams found readier and warmer recognition in the intellectual period now lying behind us, when philosophy rather than exact natural science ruled the more intelligent minds. Statements like that of Schubert, to the effect that the dream frees the mind from the power of external nature, that it liberates the soul from the chains of sensory life, together with similar opinions expressed by the younger Fichte[40] and others, who represent dreams as a soaring of the mind to a higher plane - all these seem hardly conceivable to us
Maury adds, however, "qu'il y a une difference de plus et capitale a savoir que les facultes intellectuelles de l'homme endormi n'offrent pas l'equilibre qu'elles gardent chez l'homme eveille."[37]
In Vaschide, who gives us fully information as to Hervey's book, we find that this author expresses himself as follows, in respect to the apparent incoherence of dreams: "L'image du reve est la copie de l'idee. Le principal est l'idee; la vision n'est pas qu'accessoire. Ceci etabli, il faut savoir suivre la marche des idees, il faut savoir analyser le tissu des reves; l'incoherence devient alors comprehensible, les conceptions les plus fantasques deviennent des faits simples et parfaitement logiques"[38] (p. 146). And (p. 147): "Les reves les plus bizarres trouvent meme une explication des plus logiques quand on sait les analyser."[39]
J. Starke has drawn attention to the fact that a similar solution of the incoherence of dreams was put forward in 1799 by an old writer, Wolf Davidson, who was unknown to me (p. 136): "The peculiar leaps of our imaginings in the dream-state all have their cause in the laws of association, but this connection often occurs very obscurely in the soul, so that we frequently seem to observe a leap of the imagination where none really exists."
The evaluation of the dream as a psychic product in the literature of the subject varies over a very wide scale; it extends from the extreme of under-estimation, as we have already seen, through premonitions that it may have a value as yet unrevealed, to an exaggerated over-estimation, which sets the dream-life far above the capacities of waking life. In his psychological characterization of dream-life, Hildebrandt, as we know, groups it into three antinomies, and he combines in the third of these antinomies the two extreme points of this scale of values (p. 19): "It is the contrast between, on the one hand, an enhancement, an increase of potentiality, which often amounts to virtuosity, and on the other hand a decided diminution and enfeeblement of the psychic life, often to a sub-human level."
"As regards the first, who is there that cannot confirm from his own experience the fact that in the workings and weavings of the genius of dreams, there are sometimes exhibited a profundity and sincerity of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a clearness of view, a subtlety of observation and a readiness of wit, such as we should have modestly to deny that we always possessed in our waking life? Dreams have a wonderful poetry, an apposite allegory, an incomparable sense of humour, a delightful irony. They see the world in the light of a peculiar idealization, and often intensify the effect of their phenomena by the most ingenious understanding of the reality underlying them. They show us earthly beauty in a truly heavenly radiance, the sublime in its supremest majesty, and that which we know to be terrible in its most frightful form, while the ridiculous becomes indescribably and drastically comical. And on waking we are sometimes still so full of one of these impressions that it will occur to us that such things have never yet been offered to us by the real world."
One might here ask oneself: do these depreciatory remarks and these enthusiastic praises really refer to the self-same phenomenon? Have some writers overlooked the foolish and others the profound and sensitive dreams? And if both kinds of dreams do occur - that is, dreams that merit both these judgments - does it not seem idle to seek a psychological characterization of the dream? Would it not suffice to state that everything is possible in the dream, from the lowest degradation of the psychic life to its flight to heights unknown in the waking state? Convenient as such a solution might be, it has this against it: that behind the efforts of all the investigators of dreams there seems to lurk the assumption that there is in dreams some characteristic which is universally valid in its essential features, and which must eliminate all these contradictions.
It is unquestionably true that the mental capacities of dreams found readier and warmer recognition in the intellectual period now lying behind us, when philosophy rather than exact natural science ruled the more intelligent minds. Statements like that of Schubert, to the effect that the dream frees the mind from the power of external nature, that it liberates the soul from the chains of sensory life, together with similar opinions expressed by the younger Fichte[40] and others, who represent dreams as a soaring of the mind to a higher plane - all these seem hardly conceivable to us
today; they are repeated at present only by mystics and devotees.[41] With the advance of a scientific mode of thought a reaction took place in the
estimation of dreams. It is the medical writers who are most inclined to underrate the psychic activity in dreams, as being insignificant and
valueless; while philosophers and unprofessional observers - amateur psychologists - whose contributions to the subject in especial must not be overlooked, have for the most part, in agreement with popular belief, laid emphasis on the psychological value of dreams. Those who are inclined to underrate the psychic activity of dreams naturally show a preference for the somatic sources of excitation in the aetiology of the dream; those who admit that the dreaming mind may retain the greater part of its waking faculties naturally have no motive for denying the existence of autonomous stimulations
Among the superior accomplishments which one may be tempted, even on a sober comparison, to ascribe to the dream-life, that of memory is the most impressive. We have fully discussed the by no means rare experiences which prove this superiority. Another privilege of the dream-life, often extolled by the older writers - namely, the fact that it can overstep the limitations of time and space - is easily recognized as an illusion. This privilege, as Hildebrandt remarks, is merely illusory; dreams disregard time and space only as does waking thought, and only because dreaming is itself a form of thinking. Dreams are supposed to enjoy a further advantage in respect of time - to be independent of the passage of time in yet another sense. Dreams like Maury's dream of his execution (p. 147 above) seem to show that the perceptual content which the dream can compress into a very short space of time far exceeds that which can be mastered by our psychic activity in its waking thoughts. These conclusions have, however, been disputed. The essays of Le Lorrain and Egger on The Apparent Duration of Dreams gave rise to a long and interesting discussion, which in all probability has not yet found the final explanation of this profound and delicate problem.[42]
That dreams are able to continue the intellectual activities of the day and to carry them to a point which could not be arrived at during the day, that they may resolve doubts and problems, and that they may be the source of fresh inspiration in poets and composers, seems, in the light of numerous records, and of the collection of instances compiled by Chabaneix, to be proved beyond question. But even though the facts may be beyond dispute, their interpretation is subject to many doubts on wider grounds.[43]
Finally, the alleged divinatory power of the dream has become a subject of contention in which almost insuperable objections are confronted by obstinate and reiterated assertions. It is, of course, right that we should refrain from denying that this view has any basis whatever in fact, since it is quite possible that a number of such cases may before long be explained on purely natural psychological grounds.
F. The Ethical Sense in Dreams
For reasons which will be intelligible only after a consideration of my own investigations of dreams, I have isolated from the psychology of the dream the subsidiary problem as to whether and to what extent the moral dispositions and feelings of waking life extend into dream-life. The same contradictions which we were surprised to observe in the descriptions by various authors of all the other psychic activities will surprise us again here. Some writers flatly assert that dreams know nothing of moral obligations; others as decidedly declare that the moral nature of man persists even in his dream-life.
Our ordinary experience of dreams seems to confirm beyond all doubt the correctness of the first assertion. Jessen says (p. 553): "Nor does one become better or more virtuous during sleep; on the contrary, it seems that conscience is silent in our dreams, inasmuch as one feels no compassion and can commit the worst crimes, such as theft, murder, and homicide, with perfect indifference and without subsequent remorse."
Radestock (p. 146) says: "It is to be noted that in dreams associations are effected and ideas combined without being in any way influenced by reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, and moral judgment; the judgment is extremely weak, and ethical indifference reigns supreme."
Volkelt (p. 23) expresses himself as follows: "As every one knows, dreams are especially unbridled in sexual matters. Just as the dreamer himself is shameless in the extreme, and wholly lacking in moral feeling and judgment, so likewise does he see others, even the most respected persons, doing things which, even in his thoughts, he would blush to associate with them in his waking state."
Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that in dreams every man acts and talks in complete accordance with his character, are in sharpest contradiction to those mentioned above. R. Ph. Fischer[44] maintains that the subjective feelings and desires, or affects and passions, manifest themselves in the wilfulness of the dream-life, and that the moral characteristics of a man are mirrored in his dreams.
Haffner says (p. 25): "With rare exceptions... a virtuous man will be virtuous also in his dreams; he will resist temptation, and show no sympathy for hatred, envy, anger, and all other vices; whereas the sinful man will, as a rule, encounter in his dreams the images which he has before him in the waking state."
Scholz (p. 36): "In dreams there is truth; despite all camouflage of nobility or degradation, we recognize our own true selves.... The honest man does not commit a dishonouring crime even in his dreams, or, if he does, he is appalled by it as by something foreign to his nature. The Roman emperor who ordered one of his subjects to be executed because he dreamed that he had cut off the emperor's head was not far wrong in justifying his action on the ground that he who has such dreams must have similar thoughts while awake. Significantly enough, we say of things that find no place even in our intimate thoughts: 'I would never even dream of such a thing.'"
valueless; while philosophers and unprofessional observers - amateur psychologists - whose contributions to the subject in especial must not be overlooked, have for the most part, in agreement with popular belief, laid emphasis on the psychological value of dreams. Those who are inclined to underrate the psychic activity of dreams naturally show a preference for the somatic sources of excitation in the aetiology of the dream; those who admit that the dreaming mind may retain the greater part of its waking faculties naturally have no motive for denying the existence of autonomous stimulations
Among the superior accomplishments which one may be tempted, even on a sober comparison, to ascribe to the dream-life, that of memory is the most impressive. We have fully discussed the by no means rare experiences which prove this superiority. Another privilege of the dream-life, often extolled by the older writers - namely, the fact that it can overstep the limitations of time and space - is easily recognized as an illusion. This privilege, as Hildebrandt remarks, is merely illusory; dreams disregard time and space only as does waking thought, and only because dreaming is itself a form of thinking. Dreams are supposed to enjoy a further advantage in respect of time - to be independent of the passage of time in yet another sense. Dreams like Maury's dream of his execution (p. 147 above) seem to show that the perceptual content which the dream can compress into a very short space of time far exceeds that which can be mastered by our psychic activity in its waking thoughts. These conclusions have, however, been disputed. The essays of Le Lorrain and Egger on The Apparent Duration of Dreams gave rise to a long and interesting discussion, which in all probability has not yet found the final explanation of this profound and delicate problem.[42]
That dreams are able to continue the intellectual activities of the day and to carry them to a point which could not be arrived at during the day, that they may resolve doubts and problems, and that they may be the source of fresh inspiration in poets and composers, seems, in the light of numerous records, and of the collection of instances compiled by Chabaneix, to be proved beyond question. But even though the facts may be beyond dispute, their interpretation is subject to many doubts on wider grounds.[43]
Finally, the alleged divinatory power of the dream has become a subject of contention in which almost insuperable objections are confronted by obstinate and reiterated assertions. It is, of course, right that we should refrain from denying that this view has any basis whatever in fact, since it is quite possible that a number of such cases may before long be explained on purely natural psychological grounds.
F. The Ethical Sense in Dreams
For reasons which will be intelligible only after a consideration of my own investigations of dreams, I have isolated from the psychology of the dream the subsidiary problem as to whether and to what extent the moral dispositions and feelings of waking life extend into dream-life. The same contradictions which we were surprised to observe in the descriptions by various authors of all the other psychic activities will surprise us again here. Some writers flatly assert that dreams know nothing of moral obligations; others as decidedly declare that the moral nature of man persists even in his dream-life.
Our ordinary experience of dreams seems to confirm beyond all doubt the correctness of the first assertion. Jessen says (p. 553): "Nor does one become better or more virtuous during sleep; on the contrary, it seems that conscience is silent in our dreams, inasmuch as one feels no compassion and can commit the worst crimes, such as theft, murder, and homicide, with perfect indifference and without subsequent remorse."
