CHAPTER FIVE (Continued...)
C. The Somatic Sources of Dreams
If we attempt to interest a cultured layman in the
problems of dreams, and if, with this end in view, we ask him what he
believes to be the source of dreams, we shall generally find that he feels
quite sure he knows at least this part of the solution. He thinks
immediately of the influence exercised on the formation of dreams by a
disturbed or impeded digestion ("Dreams come from the stomach"), an
accidental position of the body, a trifling occurrence during sleep. He
does not seem to suspect that even after all these factors have been duly
considered something still remains to be explained.
In the introductory chapter we examined at length the
opinion of scientific writers on the role of somatic stimuli in the
formation of dreams, so that here we need only recall the results of this
inquiry. We have seen that three kinds of somatic stimuli will be
distinguished: the objective sensory stimuli which proceed from external
objects, the inner states of excitation of the sensory organs, having only
a subjective reality, and the bodily stimuli arising within the body; and
we have also noticed that the writers on dreams are inclined to thrust
into the background any psychic sources of dreams which may operate
simultaneously with the somatic stimuli, or to exclude them altogether. In
testing the claims made on behalf of these somatic stimuli we have learned
that the significance of the objective excitation of the sensory organs-
whether accidental stimuli operating during sleep, or such as cannot be
excluded from the dormant relation of these dream-images and ideas to the
internal bodily stimuli and confirmed by experiment; that the part played
by the subjective sensory stimuli appears to be demonstrated by the
recurrence of hypnagogic sensory images in dreams; and that, although the
broadly accepted relation of these dream-images and ideas to the internal
bodily stimuli cannot be exhaustively demonstrated, it is at all events
confirmed by the well-known influence which an excited state of the
digestive, urinary and sexual organs exercises upon the content of our
dreams.
Nerve stimulus and bodily stimulus would thus be the
anatomical sources of dreams; that is, according to many writers, the sole
and exclusive sources of dreams.
But we have already considered a number of doubtful
points, which seem to question not so much the correctness of the somatic
theory as its adequacy.
However confident the representatives of this theory
may be of its factual basis- especially in respect of the accidental and
external nerve stimuli, which may without difficulty be recognized in the
dream-content- nevertheless they have all come near to admitting that the
rich content of ideas found in dreams cannot be derived from the external
nerve-stimuli alone. In this connection Miss Mary Whiton Calkins tested
her own dreams, and those of a second person, for a period of six weeks,
and found that the element of external sensory perception was demonstrable
in only 13.2 per cent and 6.7 percent of these dreams respectively. Only
two dreams in the whole collection could be referred to organic
sensations. These statistics confirm what a cursory survey of our own
experience would already, have led us to suspect.
A distinction has often been made between
nerve-stimulus dreams which have already been thoroughly investigated, and
other forms of dreams. Spitta, for example, divided dreams into
nerve stimulus dreams and association-dreams. But it was obvious that this
solution remained unsatisfactory unless the link between the somatic
sources of dreams and their ideational content could be indicated.
In addition to the first objection, that of the
insufficient frequency of the external sources of stimulus, a second
objection presents itself, namely, the inadequacy of the explanations of
dreams afforded by this category of dream-sources. There are two things
which the representatives of this theory have failed to explain: firstly,
why the true nature of the external stimulus is not recognized in the
dream, but is constantly mistaken for something else; and secondly, why
the result of the reaction of the perceiving mind to this misconceived
stimulus should be so indeterminate and variable. We have seen that
Strumpell, in answer to these questions, asserts that the mind, since it
turns away from the outer world during sleep, is not in a position to give
the correct interpretation of the objective sensory stimulus, but is
forced to construct illusions on the basis of the indefinite stimulation
arriving from many directions. In his own words (Die Natur und Entstehung
der Traume, p. 108).
"When by an external or internal nerve-stimulus during
sleep a feeling, or a complex of feelings, or any sort of psychic process
arises in the mind, and is perceived by the mind, this process calls up
from the mind perceptual images belonging to the sphere of the waking
experiences, that is to say, earlier perceptions, either unembellished, or
with the psychic values appertaining to them. It collects about itself, as
it were, a greater or lesser number of such images, from which the
impression resulting from the nerve-stimulus receives its psychic value.
