欢迎访问本站。
The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter 1 - D. Why Dreams Are Forgotten After Waking Psychology
CHAPTER 1, Section E
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. *
* Silberer has shown by excellent examples how in the state of falling asleep
even abstract thoughts may be changed into visible plastic images, which, of
course, express them. (Jahrbuch, Bleuler-Freud, vol. i, 1900.) I shall return to
the discussion of his findings later on.
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." *
* Haffner, like Delboeuf, has attempted to explain the act of dreaming by the
alteration which an abnormally introduced condition must have upon the otherwise
correct functioning of the intact psychic apparatus; but he describes this
condition in somewhat different terms. He states that the first distinguishing
mark of dreams is the abolition of time and space, i.e., the emancipation of the
representation from the individual's position in the spatial and temporal order.
Associated with this is the second fundamental character of dreams, the
mistaking of the hallucinations, imaginations, and phantasy-combinations for
objective perceptions. "The sum-total of the higher psychic functions,
particularly the formation of concepts, judgments, and conclusions on the one
hand, and free self-determination on the other hand, combine with the sensory
phantasy-images, and at all times have these as a substratum. These activities
too, therefore, participate in the erratic nature of the dream-representations.
We say they participate, for our faculties of judgment and will are in
themselves unaltered during sleep. As far as their activity is concerned, we are
just as shrewd and just as free as in the waking state. A man cannot violate the
laws of thought; that is, even in a dream he cannot judge things to be identical
which present themselves to him as opposites. He can desire in a dream only that
which he regards as a good (sub ratione boni). But in this application of the
laws of thought and will the human intellect is led astray in dreams by
confusing one notion with another. Thus it happens that in dreams we formulate
and commit the greatest of contradictions, while, on the other hand, we display
the shrewdest judgment and arrive at the most logical conclusions, and are able
to make the most virtuous and sacred resolutions. The lack of orientation is the
whole secret of our flights of phantasy in dreams, and the lack of critical
reflection and agreement with other minds is the main source of the reckless
extravagances of our judgments, hopes and wishes in dreams" (p. 18).
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; * 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).
* Compare with this the element of "Desinteret," in which Claparede (1905) finds
the mechanism of falling asleep.
"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." *
* There are no dreams which are absolutely reasonable which do not contain some
incoherence, some absurdity.
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." *
* The dream is psychic anarchy, emotional and intellectual, the playing of
functions, freed of themselves and performing without control and without end;
in the dream, the mind is a spiritual automaton.
"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." *
* There is no imaginable thing too absurd, too involved, or too abnormal for us
to dream about.
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...." * For the rest, he considers the dream "toute une serie de
degradations de la faculte pensante et raisonnante" *(2) (p. 27).
* The production of those images which, in the waking man, most often excite the
will, correspond, for the mind, to those which are, for the motility, certain
movements that offer St. Vitus' dance and paralytic affections...
*(2) A whole series of degradations of the faculty of thinking and reasoning.
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" * (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. *(2)
* (1) An action of the mind spontaneous and as though automatic; (2) a defective
and irregular association of ideas.
*(2) Later on we shall be able to understand the meaning of dreams like these
which are full of words with similar sounds or the same initial letters.
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," * 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.
* The dream is neither pure derangement nor pure irrationality.
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" * (p. 222). The Marquis Hervey, *(2) 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." *(3)
* In sleep, excepting perception, all the faculties of the mind intellect,
imagination, memory, will, morality- remain intact in their essence; only, they
are applied to imaginary and variable objects. The dreamer is an actor who plays
at will the mad and the wise, executioner and victim, dwarf and giant, devil and
angel.
*(2) Hervey de St. Denys.
*(3) The Marquis Hervey attributes to the intelligence during sleep all its
freedom of action and attention, and he seems to make sleep consist only of the
shutting of the senses, of their closing to the outside world; except for his
manner of seeing, the man asleep is hardly distinguishable from the man who
allows his mind to wander while he obstructs his senses; the whole difference,
then, between ordinary thought and that of the sleeper, is that with the latter
the idea takes an objective and visible shape, which resembles, to all
appearances, sensation determined by exterior objects; memory takes on the
appearance of present fact.
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." *
* That there is a further and important difference in that the mental faculties
of the sleeping man do not offer the equilibrium which they keep in the waking
state.
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" * (p. 146). And (p. 147): "Les reves les plus bizarres
trouvent meme une explication des plus logiques quand on sait les analyser."
*(2)
* The image in a dream is a copy of an idea. The main thing is the idea; the
vision is only accessory. This established, it is necessary to know how to
follow the progression of ideas, how to analyse the texture of the dreams;
incoherence then is understandable, the most fantastic concepts become simple
and perfectly logical facts.
*(2) Even the most bizarre dreams find a most logical explanation when one knows
how to analyse them.
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 *
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. *(2) 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
* Cf. Haffner and Spitta.
*(2) That brilliant mystic, Du Prel, one of the few writers for the omission of
whose name in earlier editions of this book I should like to apologize, has said
that, so far as the human mind is concerned, it is not the waking state but
dreams which are the gateway to metaphysics (Philosophie der Mystik, p. 59).
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. *
* For the further literature of the subject, and a critical discussion of these
problems, the reader is referred to Tobowolska's dissertation (Paris, 1900).
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. *
* Compare Havelock Ellis's criticism in The World of Dreams, p. 268.
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.
The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter 1 - F. The Ethical Sense in Dreams
感谢您访问本站。