CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED...)
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 *
maintains that the subjective feelings and desires, or affects and
passions, manifest themselves in the willfulness of the dream-life, and
that the moral characteristics of a man are mirrored in his dreams.
* Grundzuge des Systems der Anthropologie. Erlangen,
1850 (quoted by Spitta).
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 dishonoring 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, * varying a familiar proverb, says: "Tell me
your dreams for a time and I will tell you what you are within."
* Das Traumleben und seine Deutung, 1868 (cited by
Spitta, p. 192).
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. *
* It is not uninteresting to consider the attitude of
the Inquisition to this problem. In the Tractatus de Officio sanctissimae
Inquisitionis of Thomas Carena (Lyons edit., 1659) one finds the following
passage: "Should anyone utter heresies in his dreams, the inquisitors
shall consider this a reason for investigating his conduct in life, for
that is wont to return in sleep which occupies a man during the day" (Dr.
Ehniger, St. Urban, Switzerland).
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."- * Le Sommeil (p. 113).
* Our tendencies speak and make us act, without being
restrained by our conscience, although it sometimes warns us. I have my
faults and vicious tendencies; awake I try to fight against them, and
often enough I do not succumb to them. But in my dreams I always succumb,
or, rather, I act at their direction, without fear or remorse....
Evidently, the visions which unfold in my thoughts, and which constitute
the dream, are suggested by the stimuli which I feel and which my absent
will does not try to repel.
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." * 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." *(2) 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.
* In a dream, a man is totally revealed to himself in
his naked and wretched state. As he suspends the exercise of his will, he
becomes the toy of all the passions from which, when awake, our
conscience, horror, and fear defend us.
*(2) In a dream, it is above all the instinctive man
who is revealed.... Man returns, so to speak, to the natural state when he
dreams; but the less acquired ideas have penetrated into his mind, the
more his "tendencies to disagreement" with them keep their hold on him in
his dreams.
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? |