In this connection it is commonly said, as in ordinary language we say of
the waking procedure, that the mind interprets in sleep the impressions of
nervous stimuli. The result of this interpretation is the so called
nerve-stimulus dream- that is, a dream the components of which are
conditioned by the fact that a nerve-stimulus produces its psychical
effect in the life of the mind in accordance with the laws of
reproduction."
In all essential points identical with this doctrine is
Wundt's statement that the concepts of dreams proceed, at all events for
the most part, from sensory stimuli, and especially from the stimuli of
general sensation, and are therefore mostly phantastic illusions- probably
only to a small extent pure memory conceptions raised to the condition of
hallucinations. To illustrate the relation between dream-content and
dream-stimuli which follows from this theory, Strumpell makes use of an
excellent simile. It is "as though ten fingers of a person ignorant of
music were to stray over the keyboard of an instrument." The implication
is that the dream is not a psychic phenomenon, originating from psychic
motives, but the result of a physiological stimulus, which expresses
itself in psychic symptomatology because the apparatus affected by the
stimulus is not capable of any other mode of expression. Upon a similar
assumption is based the explanation of obsessions which Meynert attempted
in his famous simile of the dial on which individual figures are most
deeply embossed.
Popular though this theory of the somatic dream-stimuli
has become, and seductive though it may seem, it is none the less easy to
detect its weak point. Every somatic dream-stimulus which provokes the
psychic apparatus in sleep to interpretation by the formation of illusions
may evoke an incalculable number of such attempts at interpretation. It
may consequently be represented in the dream- content by an extraordinary
number of different concepts. * But the theory of Strumpell and Wundt
cannot point to any sort of motive which controls the relation between the
external stimulus and the dream-concept chosen to interpret it, and
therefore it cannot explain the "peculiar choice" which the stimuli "often
enough make in the course of their productive activity" (Lipps,
Grundtatsachen des Seelen-lebens, p. 170). Other objections may be raised
against the fundamental assumption behind the theory of illusions- the
assumption that during sleep the mind is not in a condition to recognize
the real nature of the objective sensory stimuli. The old physiologist
Burdach shows us that the mind is quite capable even during sleep of a
correct interpretation of the sensory impressions which reach it, and of
reacting in accordance with this correct interpretation, inasmuch as he
demonstrates that certain sensory impressions which seem important to the
individual may be excepted from the general neglect of the sleeping mind
(as in the example of nurse and child), and that one is more surely
awakened by one's own name than by an indifferent auditory impression; all
of which presupposes, of course, that the mind discriminates between
sensations, even in sleep. Burdach infers from these observations that we
must not assume that the mind is incapable of interpreting sensory stimuli
in the sleeping state, but rather that it is not sufficiently interested
in them. The arguments which Burdach employed in 1830 reappear unchanged
in the works of Lipps (in the year 1883), where they are employed for the
purpose of attacking the theory of somatic stimuli. According to these
arguments the mind seems to be like the sleeper in the anecdote, who, on
being asked, "Are you asleep?" answers "No," and on being again addressed
with the words: "Then lend me ten florins," takes refuge in the excuse: "I
am asleep."
* I would advise everyone to read the exact and
detailed records (collected in two volumes) of the dreams experimentally
produced by Mourly Vold in order to convince himself how little the
conditions of the experiments help to explain the content of the
individual dream, and how little such experiments help us towards an
understanding of the problems of dreams.
The inadequacy of the theory of somatic dream-stimuli
may be further demonstrated in another way. Observation shows that
external stimuli do not oblige me to dream, even though these stimuli
appear in the dream-content as soon as I begin to dream- supposing that I
do dream. In response to a touch or pressure stimulus experienced while I
am asleep, a variety of reactions are at my disposal. I may overlook it,
and find on waking that my leg has become uncovered, or that I have been
lying on an arm; indeed, pathology offers me a host of examples of
powerfully exciting sensory and motor stimuli of different kinds which
remain ineffective during sleep. I may perceive the sensation during
sleep, and through my sleep, as it were, as constantly happens in the case
of pain stimuli, but without weaving the pain into the texture of a dream.
And thirdly, I may wake up in response to the stimulus, simply in order to
avoid it. Still another, fourth, reaction is possible: namely, that the
nerve stimulus may cause me to dream; but the other possible reactions
occur quite as frequently as the reaction of dream-formation. This,
however, would not be the case if the incentive to dreaming did not lie
outside the somatic dream-sources.