Radestock (p. 146) says: "It is to be noted that in dreams associations are effected and ideas combined without being in any way influenced by reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, and moral judgment; the judgment is extremely weak, and ethical indifference reigns supreme."
Volkelt (p. 23) expresses himself as follows: "As every one knows, dreams are especially unbridled in sexual matters. Just as the dreamer himself is shameless in the extreme, and wholly lacking in moral feeling and judgment, so likewise does he see others, even the most respected persons, doing things which, even in his thoughts, he would blush to associate with them in his waking state."
Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that in dreams every man acts and talks in complete accordance with his character, are in sharpest contradiction to those mentioned above. R. Ph. Fischer[44] maintains that the subjective feelings and desires, or affects and passions, manifest themselves in the wilfulness of the dream-life, and that the moral characteristics of a man are mirrored in his dreams.
Haffner says (p. 25): "With rare exceptions... a virtuous man will be virtuous also in his dreams; he will resist temptation, and show no sympathy for hatred, envy, anger, and all other vices; whereas the sinful man will, as a rule, encounter in his dreams the images which he has before him in the waking state."
Scholz (p. 36): "In dreams there is truth; despite all camouflage of nobility or degradation, we recognize our own true selves.... The honest man does not commit a dishonouring crime even in his dreams, or, if he does, he is appalled by it as by something foreign to his nature. The Roman emperor who ordered one of his subjects to be executed because he dreamed that he had cut off the emperor's head was not far wrong in justifying his action on the ground that he who has such dreams must have similar thoughts while awake. Significantly enough, we say of things that find no place even in our intimate thoughts: 'I would never even dream of such a thing.'"
Plato, on the other hand, considers that they are the best men who only dream the things which other men do.
Plaff,[45] varying a familiar proverb, says: "Tell me your dreams for a time and I will tell you what you are within."
The little essay of Hildebrandt's from which I have already taken so many quotations (the best-expressed and most suggestive contribution to the literature of the dream-problem which I have hitherto discovered), takes for its central theme the problem of morality in dreams. For Hildebrandt, too, it is an established rule that the purer the life, the purer the dream; the impurer the life, the impurer the dream.
The moral nature of man persists even in dreams. "But while we are not offended or made suspicious by an arithmetical error, no matter how obvious, by a reversal of scientific fact, no matter how romantic, or by an anachronism, no matter how ridiculous, we nevertheless do not lose sight of the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice. No matter how much of that which accompanies us during the day may vanish in our hours of sleep, Kant's categorical imperative dogs our steps as an inseparable companion, of whom we cannot rid ourselves even in our slumber.... This can be explained only by the fact that the fundamental element of human nature, the moral essence, is too firmly fixed to be subjected to the kaleidoscopic shaking-up to which phantasy, reason, memory, and other faculties of the same order succumb in our dreams" (p. 45, etc.).
In the further discussion of the subject we find in both these groups of authors remarkable evasions and inconsequences. Strictly speaking, all interest in immoral dreams should be at an end for those who assert that the moral personality of the individual falls to pieces in his dreams. They could as coolly reject all attempts to hold the dreamer responsible for his dreams, or to infer from the immorality of his dreams that there is an immoral strain in his nature, as they have rejected the apparently analogous attempt to prove from the absurdity of his dreams the worthlessness of his intellectual life in the waking state. The others, according to whom the categorical imperative extends even into the dream, ought to accept in toto the notion of full responsibility for immoral dreams; and we can only hope that their own reprehensible dreams do not lead them to abandon their otherwise firm belief in their own moral worth.
As a matter of fact, however, it would seem that although no one is positively certain just how good or how bad he is, he can hardly deny that he can recollect immoral dreams of his own. That there are such dreams no one denies; the only question is: how do they originate? So that, in spite of their conflicting judgments of dream-morality, both groups of authors are at pains to explain the genesis of the immoral dream; and here a new conflict arises, as to whether its origin is to be sought in the normal functions of the psychic life, or in the somatically conditioned encroachments upon this life. The nature of the facts compels both those who argue for and those who argue against moral responsibility in dream-life to agree in recognizing a special psychic source for the immorality of dreams.
Those who maintain that morality continues to function in our dream-life nevertheless refrain from assuming full responsibility for their dreams. Haffner says (p. 24): "We are not responsible for our dreams, because that basis which alone gives our life truth and reality is withdrawn from our thoughts and our will. Hence the wishes and actions of our dreams cannot be virtuous or sinful." Yet the dreamer is responsible for the sinful dream in so far as indirectly he brings it about. Thus, as in waking life, it is his duty, just before going to sleep, morally to cleanse his mind.
The analysis of this admixture of denial and recognition of responsibility for the moral content of dreams is carried much further by Hildebrandt. After arguing that the dramatic method of representation characteristic of dreams, the condensation of the most complicated processes of reflection into the briefest periods of time, and the debasement and confusion of the imaginative elements of dreams, which even he admits must be allowed for in respect of the immoral appearance of dreams, he nevertheless confesses that there are the most serious objections to flatly denying all responsibility for the lapses and offenses of which we are guilty in our dreams.
(p. 49): "If we wish to repudiate very decisively any sort of unjust accusation, and especially one which has reference to our intentions and convictions, we use the expression: 'We should never have dreamt of such a thing.' By this, it is true, we mean on the one hand that we consider the region of dreams the last and remotest place in which we could be held responsible for our thoughts, because there these thoughts are so loosely and incoherently connected with our real being that we can, after all, hardly regard them as our own; but inasmuch as we feel impelled expressly to deny the existence of such thoughts even in this region, we are at the same time indirectly admitting that our justification would not be complete unless it extended even thus far. And I believe that here, although unconsciously, we are speaking the language of truth."
(p. 52): "No dream-action can be imagined whose first beginnings have not in some shape already passed through the mind during our waking hours, in the form of wish, desire, or impulse." Concerning this original impulse we must say: The dream has not discovered it - it has only imitated and extended it; it has only elaborated into dramatic form a scrap of historical material which it found already existing within us; it brings to our mind the words of the Apostle that he who hates his brother is a murderer. And though, after we wake, being conscious of our moral strength, we may smile at the whole widely elaborated structure of the depraved dream, yet the original material out of which we formed it cannot be laughed away. One feels responsible for the transgressions of one's dreaming self; not for the whole sum of them, but yet for a certain percentage. "In short, if in this sense, which can hardly be impugned, we understand the words of Christ, that out of the heart come evil thoughts, then we can hardly help being convinced that every sin committed in our dreams brings with it at least a vague minimum of guilt."
The little essay of Hildebrandt's from which I have already taken so many quotations (the best-expressed and most suggestive contribution to the literature of the dream-problem which I have hitherto discovered), takes for its central theme the problem of morality in dreams. For Hildebrandt, too, it is an established rule that the purer the life, the purer the dream; the impurer the life, the impurer the dream.
The moral nature of man persists even in dreams. "But while we are not offended or made suspicious by an arithmetical error, no matter how obvious, by a reversal of scientific fact, no matter how romantic, or by an anachronism, no matter how ridiculous, we nevertheless do not lose sight of the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice. No matter how much of that which accompanies us during the day may vanish in our hours of sleep, Kant's categorical imperative dogs our steps as an inseparable companion, of whom we cannot rid ourselves even in our slumber.... This can be explained only by the fact that the fundamental element of human nature, the moral essence, is too firmly fixed to be subjected to the kaleidoscopic shaking-up to which phantasy, reason, memory, and other faculties of the same order succumb in our dreams" (p. 45, etc.).
In the further discussion of the subject we find in both these groups of authors remarkable evasions and inconsequences. Strictly speaking, all interest in immoral dreams should be at an end for those who assert that the moral personality of the individual falls to pieces in his dreams. They could as coolly reject all attempts to hold the dreamer responsible for his dreams, or to infer from the immorality of his dreams that there is an immoral strain in his nature, as they have rejected the apparently analogous attempt to prove from the absurdity of his dreams the worthlessness of his intellectual life in the waking state. The others, according to whom the categorical imperative extends even into the dream, ought to accept in toto the notion of full responsibility for immoral dreams; and we can only hope that their own reprehensible dreams do not lead them to abandon their otherwise firm belief in their own moral worth.
As a matter of fact, however, it would seem that although no one is positively certain just how good or how bad he is, he can hardly deny that he can recollect immoral dreams of his own. That there are such dreams no one denies; the only question is: how do they originate? So that, in spite of their conflicting judgments of dream-morality, both groups of authors are at pains to explain the genesis of the immoral dream; and here a new conflict arises, as to whether its origin is to be sought in the normal functions of the psychic life, or in the somatically conditioned encroachments upon this life. The nature of the facts compels both those who argue for and those who argue against moral responsibility in dream-life to agree in recognizing a special psychic source for the immorality of dreams.
Those who maintain that morality continues to function in our dream-life nevertheless refrain from assuming full responsibility for their dreams. Haffner says (p. 24): "We are not responsible for our dreams, because that basis which alone gives our life truth and reality is withdrawn from our thoughts and our will. Hence the wishes and actions of our dreams cannot be virtuous or sinful." Yet the dreamer is responsible for the sinful dream in so far as indirectly he brings it about. Thus, as in waking life, it is his duty, just before going to sleep, morally to cleanse his mind.
The analysis of this admixture of denial and recognition of responsibility for the moral content of dreams is carried much further by Hildebrandt. After arguing that the dramatic method of representation characteristic of dreams, the condensation of the most complicated processes of reflection into the briefest periods of time, and the debasement and confusion of the imaginative elements of dreams, which even he admits must be allowed for in respect of the immoral appearance of dreams, he nevertheless confesses that there are the most serious objections to flatly denying all responsibility for the lapses and offenses of which we are guilty in our dreams.
(p. 49): "If we wish to repudiate very decisively any sort of unjust accusation, and especially one which has reference to our intentions and convictions, we use the expression: 'We should never have dreamt of such a thing.' By this, it is true, we mean on the one hand that we consider the region of dreams the last and remotest place in which we could be held responsible for our thoughts, because there these thoughts are so loosely and incoherently connected with our real being that we can, after all, hardly regard them as our own; but inasmuch as we feel impelled expressly to deny the existence of such thoughts even in this region, we are at the same time indirectly admitting that our justification would not be complete unless it extended even thus far. And I believe that here, although unconsciously, we are speaking the language of truth."
(p. 52): "No dream-action can be imagined whose first beginnings have not in some shape already passed through the mind during our waking hours, in the form of wish, desire, or impulse." Concerning this original impulse we must say: The dream has not discovered it - it has only imitated and extended it; it has only elaborated into dramatic form a scrap of historical material which it found already existing within us; it brings to our mind the words of the Apostle that he who hates his brother is a murderer. And though, after we wake, being conscious of our moral strength, we may smile at the whole widely elaborated structure of the depraved dream, yet the original material out of which we formed it cannot be laughed away. One feels responsible for the transgressions of one's dreaming self; not for the whole sum of them, but yet for a certain percentage. "In short, if in this sense, which can hardly be impugned, we understand the words of Christ, that out of the heart come evil thoughts, then we can hardly help being convinced that every sin committed in our dreams brings with it at least a vague minimum of guilt."
