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The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter 1 THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF DREAM-PROBLEMS Psychology
CHAPTER ONE: THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF DREAM-PROBLEMS
(UP TO 1900)
A. The Relation of the Dream to the Waking State
The naive judgment of the dreamer on waking assumes that the dream- even if it
does not come from another world- has at all events transported the dreamer into
another world. The old physiologist, Burdach, to whom we are indebted for a
careful and discriminating description of the phenomena of dreams, expressed
this conviction in a frequently quoted passage (p. 474): "The waking life, with
its trials and joys, its pleasures and pains, is never repeated; on the
contrary, the dream aims at relieving us of these. Even when our whole mind is
filled with one subject, when our hearts are rent by bitter grief, or when some
task has been taxing our mental capacity to the utmost, the dream either gives
us something entirely alien, or it selects for its combinations only a few
elements of reality; or it merely enters into the key of our mood, and
symbolizes reality." J. H. Fichte (I. 541) speaks in precisely the same sense of
supplementary dreams, calling them one of the secret, self-healing benefits of
the psyche. L. Strumpell expresses himself to the same effect in his Natur und
Entstehung der Traume, a study which is deservedly held in high esteem. "He who
dreams turns his back upon the world of waking consciousness" (p. 16); "In the
dream the memory of the orderly content of waking consciousness and its normal
behaviour is almost entirely lost" (p. 17); "The almost complete and
unencumbered isolation of the psyche in the dream from the regular normal
content and course of the waking state..." (p. 19).
Yet the overwhelming majority of writers on the subject have adopted the
contrary view of the relation of the dream to waking life. Thus Haffner (p. 19):
"To begin with, the dream continues the waking life. Our dreams always connect
themselves with such ideas as have shortly before been present in our
consciousness. Careful examination will nearly always detect a thread by which
the dream has linked itself to the experiences of the previous day." Weygandt
(p. 6) flatly contradicts the statement of Burdach. "For it may often be
observed, apparently indeed in the great majority of dreams, that they lead us
directly back into everyday life, instead of releasing us from it." Maury (p.
56) expresses the same idea in a concise formula: "Nous revons de ce que nous
avons vu, dit, desire, ou fait." * Jessen, in his Psychologie, published in 1855
(p. 530), is rather more explicit: "The content of dreams is always more or less
determined by the personality, the age, sex, station in life, education and
habits, and by the events and experiences of the whole past life of the
individual."
* We dream of what we have seen, said, desired, or done.
The philosopher, I. G. E. Maas, adopts the most unequivocal attitude in respect
of this question (Uber die Leidenschaften, 1805): "Experience corroborates our
assertion that we dream most frequently of those things toward which our warmest
passions are directed. This shows us that our passions must influence the
generation of our dreams. The ambitious man dreams of the laurels which he has
won (perhaps only in imagination), or has still to win, while the lover occupies
himself, in his dreams, with the object of his dearest hopes.... All the sensual
desires and loathings which slumber in the heart, if they are stimulated by any
cause, may combine with other ideas and give rise to a dream; or these ideas may
mingle in an already existing dream." *
* Communicated by Winterstein to the Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse.
The ancients entertained the same idea concerning the dependence of the
dream-content on life. I will quote Radestock (p. 139): "When Xerxes, before his
expedition against Greece, was dissuaded from his resolution by good counsel,
but was again and again incited by dreams to undertake it, one of the old,
rational dream-interpreters of the Persians, Artabanus, told him, and very
appropriately, that dream-images for the most part contain that of which one has
been thinking in the waking state."
In the didactic poem of Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (IV. 962), there
occurs this passage:
"Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhaeret, aut quibus in rebus multum sumus
ante morati atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens, in somnis eadem
plerumque videmur obire; causidici causas agere et componere leges,
induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire,"... etc., etc. * Cicero (De Divinatione,
II. LXVII) says, in a similar strain, as does also Maury many centuries later: "Maximeque
'reliquiae' rerum earum moventur in animis et agitantur, de quibus vigilantes
aut cogitavimus aut egimus." *(2)
* And whatever be the pursuit to which one clings with devotion, whatever the
things on which we have been occupied much in the past, the mind being thus more
intent upon that pursuit, it is generally the same things that we seem to
encounter in dreams; pleaders to plead their cause and collate laws, generals to
contend and engage battle.
*(2) And especially the "remnant" of our waking thoughts and deeds move and stir
within the soul.
The contradiction between these two views concerning the relation between dream
life and waking life seems indeed irresolvable. Here we may usefully cite the
opinion of F. W. Hildebrandt (1875), who held that on the whole the
peculiarities of the dream can only be described as "a series of contrasts which
apparently amount to contradictions" (p. 8). "The first of these contrasts is
formed by the strict isolation or seclusion of the dream from true and actual
life on the one hand, and on the other hand by the continuous encroachment of
the one upon the other, and the constant dependence of the one upon the other.
The dream is something absolutely divorced from the reality experienced during
the waking state; one may call it an existence hermetically sealed up and
insulated from real life by an unbridgeable chasm. It frees us from reality,
blots out the normal recollection of reality, and sets us in another world and a
totally different life, which fundamentally has nothing in common with real
life...." Hildebrandt then asserts that in falling asleep our whole being, with
its forms of existence, disappears "as through an invisible trapdoor." In one's
dream one is perhaps making a voyage to St. Helena in order to offer the
imprisoned Napoleon an exquisite vintage of Moselle. One is most affably
received by the ex-emperor, and one feels almost sorry when, on waking, the
interesting illusion is destroyed. But let us now compare the situation existing
in the dream with the actual reality. The dreamer has never been a
wine-merchant, and has no desire to become one. He has never made a sea-voyage,
and St. Helena is the last place in the world that he would choose as the
destination of such a voyage. The dreamer feels no sympathy for Napoleon, but on
the contrary a strong patriotic aversion. And lastly, the dreamer was not yet
among the living when Napoleon died on the island of St. Helena; so that it was
beyond the realms of possibility that he should have had any personal relations
with Napoleon. The dream- experience thus appears as something entirely foreign,
interpolated between two mutually related and successive periods of time.
"Nevertheless," continues Hildebrandt, "the apparent contrary is just as true
and correct. I believe that side by side with this seclusion and insulation
there may still exist the most intimate interrelation. We may therefore justly
say: Whatever the dream may offer us, it derives its material from reality, and
from the psychic life centered upon this reality. However extraordinary the
dream may seem, it can never detach itself from the real world, and its most
sublime as well as its most ridiculous constructions must always borrow their
elementary material either from that which our eyes have beheld in the outer
world, or from that which has already found a place somewhere in our waking
thoughts; in other words, it must be taken from that which we have already
experienced, either objectively or subjectively."
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