Appreciating the importance of the above-mentioned
lacunae in the explanation of dreams by somatic stimuli, other writers-
Scherner, for example, and, following him, the philosopher Volkelt-
endeavored to determine more precisely the nature of the psychic
activities which cause the many-colored images of our dreams to proceed
from the somatic stimuli, and in so doing they approached the problem of
the essential nature of dreams as a problem of psychology, and regarded
dreaming as a psychic activity. Scherner not only gave a poetical, vivid
and glowing description of the psychic peculiarities which unfold
themselves in the course of dream-formation, but he also believed that he
had hit upon the principle of the method the mind employs in dealing with
the stimuli which are offered to it. The dream, according to Scherner, in
the free activity of the phantasy, which has been released from the
shackles imposed upon it during the day, strives to represent symbolically
the nature of the organ from which the stimulus proceeds. Thus there
exists a sort of dream-book, a guide to the interpretation of dreams, by
means of which bodily sensations, the conditions of the organs, and states
of stimulation, may be inferred from the dream-images. "Thus the image of
a cat expressed extreme ill-temper; the image of pale, smooth pastry the
nudity of the body. The human body as a whole is pictured by the phantasy
of the dream as a house, and the individual organs of the body as parts of
the house. In toothache-dreams a vaulted vestibule corresponds to the
mouth, and a staircase to the descent from the pharynx to the oesophagus;
in the headache-dream a ceiling covered with disgusting toad-like spiders
is chosen to denote the upper part of the head." "Many different symbols
are employed by our dreams for the same organ: thus the breathing lung
finds its symbol in a roaring stove, filled with flames, the heart in
empty boxes and baskets, and the bladder in round, bag-shaped or merely
hollow objects. It is of particular significance that at the close of the
dream the stimulating organ or its function is often represented without
disguise and usually on the dreamer's own body. Thus the toothache-dream
commonly ends by the dreamer drawing a tooth out of his mouth." It cannot
be said that this theory of dream-interpretation has found much favor
with other writers. It seems, above all, extravagant; and so Scherner's
readers have hesitated to give it even the small amount of credit to which
it is, in my opinion, entitled. As will be seen, it tends to a revival of
dream-interpretation by means of symbolism, a method employed by the
ancients; only the province from which the interpretation is to be derived
is restricted to the human body. The lack of a scientifically
comprehensible technique of interpretation must seriously limit the
applicability of Scherner's theory. Arbitrariness in the interpretation of
dreams would appear to be by no means excluded, especially since in this
case also a stimulus may be expressed in the dream-content by several
representative symbols; thus even Scherner's follower Volkelt was unable
to confirm the representation of the body as a house. Another objection is
that here again the dream-activity is regarded as a useless and aimless
activity of the mind, since, according to this theory, the mind is content
with merely forming phantasies around the stimulus with which it is
dealing, without even remotely attempting to abolish the stimulus.
Scherner's theory of the symbolization of bodily
stimuli by the dream is seriously damaged by yet another objection. These
bodily stimuli are present at all times, and it is generally assumed that
the mind is more accessible to them during sleep than in the waking state.
It is therefore impossible to understand why the mind does not dream
continuously all night long, and why it does not dream every night about
all the organs. If one attempts to evade this objection by positing the
condition that special excitations must proceed from the eye, the ear, the
teeth, the bowels, etc., in order to arouse the dream-activity, one is
confronted with the difficulty of proving that this increase of
stimulation is objective; and proof is possible only in a very few cases.
If the dream of flying is a symbolization of the upward and downward
motion of the pulmonary lobes, either this dream, as has already been
remarked by Strumpell, should be dreamt much oftener, or it should be
possible to show that respiration is more active during this dream. Yet a
third alternative is possible- and it is the most probable of all- namely,
that now and again special motives are operative to direct the attention
to the visceral sensations which are constantly present. But this would
take us far beyond the scope of Scherner's theory.