Thus Hildebrandt finds the source of the immorality of dreams in the germs and hints of evil impulses which pass through our minds during the
day as mental temptations, and he does not hesitate to include these immoral elements in the ethical evaluation of the personality. These same
thoughts, and the same evaluation of these thoughts, have, as we know, caused devout and holy men of all ages to lament that they were wicked
sinners.[46]
The general occurrence of these contrasting thoughts in the majority of men, and even in other regions than the ethical, is of course established beyond a doubt. They have sometimes been judged in a less serious spirit. Spitta quotes a relevant passage from A. Zeller (Article "Irre," in the Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften, Ersch and Gruber, p. 144): "An intellect is rarely so happily organized as to be in full command of itself at all times and seasons, and never to be disturbed in the lucid and constant processes of thought by ideas not merely unessential, but absolutely grotesque and nonsensical; indeed, the greatest thinkers have had cause to complain of this dream-like, tormenting and distressing rabble of ideas, which disturbs their profoundest contemplations and their most pious and earnest meditations."
A clearer light is thrown on the psychological meaning of these contrasting thoughts by a further observation of Hildebrandt's, to the effect that dreams permit us an occasional glimpse of the deepest and innermost recesses of our being, which are generally closed to us in our waking state (p. 55). A recognition of this fact is betrayed by Kant in his Anthropology, when he states that our dreams may perhaps be intended to reveal to us not what we are but what we might have been if we had had another upbringing; and by Radestock (p. 84), who suggests that dreams disclose to us what we do not wish to admit to ourselves, and that we therefore unjustly condemn them as lying and deceptive. J. E. Erdmann asserts: "A dream has never told me what I ought to think of a person, but, to my great surprise, a dream has more than once taught me what I do really think of him and feel about him." And J. H. Fichte expresses himself in a like manner: "The character of our dreams gives a far truer reflection of our general disposition than anything that we can learn by self-observation in the waking state." Such remarks as this of Benini's call our attention to the fact that the emergence of impulses which are foreign to our ethical consciousness is merely analogous to the manner, already familiar to us, in which the dream disposes of other representative material: "Certe nostre inclinazioni che si credevano soffocate e spente da un pezzo, si ridestano; passioni vecchie e sepolte revivono; cose e persone a cui non pensiamo mai, ci vengono dinanzi" (p. 149). Volkelt expresses himself in a similar fashion: "Even ideas which have entered into our consciousness almost unnoticed, and which, perhaps, it has never before called out of oblivion, often announce their presence in the mind through a dream" (p 105). Finally, we may remember that according to Schleiermacher the state of falling asleep is accompanied by the appearance of undesired imaginings.
We may include in such "undesired imaginings" the whole of that imaginative material the occurrence of which surprises us in immoral as well as in absurd dreams. The only important difference consists in the fact that the undesired imaginings in the moral sphere are in opposition to our usual feelings, whereas the others merely appear strange to us. So far nothing has been done to enable us to reconcile this difference by a profounder understanding. But what is the significance of the emergence of undesired representations in dreams? What conclusions can the psychology of the waking and dreaming mind draw from these nocturnal manifestations of contrasting ethical impulses? Here we find a fresh diversity of opinion, and also a different grouping of the authors who have treated of the subject. The line of thought followed by Hildebrandt, and by others who share his fundamental opinion, cannot be continued otherwise than by ascribing to the immoral impulses, even in the waking state, a latent vitality, which is indeed inhibited from proceeding to action, and by asserting that during sleep something falls away from us which, having the effect of an inhibition, has kept us from becoming aware of the existence of such impulses. Dreams therefore, reveal the true, if not the whole, nature of the dreamer, and are one means of making the hidden life of the psyche accessible to our understanding. It is only on such hypotheses that Hildebrandt can attribute to the dream the role of a monitor who calls our attention to the secret mischief in the soul, just as, according to the physicians, it may announce a hitherto unobserved physical disorder. Spitta, too, must be influenced by this conception when he refers, for example, to the stream of excitations which flow in upon the psyche during puberty, and consoles the dreamer by assuring him that he has done all that is in his power to do if he has led a strictly virtuous life during his waking state, if he has made an effort to suppress the sinful thoughts as often as they arise, and has kept them from maturing and turning into action. According to this conception, we might designate as "undesired imaginings" those that are suppressed during the day, and we must recognize in their emergence a genuine psychic phenomenon.
According to certain other authors, we have no right to draw this last inference. For Jessen (p. 360) the undesired ideas and images, in the dream as in the waking state, and also in the delirium of fever, etc., possess "the character of a voluntary activity laid to rest, and of a procession, to some extent mechanical, of images and ideas evoked by inner impulses." An immoral dream proves nothing in respect of the psychic life of the dreamer except that he has somehow become cognizant of the imaginative content in question; it is certainly no proof of a psychic impulse of his own mind. Another writer, Maury, makes us wonder whether he, too, does not ascribe to the dream-state the power of dividing the psychic activity into its components, instead of aimlessly destroying it. He speaks as follows of dreams in which one oversteps the bounds of morality: "Ce sont nos penchants qui parlent et qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience nous retienne, bien que parfois elle nous avertisse. J'ai mes defauts et mes penchants vicieux; a l'etat de veille, je tache de lutter contre eux, et il m'arrive assez souvent de n'y pas succomber. Mais dans mes songes j'y succombe toujours, ou pour mieux dire j'agis par leur impulsion, sans crainte et sans remords.... Evidemment les visions qui se deroulent devant ma pensee, et qui constituent le reve, me sont suggerees par les incitations que je ressens et que ma volonte absente ne cherche pas a refouler."[47] Le Sommeil (p. 113).
If one believed in the power of the dream to reveal an actually existing, but suppressed or concealed, immoral disposition of the dreamer, one could not express one's opinion more emphatically than in the words of Maury (p. 115): "En reve l'homme se revele donc tout entier a soi-meme dans sa nudite et sa misere natives. Des qu'il suspend l'exercise de sa volonte, il devient le jouet de toutes les passions contre lesquelles, a l'etat de veille, la conscience, le sentiment d'honneur, la crainte nous defendent."[48] In another place makes the striking assertion (p. 462): "Dans le reve,
The general occurrence of these contrasting thoughts in the majority of men, and even in other regions than the ethical, is of course established beyond a doubt. They have sometimes been judged in a less serious spirit. Spitta quotes a relevant passage from A. Zeller (Article "Irre," in the Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften, Ersch and Gruber, p. 144): "An intellect is rarely so happily organized as to be in full command of itself at all times and seasons, and never to be disturbed in the lucid and constant processes of thought by ideas not merely unessential, but absolutely grotesque and nonsensical; indeed, the greatest thinkers have had cause to complain of this dream-like, tormenting and distressing rabble of ideas, which disturbs their profoundest contemplations and their most pious and earnest meditations."
A clearer light is thrown on the psychological meaning of these contrasting thoughts by a further observation of Hildebrandt's, to the effect that dreams permit us an occasional glimpse of the deepest and innermost recesses of our being, which are generally closed to us in our waking state (p. 55). A recognition of this fact is betrayed by Kant in his Anthropology, when he states that our dreams may perhaps be intended to reveal to us not what we are but what we might have been if we had had another upbringing; and by Radestock (p. 84), who suggests that dreams disclose to us what we do not wish to admit to ourselves, and that we therefore unjustly condemn them as lying and deceptive. J. E. Erdmann asserts: "A dream has never told me what I ought to think of a person, but, to my great surprise, a dream has more than once taught me what I do really think of him and feel about him." And J. H. Fichte expresses himself in a like manner: "The character of our dreams gives a far truer reflection of our general disposition than anything that we can learn by self-observation in the waking state." Such remarks as this of Benini's call our attention to the fact that the emergence of impulses which are foreign to our ethical consciousness is merely analogous to the manner, already familiar to us, in which the dream disposes of other representative material: "Certe nostre inclinazioni che si credevano soffocate e spente da un pezzo, si ridestano; passioni vecchie e sepolte revivono; cose e persone a cui non pensiamo mai, ci vengono dinanzi" (p. 149). Volkelt expresses himself in a similar fashion: "Even ideas which have entered into our consciousness almost unnoticed, and which, perhaps, it has never before called out of oblivion, often announce their presence in the mind through a dream" (p 105). Finally, we may remember that according to Schleiermacher the state of falling asleep is accompanied by the appearance of undesired imaginings.
We may include in such "undesired imaginings" the whole of that imaginative material the occurrence of which surprises us in immoral as well as in absurd dreams. The only important difference consists in the fact that the undesired imaginings in the moral sphere are in opposition to our usual feelings, whereas the others merely appear strange to us. So far nothing has been done to enable us to reconcile this difference by a profounder understanding. But what is the significance of the emergence of undesired representations in dreams? What conclusions can the psychology of the waking and dreaming mind draw from these nocturnal manifestations of contrasting ethical impulses? Here we find a fresh diversity of opinion, and also a different grouping of the authors who have treated of the subject. The line of thought followed by Hildebrandt, and by others who share his fundamental opinion, cannot be continued otherwise than by ascribing to the immoral impulses, even in the waking state, a latent vitality, which is indeed inhibited from proceeding to action, and by asserting that during sleep something falls away from us which, having the effect of an inhibition, has kept us from becoming aware of the existence of such impulses. Dreams therefore, reveal the true, if not the whole, nature of the dreamer, and are one means of making the hidden life of the psyche accessible to our understanding. It is only on such hypotheses that Hildebrandt can attribute to the dream the role of a monitor who calls our attention to the secret mischief in the soul, just as, according to the physicians, it may announce a hitherto unobserved physical disorder. Spitta, too, must be influenced by this conception when he refers, for example, to the stream of excitations which flow in upon the psyche during puberty, and consoles the dreamer by assuring him that he has done all that is in his power to do if he has led a strictly virtuous life during his waking state, if he has made an effort to suppress the sinful thoughts as often as they arise, and has kept them from maturing and turning into action. According to this conception, we might designate as "undesired imaginings" those that are suppressed during the day, and we must recognize in their emergence a genuine psychic phenomenon.
According to certain other authors, we have no right to draw this last inference. For Jessen (p. 360) the undesired ideas and images, in the dream as in the waking state, and also in the delirium of fever, etc., possess "the character of a voluntary activity laid to rest, and of a procession, to some extent mechanical, of images and ideas evoked by inner impulses." An immoral dream proves nothing in respect of the psychic life of the dreamer except that he has somehow become cognizant of the imaginative content in question; it is certainly no proof of a psychic impulse of his own mind. Another writer, Maury, makes us wonder whether he, too, does not ascribe to the dream-state the power of dividing the psychic activity into its components, instead of aimlessly destroying it. He speaks as follows of dreams in which one oversteps the bounds of morality: "Ce sont nos penchants qui parlent et qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience nous retienne, bien que parfois elle nous avertisse. J'ai mes defauts et mes penchants vicieux; a l'etat de veille, je tache de lutter contre eux, et il m'arrive assez souvent de n'y pas succomber. Mais dans mes songes j'y succombe toujours, ou pour mieux dire j'agis par leur impulsion, sans crainte et sans remords.... Evidemment les visions qui se deroulent devant ma pensee, et qui constituent le reve, me sont suggerees par les incitations que je ressens et que ma volonte absente ne cherche pas a refouler."[47] Le Sommeil (p. 113).
If one believed in the power of the dream to reveal an actually existing, but suppressed or concealed, immoral disposition of the dreamer, one could not express one's opinion more emphatically than in the words of Maury (p. 115): "En reve l'homme se revele donc tout entier a soi-meme dans sa nudite et sa misere natives. Des qu'il suspend l'exercise de sa volonte, il devient le jouet de toutes les passions contre lesquelles, a l'etat de veille, la conscience, le sentiment d'honneur, la crainte nous defendent."[48] In another place makes the striking assertion (p. 462): "Dans le reve,
c'est surtout l'homme instinctif que se revele.... L'homme revient pour ainsi dire l'etat de nature quand il reve; mais moins les idees acquises ont
penetre dans son esprit, plus 'les penchants en desaccord' avec elles conservent encore sur lui d'influence dans le rive."[49] He then mentions, as
an example, that his own dreams often reveal him as a victim of just those superstitions which he has most vigorously attacked in his writings.