The value of Scherner's and Volkelt's disquisitions
resides in their calling our attention to a number of characteristics of
the dream-content which are in need of explanation, and which seem to
promise fresh discoveries. It is quite true that symbolizations of the
bodily organs and functions do occur in dreams: for example, that water in
a dream often signifies a desire to urinate, that the male genital organ
may be represented by an upright staff, or a pillar, etc. With dreams
which exhibit a very animated field of vision and brilliant colours, in
contrast to the dimness of other dreams, the interpretation that they are
"dreams due to visual stimulation" can hardly be dismissed, nor can we
dispute the participation of illusion-formation in dreams which contain
noise and a medley of voices. A dream like that of Scherner's, that two
rows of fair handsome boys stood facing one another on a bridge, attacking
one another, and then resuming their positions, until finally the dreamer
himself sat down on a bridge and drew a long tooth from his jaw; or a
similar dream of Volkelt's, in which two rows of drawers played a part,
and which again ended in the extraction of a tooth; dream-formations of
this kind, of which both writers relate a great number, forbid our
dismissing Scherner's theory as an idle invention without seeking the
kernel of truth which may be contained in it. We are therefore confronted
with the task of finding a different explanation of the supposed
symbolization of the alleged dental stimulus.
Throughout our consideration of the theory of the
somatic sources of dreams, I have refrained from urging the argument which
arises from our analyses of dreams. If, by a procedure which has not been
followed by other writers in their investigation of dreams, we can prove
that the dream possesses intrinsic value as psychic action, that a wish
supplies the motive of its formation, and that the experiences of the
previous day furnish the most obvious material of its content, any other
theory of dreams which neglects such an important method of investigation-
and accordingly makes the dream appear a useless and enigmatical psychic
reaction to somatic stimuli- may be dismissed without special criticism.
For in this case there would have to be- and this is highly improbable-
two entirely different kinds of dreams, of which only one kind has come
under our observation, while the other kind alone has been observed by the
earlier investigators. It only remains now to find a place in our theory
of dreams for the facts on which the current doctrine of somatic
dream-stimuli is based.
We have already taken the first step in this direction
in advancing the thesis that the dream-work is under a compulsion to
elaborate into a unified whole all the dream-stimuli which are
simultaneously present (chapter V., A, above). We have seen that when two
or more experiences capable of making an impression on the mind have been
left over from the previous day, the wishes that result from them are
united into one dream; similarly, that the impressions possessing psychic
value and the indifferent experiences of the previous day unite in the
dream-material, provided that connecting ideas between the two can be
established. Thus the dream appears to be a reaction to everything which
is simultaneously present as actual in the sleeping mind. As far as we
have hitherto analyzed the dream material, we have discovered it to be a
collection of psychic remnants and memory-traces, which we were obliged to
credit (on account of the preference shown for recent and for infantile
material) with a character of psychological actuality, though the nature
of this actuality was not at the time determinable. We shall now have
little difficulty in predicting what will happen when to these actualities
of the memory fresh material in the form of sensations is added during
sleep. These stimuli, again, are of importance to the dream because they
are actual; they are united with the other psychic actualities to provide
the material for dream-formation. To express it in other words, the
stimuli which occur during sleep are elaborated into a wish-fulfillment, of
which the other components are the psychic remnants of daily experience
with which we are already familiar. This combination, however, is not
inevitable; we have seen that more than one kind of behaviour toward the
physical stimuli received during sleep is possible. Where this combination
is effected, a conceptual material for the dream-content has been found
which will represent both kinds of dream-sources, the somatic as well as
the psychic.
The nature of the dream is not altered when somatic
material is added to the psychic dream-sources; it still remains a wish
fulfillment, no matter how its expression is determined by the actual
material available.
I should like to find room here for a number of
peculiarities which are able to modify the significance of external
stimuli for the dream. I imagine that a co-operation of individual,
physiological and accidental factors, which depend on the circumstances of
the moment, determines how one will behave in individual cases of more
intensive objective stimulation during sleep; habitual or accidental
profundity of sleep, in conjunction with the intensity of the stimulus,
will in one case make it possible so to suppress the stimulus that it will
not disturb the sleeper, while in another case it will force the sleeper
to wake, or will assist the attempt to subdue the stimulus by weaving it
into the texture of the dream. In accordance with the multiplicity of
these constellations, external objective stimuli will be expressed more
rarely or more frequently in the case of one person than in that of
another. In my own case. since I am an excellent sleeper, and obstinately
refuse to allow myself to be disturbed during sleep on any pretext
whatever, this intrusion of external causes of excitation into my dreams
is very rare, whereas psychic motives apparently cause me to dream very
easily. Indeed, I have noted only a single dream in which an objective,
painful source of stimulation is demonstrable, and it will be highly
instructive to see what effect the external stimulus had in this
particular dream.