The value of all these acute observations is, however, impaired in Maury's case, because he refuses to recognize in the phenomena which he has so accurately observed anything more than a proof of the automatisme psychologique which in his own opinion dominates the dream-life. He conceives this automatism as the complete opposite of psychic activity.
A passage in Stricker's Studien uber das Bewusstsein reads: "Dreams do not consist purely and simply of delusions; for example, if one is afraid of robbers in a dream, the robbers indeed are imaginary, but the fear is real." Our attention is here called to the fact that the affective development of a dream does not admit of the judgment which one bestows upon the rest of the dream-content, and the problem then arises: What part of the psychic processes in a dream may be real? That is to say, what part of them may claim to be enrolled among the psychic processes of the waking state?
G. Dream-Theories and the Function of the Dream
A statement concerning the dream which seeks to explain as many as possible of its observed characteristics from a single point of view, and which at the same time defines the relation of the dream to a more comprehensive sphere of phenomena, may be described as a theory of the dream. The individual theories of the dream will be distinguished from one another by their designating as essential this or that characteristic of dreams, and relating thereto their data and their explanations. It is not absolutely necessary that we should deduce from the theory of the dream a function, i.e., a use or any such similar role, but expectation, being as a matter of habit teleologically inclined, will nevertheless welcome those theories which afford us some insight into a function of dreams.
We have already become acquainted with many conceptions of the dream, which in this sense are more or less deserving of the name of dream- theories. The belief of the ancients that dreams were sent by the gods in order to guide the actions of man was a complete theory of the dream, which told them all that was worth knowing about dreams. Since dreams have become an object of biological research we have a greater number of theories, some of which, however, are very incomplete.
Provided we make no claim to completeness, we might venture on the following rough grouping of dream-theories, based on their fundamental conception of the degree and mode of the psychic activity in dreams:
1. Theories, like those of Delboeuf, which allow the full psychic activity of the waking state to continue in our dreams. Here the psyche does not sleep; its apparatus remains intact; but under the conditions of the sleeping state, which differ from those of the waking state, it must in its normal functioning give results which differ from those of the waking state. As regards these theories, it may be questioned whether their authors are in a position to derive the distinction between dreaming and waking thought entirely from the conditions of the sleeping state. Moreover, they lack one possible access to a function of dreams; one does not understand to what purpose one dreams - why the complicated mechanism of the psychic apparatus should continue to operate even when it is placed under conditions to which it does not appear to be adapted. There are only two purposeful reactions in the place of the reaction of dreaming: to sleep dreamlessly, or to wake when affected by disturbing stimuli.
2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream a diminution of the psychic activity, a loosening of connections, and an impoverishment of the available material. In accordance with these theories, one must assume for sleep a psychological character entirely different from that given by Delboeuf. Sleep encroaches widely upon the psyche; it does not consist in the mere shutting it off from the outer world; on the contrary, it enters into its mechanism, and makes it for the time being unserviceable. If I may draw a comparison from psychiatry, I would say that the first group of theories construes the dream like a paranoia, while the second represents it as a type of mental deficiency or amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity paralysed by sleep finds expression in dreams is that by far the most favoured by medical writers, and by scientists in general. In so far as one may presuppose a general interest in dream-interpretation, one may indeed describe it as the most popular theory of dreams. It is remarkable how nimbly this particular theory avoids the greatest danger that threatens every dream- interpretation; that is, shipwreck on one of the contrasts incorporated in dreams. Since this theory regards dreams as the result of a partial waking (or, as Herbart puts it in his Psychologie uber den Traum, "a gradual, partial, and at the same time very anomalous waking"), it is able to cover the whole series, from the inferior activities of dreams, which betray themselves by their absurdity, to fully concentrated intellectual activity, by a series of states of progressive awakening, ending in complete wakefulness.
Those who find the physiological mode of expression indispensable, or who deem it more scientific, will find this theory of dreams summarized in Binz's description (p. 43):
"This state (of torpor), however, gradually comes to an end in the hours of early morning. The accumulated products of fatigue in the albumen of the brain gradually diminish. They are slowly decomposed, or carried away by the constantly flowing blood-stream. Here and there individual groups of cells can be distinguished as being awake, while around them all is still in a state of torpidity. The isolated work of the individual
The value of all these acute observations is, however, impaired in Maury's case, because he refuses to recognize in the phenomena which he has so accurately observed anything more than a proof of the automatisme psychologique which in his own opinion dominates the dream-life. He conceives this automatism as the complete opposite of psychic activity.
A passage in Stricker's Studien uber das Bewusstsein reads: "Dreams do not consist purely and simply of delusions; for example, if one is afraid of robbers in a dream, the robbers indeed are imaginary, but the fear is real." Our attention is here called to the fact that the affective development of a dream does not admit of the judgment which one bestows upon the rest of the dream-content, and the problem then arises: What part of the psychic processes in a dream may be real? That is to say, what part of them may claim to be enrolled among the psychic processes of the waking state?
G. Dream-Theories and the Function of the Dream
A statement concerning the dream which seeks to explain as many as possible of its observed characteristics from a single point of view, and which at the same time defines the relation of the dream to a more comprehensive sphere of phenomena, may be described as a theory of the dream. The individual theories of the dream will be distinguished from one another by their designating as essential this or that characteristic of dreams, and relating thereto their data and their explanations. It is not absolutely necessary that we should deduce from the theory of the dream a function, i.e., a use or any such similar role, but expectation, being as a matter of habit teleologically inclined, will nevertheless welcome those theories which afford us some insight into a function of dreams.
We have already become acquainted with many conceptions of the dream, which in this sense are more or less deserving of the name of dream- theories. The belief of the ancients that dreams were sent by the gods in order to guide the actions of man was a complete theory of the dream, which told them all that was worth knowing about dreams. Since dreams have become an object of biological research we have a greater number of theories, some of which, however, are very incomplete.
Provided we make no claim to completeness, we might venture on the following rough grouping of dream-theories, based on their fundamental conception of the degree and mode of the psychic activity in dreams:
1. Theories, like those of Delboeuf, which allow the full psychic activity of the waking state to continue in our dreams. Here the psyche does not sleep; its apparatus remains intact; but under the conditions of the sleeping state, which differ from those of the waking state, it must in its normal functioning give results which differ from those of the waking state. As regards these theories, it may be questioned whether their authors are in a position to derive the distinction between dreaming and waking thought entirely from the conditions of the sleeping state. Moreover, they lack one possible access to a function of dreams; one does not understand to what purpose one dreams - why the complicated mechanism of the psychic apparatus should continue to operate even when it is placed under conditions to which it does not appear to be adapted. There are only two purposeful reactions in the place of the reaction of dreaming: to sleep dreamlessly, or to wake when affected by disturbing stimuli.
2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream a diminution of the psychic activity, a loosening of connections, and an impoverishment of the available material. In accordance with these theories, one must assume for sleep a psychological character entirely different from that given by Delboeuf. Sleep encroaches widely upon the psyche; it does not consist in the mere shutting it off from the outer world; on the contrary, it enters into its mechanism, and makes it for the time being unserviceable. If I may draw a comparison from psychiatry, I would say that the first group of theories construes the dream like a paranoia, while the second represents it as a type of mental deficiency or amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity paralysed by sleep finds expression in dreams is that by far the most favoured by medical writers, and by scientists in general. In so far as one may presuppose a general interest in dream-interpretation, one may indeed describe it as the most popular theory of dreams. It is remarkable how nimbly this particular theory avoids the greatest danger that threatens every dream- interpretation; that is, shipwreck on one of the contrasts incorporated in dreams. Since this theory regards dreams as the result of a partial waking (or, as Herbart puts it in his Psychologie uber den Traum, "a gradual, partial, and at the same time very anomalous waking"), it is able to cover the whole series, from the inferior activities of dreams, which betray themselves by their absurdity, to fully concentrated intellectual activity, by a series of states of progressive awakening, ending in complete wakefulness.
Those who find the physiological mode of expression indispensable, or who deem it more scientific, will find this theory of dreams summarized in Binz's description (p. 43):
"This state (of torpor), however, gradually comes to an end in the hours of early morning. The accumulated products of fatigue in the albumen of the brain gradually diminish. They are slowly decomposed, or carried away by the constantly flowing blood-stream. Here and there individual groups of cells can be distinguished as being awake, while around them all is still in a state of torpidity. The isolated work of the individual
groups now appears before our clouded consciousness, which is still powerless to control other parts of the brain, which govern the associations.
Hence the pictures created, which for the most part correspond to the objective impressions of the immediate past, combine with one another in a
wild and uncontrolled fashion. As the number of brain-cells set free constantly increases, the irrationality of the dream becomes constantly less."
The conception of the dream as an incomplete, partial waking state, or traces of the influence of this conception, will of course be found in the works of all the modern physiologists and philosophers. It is most completely represented by Maury. It often seems as though this author conceives the state of being awake or asleep as susceptible of shifting from one anatomical region to another; each anatomical region seeming to him to be connected with a definite psychic function. Here I will merely suggest that even if the theory of partial waking were confirmed, its finer superstructure would still call for exhaustive consideration.
No function of dreams, of course, can emerge from this conception of the dream-life. On the contrary, Binz, one of the chief proponents of this theory, consistently enough denies that dreams have any status or importance. He says (p. 357): "All the facts, as we see them, urge us to characterize the dream as a physical process, in all cases useless, and in many cases definitely morbid."
The expression physical in reference to dreams (the word is emphasized by the author) points, of course, in more than one direction. In the first place, it refers to the aetiology of dreams, which was of special interest to Binz, as he was studying the experimental production of dreams by the administration of drugs. It is certainly in keeping with this kind of dream-theory to ascribe the incitement to dreaming, whenever possible, exclusively to somatic origins. Presented in the most extreme form the theory is as follows: After we have put ourselves to sleep by the banishment of stimuli, there would be no need to dream, and no reason for dreaming until the morning, when the gradual awakening through the fresh invasion of stimuli might be reflected in the phenomenon of dreaming. But, as a matter of fact, it is not possible to protect our sleep from stimuli; like the germs of life of which Mephistopheles complained, stimuli come to the sleeper from all directions - from without, from within, and even from all those bodily regions which never trouble us during the waking state. Thus our sleep is disturbed; now this, now that little corner of the psyche is jogged into the waking state, and the psyche functions for a while with the awakened fraction, yet is thankful to fall asleep again. The dream is the reaction to the disturbance of sleep caused by the stimulus, but it is, when all is said, a purely superfluous reaction.
The description of the dream - which, after all, remains an activity of the psychic organ - as a physical process has yet another connotation. So to describe it is to deny that the dream has the dignity of a psychic process. The old simile of "the ten fingers of a person ignorant of music running over the keyboard of an instrument" perhaps best illustrates in what esteem the dream is commonly held by the representatives of exact science. Thus conceived, it becomes something wholly insusceptible of interpretation. How could the ten fingers of a player ignorant of music perform a musical composition?
The theory of partial wakefulness did not escape criticism even by the earlier writers. Thus Burdach wrote in 1830: "If we say that dreaming is a partial waking, then, in the first place, neither the waking nor the sleeping state is explained thereby; secondly, this amounts only to saying that certain powers of the mind are active in dreams while others are at rest. But such irregularities occur throughout life..." (p. 482).