I am riding a gray horse, at first timidly and
awkwardly, as though I were merely carried along. Then I meet a colleague,
P, also on horseback, and dressed in rough frieze; he is sitting erect in
the saddle; he calls my attention to something (probably to the fact that
I have a very bad seat). Now I begin to feel more and more at ease on the
back of my highly intelligent horse; I sit more comfortably, and I find
that I am quite at home up here. My saddle is a sort of pad, which
completely fills the space between the neck and the rump of the horse. I
ride between two vans, and just manage to clear them. After riding up the
street for some distance, I turn round and wish to dismount, at first in
front of a little open chapel which is built facing on to the street. Then
I do really dismount in front of a chapel which stands near the first one;
the hotel is in the same street; I might let the horse go there by itself,
but I prefer to lead it thither. It seems as though I should be ashamed to
arrive there on horseback. In front of the hotel there stands a page-boy,
who shows me a note of mine which has been found, and ridicules me on
account of it. On the note is written, doubly underlined, "Eat nothing,"
and then a second sentence (indistinct): something like "Do not work"; at
the same time a hazy idea that I am in a strange city, in which I do not
work.
It will not at once be apparent that this dream
originated under the influence, or rather under the compulsion, of a
pain stimulus. The day before, however, I had suffered from boils, which
made every movement a torture, and at last a boil had grown to the size of
an apple at the root of the scrotum, and had caused me the most
intolerable pains at every step; a feverish lassitude, lack of appetite,
and the hard work which I had nevertheless done during the day, had
conspired with the pain to upset me. I was not altogether in a condition
to discharge my duties as a physician, but in view of the nature and the
location of the malady, it was possible to imagine something else for
which I was most of all unfit, namely riding. Now it is this very activity
of riding into which I am plunged by the dream; it is the most energetic
denial of the pain which imagination could conceive. As a matter of fact,
I cannot ride; I do not dream of doing so; I never sat on a horse but
once- and then without a saddle- and I did not like it. But in this dream
I ride as though I had no boil on the perineum; or rather, I ride, just
because I want to have none. To judge from the description, my saddle is
the poultice which has enabled me to fall asleep. Probably, being thus
comforted, I did not feel anything of my pain during the first few hours
of my sleep. Then the painful sensations made themselves felt, and tried
to wake me; whereupon the dream came and said to me, soothingly: "Go on
sleeping, you are not going to wake! You have no boil, for you are riding
on horseback, and with a boil just there no one could ride!" And the dream
was successful; the pain was stifled, and I went on sleeping.
But the dream was not satisfied with "suggesting away"
the boil by tenaciously holding fast to an idea incompatible with the
malady (thus behaving like the hallucinatory insanity of a mother who has
lost her child, or of a merchant who has lost his fortune). In addition,
the details of the sensation denied and of the image used to suppress it
serve the dream also as a means to connect other material actually present
in the mind with the situation in the dream, and to give this material
representation. I am riding on a gray horse- the color of the horse
exactly corresponds with the pepper-and-salt suit in which I last saw my
colleague P in the country. I have been warned that highly seasoned food
is the cause of boils, and in any case it is preferable as an etiological
explanation to sugar, which might be thought of in connection with
furunculosis. My friend P likes to ride the high horse with me ever since
he took my place in the treatment of a female patient, in whose case I had
performed great feats (Kuntstucke: in the dream I sit the horse at first
sideways, like a trick-rider, Kunstreiter), but who really, like the horse
in the story of the Sunday equestrian, led me wherever she wished. Thus
the horse comes to be a symbolic representation of a lady patient (in the
dream it is highly intelligent). I feel quite at home refers to the
position which I occupied in the patient's household until I was replaced
by my colleague P. "I thought you were safe in the saddle up there," one
of my few wellwishers among the eminent physicians of the city recently
said to me, with reference to the same household. And it was a feat to
practise psychotherapy for eight to ten hours a day, while suffering such
pain, but I know that I cannot continue my peculiarly strenuous work for
any length of time without perfect physical health, and the dream is full
of dismal allusions to the situation which would result if my illness
continued (the note, such as neurasthenics carry and show to their
doctors): Do not work, do not eat. On further interpretation I see that
the dream activity has succeeded in finding its way from the
wish-situation of riding to some very early childish quarrels which must
have occurred between myself and a nephew, who is a year older than I, and
is now living in England. It has also taken up elements from my journeys
in Italy: the street in the dream is built up out of impressions of Verona
and Siena. A still deeper interpretation leads to sexual dream-thoughts,
and I recall what the dream allusions to that beautiful country were
supposed to mean in the dream of a female patient who had never been to
Italy (to Italy, German: gen Italien = Genitalien = genitals); at the same
time there are references to the house in which I preceded my friend P as
physician, and to the place where the boil is located.