The prevailing dream-theory which conceives the dream as a "physical" process finds a certain support in a very interesting conception of the dream which was first propounded by Robert in 1866, and which is seductive because it assigns to the dream a function or a useful result. As the basis of his theory Robert takes two objectively observable facts which we have already discussed in our consideration of dream-material (chapter I., B). These facts are: (1) that one very often dreams about the most insignificant impressions of the day; and (2) that one rarely carries over into the dream the absorbing interests of the day. Robert asserts as an indisputable fact that those matters which have been fully settled and solved never evoke dreams, but only such as lie incompleted in the mind, or touch it merely in passing (p. 10). "For this reason we cannot usually explain our dreams, since their causes are to be found in sensory impressions of the preceding day which have not attained sufficient recognition on the part of the dreamer." The condition permitting an impression to reach the dream is, therefore, that this impression has been disturbed in its elaboration, or that it was too insignificant to lay claim to such elaboration.
Robert therefore conceives the dream "as a physical process of elimination which in its psychic reaction reaches the consciousness." Dreams are eliminations of thoughts nipped in the bud. "A man deprived of the capacity for dreaming would in time become mentally unbalanced, because an immense number of unfinished and unsolved thoughts and superficial impressions would accumulate in his brain, under the pressure of which all that should be incorporated in the memory as a completed whole would be stifled." The dream acts as a safety-valve for the over-burdened brain. Dreams possess a healing and unburdening power (p. 32).
We should misunderstand Robert if we were to ask him how representation in the dream could bring about an unburdening of the mind. The writer apparently concluded from these two peculiarities of the dream-material that during sleep such an elimination of worthless impressions is effected somehow as a somatic process; and that dreaming is not a special psychic process, but only the information which we receive of such elimination. Moreover, elimination is not the only thing that takes place in the mind during sleep. Robert himself adds that the stimuli of the day are likewise elaborated, and "what cannot be eliminated from the undigested thought-material lying in the mind is bound up into a completed whole by mental clues borrowed from the imagination, and is thus enrolled in the memory as a harmless phantasy-picture" (p. 23).
But it is in his criticism of the sources of dreams that Robert is most flatly opposed to the prevailing theory. Whereas according to this theory there would be no dream if the external and internal sensory stimuli did not repeatedly wake the mind, according to Robert the impulse to dream
The conception of the dream as an incomplete, partial waking state, or traces of the influence of this conception, will of course be found in the works of all the modern physiologists and philosophers. It is most completely represented by Maury. It often seems as though this author conceives the state of being awake or asleep as susceptible of shifting from one anatomical region to another; each anatomical region seeming to him to be connected with a definite psychic function. Here I will merely suggest that even if the theory of partial waking were confirmed, its finer superstructure would still call for exhaustive consideration.
No function of dreams, of course, can emerge from this conception of the dream-life. On the contrary, Binz, one of the chief proponents of this theory, consistently enough denies that dreams have any status or importance. He says (p. 357): "All the facts, as we see them, urge us to characterize the dream as a physical process, in all cases useless, and in many cases definitely morbid."
The expression physical in reference to dreams (the word is emphasized by the author) points, of course, in more than one direction. In the first place, it refers to the aetiology of dreams, which was of special interest to Binz, as he was studying the experimental production of dreams by the administration of drugs. It is certainly in keeping with this kind of dream-theory to ascribe the incitement to dreaming, whenever possible, exclusively to somatic origins. Presented in the most extreme form the theory is as follows: After we have put ourselves to sleep by the banishment of stimuli, there would be no need to dream, and no reason for dreaming until the morning, when the gradual awakening through the fresh invasion of stimuli might be reflected in the phenomenon of dreaming. But, as a matter of fact, it is not possible to protect our sleep from stimuli; like the germs of life of which Mephistopheles complained, stimuli come to the sleeper from all directions - from without, from within, and even from all those bodily regions which never trouble us during the waking state. Thus our sleep is disturbed; now this, now that little corner of the psyche is jogged into the waking state, and the psyche functions for a while with the awakened fraction, yet is thankful to fall asleep again. The dream is the reaction to the disturbance of sleep caused by the stimulus, but it is, when all is said, a purely superfluous reaction.
The description of the dream - which, after all, remains an activity of the psychic organ - as a physical process has yet another connotation. So to describe it is to deny that the dream has the dignity of a psychic process. The old simile of "the ten fingers of a person ignorant of music running over the keyboard of an instrument" perhaps best illustrates in what esteem the dream is commonly held by the representatives of exact science. Thus conceived, it becomes something wholly insusceptible of interpretation. How could the ten fingers of a player ignorant of music perform a musical composition?
The theory of partial wakefulness did not escape criticism even by the earlier writers. Thus Burdach wrote in 1830: "If we say that dreaming is a partial waking, then, in the first place, neither the waking nor the sleeping state is explained thereby; secondly, this amounts only to saying that certain powers of the mind are active in dreams while others are at rest. But such irregularities occur throughout life..." (p. 482).
The prevailing dream-theory which conceives the dream as a "physical" process finds a certain support in a very interesting conception of the dream which was first propounded by Robert in 1866, and which is seductive because it assigns to the dream a function or a useful result. As the basis of his theory Robert takes two objectively observable facts which we have already discussed in our consideration of dream-material (chapter I., B). These facts are: (1) that one very often dreams about the most insignificant impressions of the day; and (2) that one rarely carries over into the dream the absorbing interests of the day. Robert asserts as an indisputable fact that those matters which have been fully settled and solved never evoke dreams, but only such as lie incompleted in the mind, or touch it merely in passing (p. 10). "For this reason we cannot usually explain our dreams, since their causes are to be found in sensory impressions of the preceding day which have not attained sufficient recognition on the part of the dreamer." The condition permitting an impression to reach the dream is, therefore, that this impression has been disturbed in its elaboration, or that it was too insignificant to lay claim to such elaboration.
Robert therefore conceives the dream "as a physical process of elimination which in its psychic reaction reaches the consciousness." Dreams are eliminations of thoughts nipped in the bud. "A man deprived of the capacity for dreaming would in time become mentally unbalanced, because an immense number of unfinished and unsolved thoughts and superficial impressions would accumulate in his brain, under the pressure of which all that should be incorporated in the memory as a completed whole would be stifled." The dream acts as a safety-valve for the over-burdened brain. Dreams possess a healing and unburdening power (p. 32).
We should misunderstand Robert if we were to ask him how representation in the dream could bring about an unburdening of the mind. The writer apparently concluded from these two peculiarities of the dream-material that during sleep such an elimination of worthless impressions is effected somehow as a somatic process; and that dreaming is not a special psychic process, but only the information which we receive of such elimination. Moreover, elimination is not the only thing that takes place in the mind during sleep. Robert himself adds that the stimuli of the day are likewise elaborated, and "what cannot be eliminated from the undigested thought-material lying in the mind is bound up into a completed whole by mental clues borrowed from the imagination, and is thus enrolled in the memory as a harmless phantasy-picture" (p. 23).
But it is in his criticism of the sources of dreams that Robert is most flatly opposed to the prevailing theory. Whereas according to this theory there would be no dream if the external and internal sensory stimuli did not repeatedly wake the mind, according to Robert the impulse to dream
lies in the mind itself. It lies in the overloading of the mind, which demands discharge, and Robert considers, quite consistently, that those causes
conditioning the dream which depend on the physical condition assume a subordinate rank, and could not incite dreams in a mind which
contained no material for dream-formation derived from the waking consciousness. It is admitted, however, that the phantasy-images originating
in the depths of the mind may be influenced by nervous stimuli (p. 48). Thus, according to Robert, dreams are not, after all, wholly dependent on
the somatic element. Dreaming is, of course, not a psychic process, and it has no place among the psychic processes of the waking state; it is a
nocturnal somatic process in the apparatus of mental activity, and has a function to perform, viz., to guard this apparatus against excessive strain,
or, if we may be allowed to change the comparison, to cleanse the mind.
Another author, Yves Delage, bases his theory on the same characteristics of the dream-characteristics which are perceptible in the selection of the dream-material, and it is instructive to observe how a trifling twist in the conception of the same things gives a final result entirely different in its bearings. Delage, having lost through death a person very dear to him, found that we either do not dream at all of what occupies us intently during the day, or that we begin to dream of it only after it is overshadowed by the other interests of the day. His investigations in respect of other persons corroborated the universality of this state of affairs. Concerning the dreams of newly-married people, he makes a comment which is admirable if it should prove to be generally true: "S'ils ont ete fortement epris, presque jamais ils n'ont reve l'un de l'autre avant le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel; et s'ils ont reve d'amour c'est pour etre infideles avec quelque personne indifferente ou odieuse."[50] But of what does one dream? Delage recognizes that the material of our dreams consists of fragments and remnants of impressions, both from the last few days and from earlier periods. All that appears in our dreams, all that we may at first be inclined to consider the creation of the dream-life, proves on closer investigation to be unrecognized reproduction, "souvenir inconscient." But this representative material reveals one common characteristic; it originates from impressions which have probably affected our senses more forcibly than our mind, or from which the attention has been deflected soon after their occurrence. The less conscious, and at the same time the stronger an impression, the greater the prospect of its playing a part in our next dream.
These two categories of impressions - the insignificant and the undisposed-of - are essentially the same as those which were emphasized by Robert, but Delage gives them another significance, inasmuch as he believes that these impressions are capable of exciting dreams not because they are indifferent, but because they are not disposed of. The insignificant impressions also are, in a sense, not fully disposed of; they, too, owing to their character of new impressions, are "autant de ressorts tendus,"[51] which will be relaxed during sleep. Still more entitled to a role in the dream than a weak and almost unnoticed impression is a vivid impression which has been accidentally retarded in its elaboration, or intentionally repressed. The psychic energy accumulated during the day by inhibition or suppression becomes the mainspring of the dream at night. In dreams psychically suppressed material achieves expression.[52]
Unfortunately Delage does not pursue this line of thought any farther; he is able to ascribe only the most insignificant role in our dreams to an independent psychic activity, and thus, in his theory of dreams, he reverts to the prevailing doctrine of a partial slumber of the brain: "En somme le reve est le produit de la pensee errante, sans but et sans direction, se fixant successivement sur les souvenirs, qui ont garde assez d'intensite pour se placer sur sa route et l'arreter au passage, etablissant entre eux un lien tantot faible et indecis, tantot plus fort et plus serre, selon que l'activite actuelle du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil."[53]
3. In a third group we may include those dream-theories which ascribe to the dreaming mind the capacity for and propensity to special psychic activities, which in the waking state it is able to exert either not at all or imperfectly. In most cases the manifestation of these activities is held to result in a useful function of dreams. The evaluations of dreams by the earlier psychologists fall chiefly within this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting in their stead the assertion of Burdach, to the effect that dreaming "is the natural activity of the mind, which is not limited by the power of the individuality, nor disturbed by self-consciousness, nor directed by self-determination, but is the vitality of the sensible focus indulging in free play" (p. 486).
Burdach and others evidently consider this revelling in the free use of its own powers as a state in which the mind refreshes itself and gathers fresh strength for the day's work; something, indeed, after the fashion of a vacation. Burdach therefore cites with approval the admirable words in which the poet Novalis lauds the power of the dream: "The dream is a bulwark against the regularity and commonplace character of life, a free recreation of the fettered phantasy, in which it intermingles all the images of life and interrupts the constant seriousness of the adult by the joyful play of the child. Without the dream we should surely grow old earlier, so that the dream may be considered, if not precisely as a gift from above, yet as a delightful exercise, a friendly companion on our pilgrimage to the grave."