In another dream, I was similarly successful in warding
off a threatened disturbance of my sleep; this time the threat came from a
sensory stimulus. It was only chance, however, that enabled me to discover
the connection between the dream and the accidental dream- stimulus, and
in this way to understand the dream. One midsummer morning in a Tyrolese
mountain resort I woke with the knowledge that I had dreamed: The Pope is
dead. I was not able to interpret this short, non-visual dream. I could
remember only one possible basis of the dream, namely, that shortly before
this the newspapers had reported that His Holiness was slightly
indisposed. But in the course of the morning my wife asked me: "Did you
hear the dreadful tolling of the church bells this morning?" I had no idea
that I had heard it, but now I understood my dream. It was the reaction of
my need for sleep to the noise by which the pious Tyroleans were trying to
wake me. I avenged myself on them by the conclusion which formed the
content of my dream, and continued to sleep, without any further interest
in the tolling of the bells.
Among the dreams mentioned in the previous chapters
there are several which might serve as examples of the elaboration of so
called nerve-stimuli. The dream of drinking in long draughts is such an
example; here the somatic stimulus seems to be the sole source of the
dream, and the wish arising from the sensation- thirst- the only motive
for dreaming. We find much the same thing in other simple dreams, where
the somatic stimulus is able of itself to generate a wish. The dream of
the sick woman who throws the cooling apparatus from her cheek at night is
an instance of an unusual manner of reacting to a pain-stimulus with a
wish fulfillment; it seems as though the patient had temporarily succeeded
in making herself analgesic, and accompanied this by ascribing her pains
to a stranger.
My dream of the three Parcae is obviously a
hunger-dream, but it has contrived to shift the need for food right back
to the child's longing for its mother's breast, and to use a harmless
desire as a mask for a more serious one that cannot venture to express
itself so openly. In the dream of Count Thun we were able to see by what
paths an accidental physical need was brought into relation with the
strongest, but also the most rigorously repressed impulses of the psychic
life. And when, as in the case reported by Garnier, the First Consul
incorporates the sound of an exploding infernal machine into a dream of
battle before it causes him to wake, the true purpose for which alone
psychic activity concerns itself with sensations during sleep is revealed
with unusual clarity. A young lawyer, who is full of his first great
bankruptcy case, and falls asleep in the afternoon, behaves just as the
great Napoleon did. He dreams of a certain G. Reich in Hussiatyn, whose
acquaintance he has made in connection with the bankruptcy case, but
Hussiatyn (German: husten, to cough) forces itself upon his attention
still further; he is obliged to wake, only to hear his wife- who is
suffering from bronchial catarrh- violently coughing.
Let us compare the dream of Napoleon I- who,
incidentally, was an excellent sleeper- with that of the sleepy student,
who was awakened by his landlady with the reminder that he had to go to
the hospital, and who thereupon dreamt himself into a bed in the hospital,
and then slept on, the underlying reasoning being as follows: If I am
already in the hospital, I needn't get up to go there. This is obviously a
convenience-dream; the sleeper frankly admits to himself his motive in
dreaming; but he thereby reveals one of the secrets of dreaming in
general. In a certain sense, all dreams are convenience-dreams; they serve
the purpose of continuing to sleep instead of waking. The dream is the
guardian of sleep, not its disturber. In another place we shall have
occasion to justify this conception in respect to the psychic factors that
make for waking; but we can already demonstrate its applicability to the
objective external stimuli. Either the mind does not concern itself at all
with the causes of sensations during sleep, if it is able to carry this
attitude through as against the intensity of the stimuli, and their
significance, of which it is well aware; or it employs the dream to deny
these stimuli; or, thirdly, if it is obliged to recognize the stimuli, it
seeks that interpretation of them which will represent the actual
sensation as a component of a desired situation which is compatible with
sleep. The actual sensation is woven into the dream in order to deprive it
of its reality. Napoleon is permitted to go on sleeping; it is only a
dream-memory of the thunder of the guns at Arcole which is trying to
disturb him. * -
* The two sources from which I know of this dream do
not entirely agree as to its content. -
The wish to sleep, to which the conscious ego has
adjusted itself, and which (together with the dream-censorship and the
"secondary elaboration" to be mentioned later) represents the ego's
contribution to the dream, must thus always be taken into account as a
motive of dream-formation, and every successful dream is a fulfillment of
this wish. The relation of this general, constantly present, and unvarying
sleep-wish to the other wishes of which now one and now another is
fulfilled by the dream content, will be the subject of later consideration.
In the wish to sleep we have discovered a motive capable of supplying the
deficiency in the theory of Strumpell and Wundt, and of explaining the
perversity and capriciousness of the interpretation of the external
stimulus. The correct interpretation, of which the sleeping mind is
perfectly capable, would involve active interest, and would require the
sleeper to wake; hence, of those interpretations which are possible at
all, only such are admitted as are acceptable to the dictatorial
censorship of the sleep-wish. The logic of dream situations would run, for
example: "It is the nightingale, and not the lark." For if it is the lark,
love's night is at an end. From among the interpretations of the stimulus
which are thus admissible, that one is selected which can secure the best
connection with the wish- impulses that are lying in wait in the mind.
Thus everything is definitely determined, and nothing is left to caprice.
The misinterpretation is not an illusion, but- if you will- an excuse.
Here again, as in substitution by displacement in the service of the
dream-censorship, we have an act of deflection of the normal psychic
procedure.
If the external nerve-stimuli and the inner bodily
stimuli are sufficiently intense to compel psychic attention, they
represent- that is, if they result in dreaming at all, and not in waking-
a fixed point for dream-formation, a nucleus in the dream-material, for
which an appropriate wish-fulfillment is sought, just as (see above)
mediating ideas between two psychical dream-stimuli are sought. To this
extent it is true of a number of dreams that the somatic element dictates
the dream-content. In this extreme case even a wish that is not actually
present may be aroused for the purpose of dream-formation. But the dream
cannot do otherwise than represent a wish in some situation as fulfilled;
it is, as it were, confronted with the task of discovering what wish can
be represented as fulfilled by the given sensation. Even if this given
material is of a painful or disagreeable character, yet it is not
unserviceable for the purposes of dream-formation. The psychic life has at
its disposal even wishes whose fulfillment evokes displeasure, which seems
a contradiction, but becomes perfectly intelligible if we take into
account the presence of two sorts of psychic instance and the censorship
that subsists between them.
In the psychic life there exist, as we have seen,
repressed wishes, which belong to the first system, and to whose
fulfillment the second system is opposed. We do not mean this in a historic
sense- that such wishes have once existed and have subsequently been
destroyed. The doctrine of repression, which we need in the study of
psychoneuroses, asserts that such repressed wishes still exist, but
simultaneously with an inhibition which weighs them down. Language has hit
upon the truth when it speaks of the suppression (sub-pression, or pushing
under) of such impulses. The psychic mechanism which enables such
suppressed wishes to force their way to realization is retained in being
and in working order. But if it happens that such a suppressed wish is
fulfilled, the vanquished inhibition of the second system (which is
capable of consciousness) is then expressed as discomfort. And, in order
to conclude this argument: If sensations of a disagreeable character which
originate from somatic sources are present during sleep, this
constellation is utilized by the dream activity to procure the fulfillment-
with more or less maintenance of the censorship- of an otherwise
suppressed wish.