The refreshing and healing activity of dreams is even more impressively described by Purkinje (p. 456). "The productive dreams in particular would perform these functions. These are the unconstrained play of the imagination, and have no connection with the events of the day. The mind is loth to continue the tension of the waking life, but wishes to relax it and recuperate from it. It creates, in the first place conditions opposed to those of the waking state. It cures sadness by joy, worry by hope and cheerfully distracting images, hatred by love and friendliness, and fear by courage and confidence; it appeases doubt by conviction and firm belief, and vain expectation by realization. Sleep heals many sore spots in the mind, which the day keeps continually open, by covering them and guarding them against fresh irritation. On this depends in some degree the consoling action of time." We all feel that sleep is beneficial to the psychic life, and the vague surmise of the popular consciousness is apparently loth to surrender the notion that dreaming is one of the ways in which sleep bestows its benefits.
Another author, Yves Delage, bases his theory on the same characteristics of the dream-characteristics which are perceptible in the selection of the dream-material, and it is instructive to observe how a trifling twist in the conception of the same things gives a final result entirely different in its bearings. Delage, having lost through death a person very dear to him, found that we either do not dream at all of what occupies us intently during the day, or that we begin to dream of it only after it is overshadowed by the other interests of the day. His investigations in respect of other persons corroborated the universality of this state of affairs. Concerning the dreams of newly-married people, he makes a comment which is admirable if it should prove to be generally true: "S'ils ont ete fortement epris, presque jamais ils n'ont reve l'un de l'autre avant le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel; et s'ils ont reve d'amour c'est pour etre infideles avec quelque personne indifferente ou odieuse."[50] But of what does one dream? Delage recognizes that the material of our dreams consists of fragments and remnants of impressions, both from the last few days and from earlier periods. All that appears in our dreams, all that we may at first be inclined to consider the creation of the dream-life, proves on closer investigation to be unrecognized reproduction, "souvenir inconscient." But this representative material reveals one common characteristic; it originates from impressions which have probably affected our senses more forcibly than our mind, or from which the attention has been deflected soon after their occurrence. The less conscious, and at the same time the stronger an impression, the greater the prospect of its playing a part in our next dream.
These two categories of impressions - the insignificant and the undisposed-of - are essentially the same as those which were emphasized by Robert, but Delage gives them another significance, inasmuch as he believes that these impressions are capable of exciting dreams not because they are indifferent, but because they are not disposed of. The insignificant impressions also are, in a sense, not fully disposed of; they, too, owing to their character of new impressions, are "autant de ressorts tendus,"[51] which will be relaxed during sleep. Still more entitled to a role in the dream than a weak and almost unnoticed impression is a vivid impression which has been accidentally retarded in its elaboration, or intentionally repressed. The psychic energy accumulated during the day by inhibition or suppression becomes the mainspring of the dream at night. In dreams psychically suppressed material achieves expression.[52]
Unfortunately Delage does not pursue this line of thought any farther; he is able to ascribe only the most insignificant role in our dreams to an independent psychic activity, and thus, in his theory of dreams, he reverts to the prevailing doctrine of a partial slumber of the brain: "En somme le reve est le produit de la pensee errante, sans but et sans direction, se fixant successivement sur les souvenirs, qui ont garde assez d'intensite pour se placer sur sa route et l'arreter au passage, etablissant entre eux un lien tantot faible et indecis, tantot plus fort et plus serre, selon que l'activite actuelle du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil."[53]
3. In a third group we may include those dream-theories which ascribe to the dreaming mind the capacity for and propensity to special psychic activities, which in the waking state it is able to exert either not at all or imperfectly. In most cases the manifestation of these activities is held to result in a useful function of dreams. The evaluations of dreams by the earlier psychologists fall chiefly within this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting in their stead the assertion of Burdach, to the effect that dreaming "is the natural activity of the mind, which is not limited by the power of the individuality, nor disturbed by self-consciousness, nor directed by self-determination, but is the vitality of the sensible focus indulging in free play" (p. 486).
Burdach and others evidently consider this revelling in the free use of its own powers as a state in which the mind refreshes itself and gathers fresh strength for the day's work; something, indeed, after the fashion of a vacation. Burdach therefore cites with approval the admirable words in which the poet Novalis lauds the power of the dream: "The dream is a bulwark against the regularity and commonplace character of life, a free recreation of the fettered phantasy, in which it intermingles all the images of life and interrupts the constant seriousness of the adult by the joyful play of the child. Without the dream we should surely grow old earlier, so that the dream may be considered, if not precisely as a gift from above, yet as a delightful exercise, a friendly companion on our pilgrimage to the grave."
The refreshing and healing activity of dreams is even more impressively described by Purkinje (p. 456). "The productive dreams in particular would perform these functions. These are the unconstrained play of the imagination, and have no connection with the events of the day. The mind is loth to continue the tension of the waking life, but wishes to relax it and recuperate from it. It creates, in the first place conditions opposed to those of the waking state. It cures sadness by joy, worry by hope and cheerfully distracting images, hatred by love and friendliness, and fear by courage and confidence; it appeases doubt by conviction and firm belief, and vain expectation by realization. Sleep heals many sore spots in the mind, which the day keeps continually open, by covering them and guarding them against fresh irritation. On this depends in some degree the consoling action of time." We all feel that sleep is beneficial to the psychic life, and the vague surmise of the popular consciousness is apparently loth to surrender the notion that dreaming is one of the ways in which sleep bestows its benefits.
The most original and most comprehensive attempt to explain dreaming as a special activity of the mind, which can freely unfold itself only in the
sleeping state, is that made by Scherner in 1861. Scherner's book is written in a heavy and bombastic style and is inspired by an almost
intoxicated enthusiasm for the subject, which is bound to repel us unless it can carry us away with it. It places so many difficulties in the way of
an analysis that we gladly resort to the clearer and conciser presentation of Scherner's theories made by the philosopher Volkelt: "From these
mystical conglomerations, from all these outbursts of splendour and radiance, there indeed flashes and shines an ominous semblance of meaning;
but the path of the philosopher is not illumined thereby." Such is the criticism of Scherner's exposition by one of his own followers.
Scherner is not one of those writers for whom the mind carries its undiminished faculties into the dream-life. He even explains how, in our dreams, the centrality and spontaneous energy of the ego become enervated; how cognition, feeling, will, and imagination are transformed by this decentralization; how the remnant of these psychic forces has not a truly intellectual character, but is rather of the nature of a mechanism. But, on the other hand, that activity of the psyche which may be described as phantasy, freed from all rational governance, and hence no longer strictly controlled, rises to absolute supremacy in our dreams. To be sure, it borrows all its building-material from the memory of the waking state, but with this material it builds up structures which differ from those of the waking state as day differs from night. In our dreams it reveals itself as not only reproductive but also productive. Its peculiarities give the dream-life its singular character. It shows a preference for the unlimited, the exaggerated, the prodigious; but by its liberation from the inhibiting categories of thought, it gains a greater flexibility and agility, and indulges in pleasurable turns. It is excessively sensitive to the delicate emotional stimuli of the mind, to its stirring and disturbing affects, and it rapidly recasts the inner life into an external, plastic visibility. The dream-phantasy lacks the language of concepts. What it wishes to say it must express in visible form; and since in this case the concept does not exert an inhibitory control, it depicts it in all the fulness, power, and breadth of visible form. But hereby its language, plain though it is, becomes cumbersome, awkward, and prolix. Plain speaking is rendered especially difficult by the fact that it dislikes expressing an object by its actual image, but prefers to select an alien image, if only the latter is able to express that particular aspect of the object which it is anxious to represent. Such is the symbolizing activity of the phantasy.... It is, moreover, very significant that the dream-phantasy reproduces objects not in detail, but only in outline, and in the freest possible manner. Its paintings, therefore, are like light and brilliant sketches. The dream-phantasy, however, does not stop at the mere representation of the object, but feels an internal urge to implicate the dream-ego to some extent with the object, and thus to give rise to action. The visual dream, for example, depicts gold coins lying in the street; the dreamer picks them up, rejoices, and carries them away.
According to Scherner, the material upon which the dream-phantasy exerts its artistic activity consists preponderantly of the organic sensory stimuli which are so obscure during the day (cf. p. 151 above); hence it is that the over-fantastic theory of Scherner, and perhaps too matter-of- fact theories of Wundt and other physiologists, though otherwise diametrically opposed to each other, are in perfect agreement in their assumptions with regard to dream-sources and dream-stimuli. But whereas, according to the physiological theory, the psychic reaction to the inner physical stimuli becomes exhausted with the arousing of any of the ideas appropriate to these stimuli (as these ideas then, by way of association, call to their aid other ideas, so that on reaching this stage the chain of psychic processes appears to terminate), according to Scherner, on the other hand, the physical stimuli merely supply the psyche with material which it may utilize in fulfilling its phantastic intentions. For Scherner dream-formation begins where, according to the views of other writers, it comes to an end.
What the dream-phantasy does with the physical stimuli cannot, of course, be regarded as purposeful. The phantasy plays a tantalizing game with them, and represents the organic source of the stimuli of the dream in question by any sort of plastic symbolism. Indeed, Scherner holds - though here Volkelt and others differ from him - that the dream-phantasy has a certain favourite symbol for the organism as a whole: namely, the house. Fortunately, however, for its representations, it does not seem to limit itself to this material; it may also employ a whole series of houses to designate a single organ; for example, very long streets of houses for the intestinal stimulus. In other dreams particular parts of the house may actually represent particular regions of the body, as in the headache-dream, when the ceiling of the room (which the dream sees covered with disgusting toad-like spiders) represents the head.
Quite apart from the symbol of the house, any other suitable object may be employed to represent those parts of the body which excite the dream. "Thus the breathing lungs find their symbol in the flaming stove with its windy roaring, the heart in hollow chests and baskets, the bladder in round, ball-shaped, or simply hollow objects. The man's dreams, when due to the sexual stimulus, make the dreamer find in the street the upper portion of a clarinet, or the mouthpiece of a tobacco-pipe, or, again, a piece of fur. The clarinet and tobacco-pipe represent the approximate form of the male sexual organ, while the fur represents the pubic hair. In the sexual dreams of the female, the tightness of the closed thighs may be symbolized by a narrow courtyard surrounded by houses, and the vagina by a very narrow, slippery and soft footpath, leading through the courtyard, upon which the dreamer is obliged to walk, in order perhaps to carry a letter to a man" (Volkelt, p. 39). It is particularly noteworthy that at the end of such a physically stimulated dream the phantasy, as it were, unmasks itself by representing the exciting organ or its function unconcealed. Thus the "tooth-excited dream" usually ends with the dreamer taking a tooth out of his mouth.
The dream-phantasy may, however, direct its attention not merely to the form of the exciting organ, but may even make the substance contained therein the object of symbolization. Thus, for example, the dream excited by the intestinal stimuli may lead us through muddy streets, the dream due to stimuli from the bladder to foaming water. Or the stimulus as such, the nature of its excitation, and the object which it covets, are represented symbolically. Or, again, the dream-ego enters into a concrete association with the symbolization of its own state; as, for example, when in the case of painful stimuli we struggle desperately with vicious dogs or raging bulls, or when in a sexual dream the dreamer sees herself pursued by a naked man. Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration, a phantastic symbolizing activity remains as the central force of every dream. Volkelt, in his fine and enthusiastic essay, attempted to penetrate still further into the character of this phantasy, and to assign to the
Scherner is not one of those writers for whom the mind carries its undiminished faculties into the dream-life. He even explains how, in our dreams, the centrality and spontaneous energy of the ego become enervated; how cognition, feeling, will, and imagination are transformed by this decentralization; how the remnant of these psychic forces has not a truly intellectual character, but is rather of the nature of a mechanism. But, on the other hand, that activity of the psyche which may be described as phantasy, freed from all rational governance, and hence no longer strictly controlled, rises to absolute supremacy in our dreams. To be sure, it borrows all its building-material from the memory of the waking state, but with this material it builds up structures which differ from those of the waking state as day differs from night. In our dreams it reveals itself as not only reproductive but also productive. Its peculiarities give the dream-life its singular character. It shows a preference for the unlimited, the exaggerated, the prodigious; but by its liberation from the inhibiting categories of thought, it gains a greater flexibility and agility, and indulges in pleasurable turns. It is excessively sensitive to the delicate emotional stimuli of the mind, to its stirring and disturbing affects, and it rapidly recasts the inner life into an external, plastic visibility. The dream-phantasy lacks the language of concepts. What it wishes to say it must express in visible form; and since in this case the concept does not exert an inhibitory control, it depicts it in all the fulness, power, and breadth of visible form. But hereby its language, plain though it is, becomes cumbersome, awkward, and prolix. Plain speaking is rendered especially difficult by the fact that it dislikes expressing an object by its actual image, but prefers to select an alien image, if only the latter is able to express that particular aspect of the object which it is anxious to represent. Such is the symbolizing activity of the phantasy.... It is, moreover, very significant that the dream-phantasy reproduces objects not in detail, but only in outline, and in the freest possible manner. Its paintings, therefore, are like light and brilliant sketches. The dream-phantasy, however, does not stop at the mere representation of the object, but feels an internal urge to implicate the dream-ego to some extent with the object, and thus to give rise to action. The visual dream, for example, depicts gold coins lying in the street; the dreamer picks them up, rejoices, and carries them away.
According to Scherner, the material upon which the dream-phantasy exerts its artistic activity consists preponderantly of the organic sensory stimuli which are so obscure during the day (cf. p. 151 above); hence it is that the over-fantastic theory of Scherner, and perhaps too matter-of- fact theories of Wundt and other physiologists, though otherwise diametrically opposed to each other, are in perfect agreement in their assumptions with regard to dream-sources and dream-stimuli. But whereas, according to the physiological theory, the psychic reaction to the inner physical stimuli becomes exhausted with the arousing of any of the ideas appropriate to these stimuli (as these ideas then, by way of association, call to their aid other ideas, so that on reaching this stage the chain of psychic processes appears to terminate), according to Scherner, on the other hand, the physical stimuli merely supply the psyche with material which it may utilize in fulfilling its phantastic intentions. For Scherner dream-formation begins where, according to the views of other writers, it comes to an end.
What the dream-phantasy does with the physical stimuli cannot, of course, be regarded as purposeful. The phantasy plays a tantalizing game with them, and represents the organic source of the stimuli of the dream in question by any sort of plastic symbolism. Indeed, Scherner holds - though here Volkelt and others differ from him - that the dream-phantasy has a certain favourite symbol for the organism as a whole: namely, the house. Fortunately, however, for its representations, it does not seem to limit itself to this material; it may also employ a whole series of houses to designate a single organ; for example, very long streets of houses for the intestinal stimulus. In other dreams particular parts of the house may actually represent particular regions of the body, as in the headache-dream, when the ceiling of the room (which the dream sees covered with disgusting toad-like spiders) represents the head.
Quite apart from the symbol of the house, any other suitable object may be employed to represent those parts of the body which excite the dream. "Thus the breathing lungs find their symbol in the flaming stove with its windy roaring, the heart in hollow chests and baskets, the bladder in round, ball-shaped, or simply hollow objects. The man's dreams, when due to the sexual stimulus, make the dreamer find in the street the upper portion of a clarinet, or the mouthpiece of a tobacco-pipe, or, again, a piece of fur. The clarinet and tobacco-pipe represent the approximate form of the male sexual organ, while the fur represents the pubic hair. In the sexual dreams of the female, the tightness of the closed thighs may be symbolized by a narrow courtyard surrounded by houses, and the vagina by a very narrow, slippery and soft footpath, leading through the courtyard, upon which the dreamer is obliged to walk, in order perhaps to carry a letter to a man" (Volkelt, p. 39). It is particularly noteworthy that at the end of such a physically stimulated dream the phantasy, as it were, unmasks itself by representing the exciting organ or its function unconcealed. Thus the "tooth-excited dream" usually ends with the dreamer taking a tooth out of his mouth.
The dream-phantasy may, however, direct its attention not merely to the form of the exciting organ, but may even make the substance contained therein the object of symbolization. Thus, for example, the dream excited by the intestinal stimuli may lead us through muddy streets, the dream due to stimuli from the bladder to foaming water. Or the stimulus as such, the nature of its excitation, and the object which it covets, are represented symbolically. Or, again, the dream-ego enters into a concrete association with the symbolization of its own state; as, for example, when in the case of painful stimuli we struggle desperately with vicious dogs or raging bulls, or when in a sexual dream the dreamer sees herself pursued by a naked man. Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration, a phantastic symbolizing activity remains as the central force of every dream. Volkelt, in his fine and enthusiastic essay, attempted to penetrate still further into the character of this phantasy, and to assign to the
psychic activity thus recognized its position in a system of philosophical ideas, which, however, remains altogether too difficult of comprehension
for anyone who is not prepared by previous training for the intuitive comprehension of philosophical modes of thought.
Scherner attributes no useful function to the activity of the symbolizing phantasy in dreams. In dreams the psyche plays with the stimuli which are offered to it. One might conjecture that it plays in a mischievous fashion. And we might be asked whether our detailed consideration of Scherner's dream-theory, the arbitrariness of which, and its deviation from the rules of all forms of research are only too obvious, can lead to any useful results. We might fitly reply that to reject Scherner's theory without previous examination would be imposing too arrogant a veto. This theory is based on the impressions produced by his dreams on a man who paid close attention to them, and who would appear to be personally very well equipped for tracing obscure psychic phenomena. Furthermore, it treats of a subject which (though rich in its contents and relations) has for thousands of years appeared mysterious to humanity, and to the elucidation of which science, strictly so called, has, as it confesses, contributed nothing beyond attempting - in uncompromising opposition to popular sentiment - to deny its content and significance. Finally, let us frankly admit that it seems as though we cannot very well avoid the phantastical in our attempts to explain dreams. We must remember also that there is such a thing as a phantasy of ganglion cells; the passage cited (p. 87) from a sober and exact investigator like Binz, which describes how the dawn of awakening floods the dormant cell-masses of the cerebral cortex, is not a whit less fanciful and improbable than Scherner's attempts at interpretation. I hope to be able to demonstrate that there is something real underlying these attempts, though the phenomena which he describes have been only vaguely recognized, and do not possess the character of universality that should entitle them to be the basis of a theory of dreams. For the present, Scherner's theory of dreams, in contrast to the medical theory, may perhaps lead us to realize between what extremes the explanation of dream-life is still unsteadily vacillating.
H. The Relation between Dreams and Mental Diseases
When we speak of the relation of dreams to mental derangement, we may mean three different things: (1) aetiological and clinical relations, as when a dream represents or initiates a psychotic condition, or occurs subsequently to such a condition; (2) changes which the dream-life undergoes in cases of mental disease; (3) inner relations between dreams and psychoses, analogies which point to an intimate relationship. These manifold relations between the two series of phenomena were in the early days of medical science - and are once more at the present time - a favourite theme of medical writers, as we may learn from the literature on the subject collated by Spitta, Radestock, Maury, and Tissie. Recently Sante de Sanctis has directed his attention to this relationship.[54] For the purposes of our discussion it will suffice merely to glance at this important subject.
As to the clinical and aetiological relations between dreams and the psychoses, I will report the following observations as examples: Hohnbaum asserts (see Krauss) that the first attack of insanity is frequently connected with a terrifying anxiety-dream, and that the predominating idea is related to this dream. Sante de Sanctis adduces similar observations in respect of paranoiacs, and declares the dream to be, in some of them, "la vraie cause determinante de la folie."[55] The psychosis may come to life quite suddenly, simultaneously with the dream that contains its effective and delusive explanation, or it may develop slowly through subsequent dreams that have still to struggle against doubt. In one of de Sanctis's cases an intensively moving dream was accompanied by slight hysterical attacks, which, in their turn, were followed by an anxious melancholic state. Fere (cited by Tissie) refers to a dream which was followed by hysterical paralysis. Here the dream is presented as the aetiology of mental derangement, although we should be making a statement equally consistent with the facts were we to say that the first manifestation of the mental derangement occurred in the dream-life, that the disorder first broke through in the dream. In other instances, the morbid symptoms are included in the dream-life, or the psychosis remains confined to the dream-life. Thus Thomayer calls our attention to anxiety-dreams which must be conceived as the equivalent of epileptic attacks. Allison has described cases of nocturnal insanity (see Radestock), in which the subjects are apparently perfectly well in the day-time, while hallucinations, fits of frenzy, and the like regularly make their appearance at night. De Sanctis and Tissie record similar observations (the equivalent of a paranoic dream in an alcoholic, voices accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissie records many observations of recent date in which behaviour of a pathological character (based on delusory hypotheses, obsessive impulses) had their origin in dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep was replaced by an intermittent insanity.
We cannot doubt that one day the physician will concern himself not only with the psychology, but also with the psycho-pathology of dreams.
In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is often especially obvious that while the functions may be healthy by day the dream-life may still partake of the psychosis. Gregory is said to have been the first to call attention to such cases (see Krauss). Macario (cited by Tissie) gives an account of a maniac who, a week after his complete recovery, once more experienced in dreams the flux of ideas and the unbridled impulses of his disease.
Concerning the changes which the dream-life undergoes in chronic psychotics, little research has been undertaken as yet. On the other hand, early attention was given to the inner relationship between dreams and mental disturbances, a relationship which is demonstrated by the complete agreement of the manifestations occurring in each. According to Maury, Cabanis, in his Rapports du Physique et du Moral, was the first to call attention to this relationship; he was followed by Lelut, J. Moreau, and more particularly the philosopher Maine de Biran. The comparison between the two is of course older still. Radestock begins the chapter in which he deals with the subject by citing a number of opinions which insist on the analogy between insanity and dreaming. Kant says somewhere: "The lunatic is a dreamer in the waking state." According to Krauss, "Insanity is a dream in which the senses are awake." Schopenhauer terms the dream a brief insanity, and insanity a long dream. Hagen describes delirium as a dream-life which is inducted not by sleep but by disease. Wundt, in his Physiologische Psychologie, declares: "As a matter of fact
Scherner attributes no useful function to the activity of the symbolizing phantasy in dreams. In dreams the psyche plays with the stimuli which are offered to it. One might conjecture that it plays in a mischievous fashion. And we might be asked whether our detailed consideration of Scherner's dream-theory, the arbitrariness of which, and its deviation from the rules of all forms of research are only too obvious, can lead to any useful results. We might fitly reply that to reject Scherner's theory without previous examination would be imposing too arrogant a veto. This theory is based on the impressions produced by his dreams on a man who paid close attention to them, and who would appear to be personally very well equipped for tracing obscure psychic phenomena. Furthermore, it treats of a subject which (though rich in its contents and relations) has for thousands of years appeared mysterious to humanity, and to the elucidation of which science, strictly so called, has, as it confesses, contributed nothing beyond attempting - in uncompromising opposition to popular sentiment - to deny its content and significance. Finally, let us frankly admit that it seems as though we cannot very well avoid the phantastical in our attempts to explain dreams. We must remember also that there is such a thing as a phantasy of ganglion cells; the passage cited (p. 87) from a sober and exact investigator like Binz, which describes how the dawn of awakening floods the dormant cell-masses of the cerebral cortex, is not a whit less fanciful and improbable than Scherner's attempts at interpretation. I hope to be able to demonstrate that there is something real underlying these attempts, though the phenomena which he describes have been only vaguely recognized, and do not possess the character of universality that should entitle them to be the basis of a theory of dreams. For the present, Scherner's theory of dreams, in contrast to the medical theory, may perhaps lead us to realize between what extremes the explanation of dream-life is still unsteadily vacillating.
H. The Relation between Dreams and Mental Diseases
When we speak of the relation of dreams to mental derangement, we may mean three different things: (1) aetiological and clinical relations, as when a dream represents or initiates a psychotic condition, or occurs subsequently to such a condition; (2) changes which the dream-life undergoes in cases of mental disease; (3) inner relations between dreams and psychoses, analogies which point to an intimate relationship. These manifold relations between the two series of phenomena were in the early days of medical science - and are once more at the present time - a favourite theme of medical writers, as we may learn from the literature on the subject collated by Spitta, Radestock, Maury, and Tissie. Recently Sante de Sanctis has directed his attention to this relationship.[54] For the purposes of our discussion it will suffice merely to glance at this important subject.
As to the clinical and aetiological relations between dreams and the psychoses, I will report the following observations as examples: Hohnbaum asserts (see Krauss) that the first attack of insanity is frequently connected with a terrifying anxiety-dream, and that the predominating idea is related to this dream. Sante de Sanctis adduces similar observations in respect of paranoiacs, and declares the dream to be, in some of them, "la vraie cause determinante de la folie."[55] The psychosis may come to life quite suddenly, simultaneously with the dream that contains its effective and delusive explanation, or it may develop slowly through subsequent dreams that have still to struggle against doubt. In one of de Sanctis's cases an intensively moving dream was accompanied by slight hysterical attacks, which, in their turn, were followed by an anxious melancholic state. Fere (cited by Tissie) refers to a dream which was followed by hysterical paralysis. Here the dream is presented as the aetiology of mental derangement, although we should be making a statement equally consistent with the facts were we to say that the first manifestation of the mental derangement occurred in the dream-life, that the disorder first broke through in the dream. In other instances, the morbid symptoms are included in the dream-life, or the psychosis remains confined to the dream-life. Thus Thomayer calls our attention to anxiety-dreams which must be conceived as the equivalent of epileptic attacks. Allison has described cases of nocturnal insanity (see Radestock), in which the subjects are apparently perfectly well in the day-time, while hallucinations, fits of frenzy, and the like regularly make their appearance at night. De Sanctis and Tissie record similar observations (the equivalent of a paranoic dream in an alcoholic, voices accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissie records many observations of recent date in which behaviour of a pathological character (based on delusory hypotheses, obsessive impulses) had their origin in dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep was replaced by an intermittent insanity.
We cannot doubt that one day the physician will concern himself not only with the psychology, but also with the psycho-pathology of dreams.
In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is often especially obvious that while the functions may be healthy by day the dream-life may still partake of the psychosis. Gregory is said to have been the first to call attention to such cases (see Krauss). Macario (cited by Tissie) gives an account of a maniac who, a week after his complete recovery, once more experienced in dreams the flux of ideas and the unbridled impulses of his disease.
Concerning the changes which the dream-life undergoes in chronic psychotics, little research has been undertaken as yet. On the other hand, early attention was given to the inner relationship between dreams and mental disturbances, a relationship which is demonstrated by the complete agreement of the manifestations occurring in each. According to Maury, Cabanis, in his Rapports du Physique et du Moral, was the first to call attention to this relationship; he was followed by Lelut, J. Moreau, and more particularly the philosopher Maine de Biran. The comparison between the two is of course older still. Radestock begins the chapter in which he deals with the subject by citing a number of opinions which insist on the analogy between insanity and dreaming. Kant says somewhere: "The lunatic is a dreamer in the waking state." According to Krauss, "Insanity is a dream in which the senses are awake." Schopenhauer terms the dream a brief insanity, and insanity a long dream. Hagen describes delirium as a dream-life which is inducted not by sleep but by disease. Wundt, in his Physiologische Psychologie, declares: "As a matter of fact
we ourselves may in dreams experience almost all the manifestations which we observe in the asylums for the insane."
The specific points of agreement in consequence of which such a comparison commends itself to our judgment are enumerated by Spitta, who
groups them (very much as Maury has done) as follows: "(1) Suspension, or at least retardation of self-consciousness, and consequently ignorance
of the condition as such, the impossibility of astonishment, and a lack of moral consciousness. (2) Modified perception of the sensory organs; that
is, perception is as a rule diminished in dreams, and greatly enhanced in insanity. (3) Mutual combination of ideas exclusively in accordance with
the laws of association and reproduction, hence automatic series-formations: hence again a lack of proportion in the relations between ideas
(exaggerations, phantasms); and the results of all this: (4) Changes in - for example, inversions of - the personality, and sometimes of the
idiosyncrasies of the character (perversities)."
Radestock adds a few additional data concerning the analogous nature of the material of dreams and of mental derangement: "The greatest number of hallucinations and illusions are found in the sphere of the senses of sight and hearing and general sensation. As in dreams, the fewest elements are supplied by the senses of smell and taste. The fever-patient, like the dreamer, is assailed by reminiscences from the remote past; what the waking and healthy man seems to have forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease." The analogy between dreams and the psychoses receives its full value only when, like a family resemblance, it is extended to the subtler points of mimicry, and even the individual peculiarities of facial expression.
"To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings the dream accords what has been denied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being, and happiness; so, too, the insane see radiant images of happiness, eminence, and wealth. The supposed possession of estates and the imaginary fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which have actually been a psychic cause of the insanity, often form the main content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved child experiences in her delirium the joys of maternity; the man who has suffered reverses of fortune deems himself immensely wealthy; and the jilted girl sees herself tenderly beloved."
(This passage from Radestock is an abstract of a brilliant exposition of Griesinger's (p. 111), which reveals, with the greatest clarity, wish- fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination common to dreams and to the psychoses. My own investigations have taught me that here is to be found the key to a psychological theory of dreams and of the psychoses.)
"Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment are the main characteristics of the dream and of insanity." The over-estimation of one's own mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober judgment, is found alike in both, and the rapid flux of imaginings in the dream corresponds to the flux of ideas in the psychoses. Both are devoid of any measure of time. The splitting of the personality in dreams, which, for instance, distributes one's own knowledge between two persons, one of whom, the strange person, corrects one's own ego in the dream, entirely corresponds with the well-known splitting of the personality in hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts expressed by strange voices. Even the constant delusive ideas find their analogy in the stereotyped and recurring pathological dream (reve obsedant). After recovering from delirium, patients not infrequently declare that the whole period of their illness appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream; indeed, they inform us that sometimes during their illness they have suspected that they were only dreaming, just as often happens in the sleep- dream.
In view of all this, it is not surprising that Radestock should summarize his own opinion, and that of many others, in the following words: "Insanity, an abnormal morbid phenomenon, is to be regarded as an enhancement of the periodically recurring normal dream-state" (p. 228).
Krauss attempted to base the relationship between the dream and insanity upon their aetiology (or rather upon the sources of excitation), thus, perhaps, making the relationship even more intimate than was possible on the basis of the analogous nature of the phenomena manifested. According to him, the fundamental element common to both is, as we have already learned, the organically conditioned sensation, the sensation of physical stimuli, the general sensation arising out of contributions from all the organs (cf. Peisse, cited by Maury, p. 52).
The undeniable agreement between dreams and mental derangement, extending even to characteristic details, constitutes one of the strongest confirmations of the medical theory of dream-life, according to which the dream is represented as a useless and disturbing process, and as the expression of a diminished psychic activity. One cannot expect, for the present, to derive the final explanation of the dream from the psychic derangements, since, as is well known, our understanding of the origin of the latter is still highly unsatisfactory. It is very probable, however, that a modified conception of the dream must also influence our views regarding the inner mechanism of mental disorders, and hence we may say that we are working towards the explanation of the psychoses when we endeavour to elucidate the mystery of dreams.
ADDENDUM 1909
I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the literature of dream-problems to cover the period between the first appearance of this book and the publication of the second edition. This justification may not seem very satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it was decisive. The motives which
Radestock adds a few additional data concerning the analogous nature of the material of dreams and of mental derangement: "The greatest number of hallucinations and illusions are found in the sphere of the senses of sight and hearing and general sensation. As in dreams, the fewest elements are supplied by the senses of smell and taste. The fever-patient, like the dreamer, is assailed by reminiscences from the remote past; what the waking and healthy man seems to have forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease." The analogy between dreams and the psychoses receives its full value only when, like a family resemblance, it is extended to the subtler points of mimicry, and even the individual peculiarities of facial expression.
"To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings the dream accords what has been denied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being, and happiness; so, too, the insane see radiant images of happiness, eminence, and wealth. The supposed possession of estates and the imaginary fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which have actually been a psychic cause of the insanity, often form the main content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved child experiences in her delirium the joys of maternity; the man who has suffered reverses of fortune deems himself immensely wealthy; and the jilted girl sees herself tenderly beloved."
(This passage from Radestock is an abstract of a brilliant exposition of Griesinger's (p. 111), which reveals, with the greatest clarity, wish- fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination common to dreams and to the psychoses. My own investigations have taught me that here is to be found the key to a psychological theory of dreams and of the psychoses.)
"Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment are the main characteristics of the dream and of insanity." The over-estimation of one's own mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober judgment, is found alike in both, and the rapid flux of imaginings in the dream corresponds to the flux of ideas in the psychoses. Both are devoid of any measure of time. The splitting of the personality in dreams, which, for instance, distributes one's own knowledge between two persons, one of whom, the strange person, corrects one's own ego in the dream, entirely corresponds with the well-known splitting of the personality in hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts expressed by strange voices. Even the constant delusive ideas find their analogy in the stereotyped and recurring pathological dream (reve obsedant). After recovering from delirium, patients not infrequently declare that the whole period of their illness appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream; indeed, they inform us that sometimes during their illness they have suspected that they were only dreaming, just as often happens in the sleep- dream.
In view of all this, it is not surprising that Radestock should summarize his own opinion, and that of many others, in the following words: "Insanity, an abnormal morbid phenomenon, is to be regarded as an enhancement of the periodically recurring normal dream-state" (p. 228).
Krauss attempted to base the relationship between the dream and insanity upon their aetiology (or rather upon the sources of excitation), thus, perhaps, making the relationship even more intimate than was possible on the basis of the analogous nature of the phenomena manifested. According to him, the fundamental element common to both is, as we have already learned, the organically conditioned sensation, the sensation of physical stimuli, the general sensation arising out of contributions from all the organs (cf. Peisse, cited by Maury, p. 52).
The undeniable agreement between dreams and mental derangement, extending even to characteristic details, constitutes one of the strongest confirmations of the medical theory of dream-life, according to which the dream is represented as a useless and disturbing process, and as the expression of a diminished psychic activity. One cannot expect, for the present, to derive the final explanation of the dream from the psychic derangements, since, as is well known, our understanding of the origin of the latter is still highly unsatisfactory. It is very probable, however, that a modified conception of the dream must also influence our views regarding the inner mechanism of mental disorders, and hence we may say that we are working towards the explanation of the psychoses when we endeavour to elucidate the mystery of dreams.
ADDENDUM 1909
I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the literature of dream-problems to cover the period between the first appearance of this book and the publication of the second edition. This justification may not seem very satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it was decisive. The motives which
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