This state of affairs makes possible a certain number
of anxiety dreams, while others of these dream-formations which are
unfavorable to the wish-theory exhibit a different mechanism. For the
anxiety in dreams may of course be of a psychoneurotic character,
originating in psycho-sexual excitation, in which case, the anxiety
corresponds to repressed libido. Then this anxiety, like the whole
anxiety-dream, has the significance of a neurotic symptom, and we stand at
the dividing-line where the wish- fulfilling tendency of dreams is
frustrated. But in other anxiety- dreams the feeling of anxiety comes from
somatic sources (as in the case of persons suffering from pulmonary or
cardiac trouble, with occasional difficulty in breathing), and then it is
used to help such strongly suppressed wishes to attain fulfillment in a
dream, the dreaming of which from psychic motives would have resulted in
the same release of anxiety. It is not difficult to reconcile these two
apparently contradictory cases. When two psychic formations, an affective
inclination and a conceptual content, are intimately connected, either one
being actually present will evoke the other, even in a dream; now the
anxiety of somatic origin evokes the suppressed conceptual content, now it
is the released conceptual content, accompanied by sexual excitement,
which causes the release of anxiety. In the one case, it may be said that
a somatically determined affect is psychically interpreted; in the other
case, all is of psychic origin, but the content which has been suppressed
is easily replaced by a somatic interpretation which fits the anxiety. The
difficulties which lie in the way of understanding all this have little to
do with dreams; they are due to the fact that in discussing these points
we are touching upon the problems of the development of anxiety and of
repression.
The general aggregate of bodily sensation must
undoubtedly be included among the dominant dream-stimuli of internal
bodily origin. Not that it is capable of supplying the dream-content; but
it forces the dream-thoughts to make a choice from the material destined
to serve the purpose of representation in the dream- content, inasmuch as
it brings within easy reach that part of the material which is adapted to
its own character, and holds the rest at a distance. Moreover, this
general feeling, which survives from the preceding day, is of course
connected with the psychic residues that are significant for the dream.
Moreover, this feeling itself may be either maintained or overcome in the
dream, so that it may, if it is painful, veer round into its opposite.
If the somatic sources of excitation during sleep- that
is, the sensations of sleep- are not of unusual intensity, the part which
they play in dream-formation is, in my judgment, similar to that of those
impressions of the day which are still recent, but of no great
significance. I mean that they are utilized for the dream formation if
they are of such a kind that they can be united with the conceptual
content of the psychic dream-source, but not otherwise. They are treated
as a cheap ever-ready material, which can be used whenever it is needed,
and not as valuable material which itself prescribes the manner in which
it must be utilized. I might suggest the analogy of a connoisseur giving
an artist a rare stone, a piece of onyx, for example, in order that it may
be fashioned into a work of art. Here the size of the stone, its color,
and its markings help to decide what head or what scene shall be
represented; while if he is dealing with a uniform and abundant material
such as marble or sandstone, the artist is guided only by the idea which
takes shape in his mind. Only in this way, it seems to me, can we explain
the fact that the dream content furnished by physical stimuli of somatic
origin which are not unusually accentuated does not make its appearance in
all dreams and every night. *
* Rank has shown, in a number of studies, that certain
awakening dreams provoked by organic stimuli (dreams of urination and
ejaculation) are especially calculated to demonstrate the conflict between
the need for sleep and the demands of the organic need, as well as the
influence of the latter on the dream content.
Perhaps an example which takes us back to the
interpretation of dreams will best illustrate my meaning. One day I was
trying to understand the significance of the sensation of being inhibited,
of not being able to move from the spot, of not being able to get
something done, etc., which occurs so frequently in dreams, and is so
closely allied to anxiety. That night I had the following dream: I am very
incompletely dressed, and I go from a flat on the ground- floor up a
flight of stairs to an upper story. In doing this I jump up three stairs
at a time, and I am glad to find that I can mount the stairs so quickly.
Suddenly I notice that a servant-maid is coming down the stairs- that is,
towards me. I am ashamed, and try to hurry away, and now comes this
feeling of being inhibited; I am glued to the stairs, and cannot move from
the spot.
Analysis: The situation of the dream is taken from an
every-day reality. In a house in Vienna I have two apartments, which are
connected only by the main staircase. My consultation-rooms and my study
are on the raised ground-floor, and my living-rooms are on the first
floor. Late at night, when I have finished my work downstairs, I go
upstairs to my bedroom. On the evening before the dream I had actually
gone this short distance with my garments in disarray- that is, I had
taken off my collar, tie and cuffs; but in the dream this had changed into
a more advanced, but, as usual, indefinite degree of undress. It is a
habit of mine to run up two or three steps at a time; moreover, there was
a wish-fulfillment recognized even in the dream, for the ease with which I
run upstairs reassures me as to the condition of my heart. Further, the
manner in which I run upstairs is an effective contrast to the sensation
of being inhibited, which occurs in the second half of the dream. It shows
me- what needed no proof- that dreams have no difficulty in representing
motor actions fully and completely carried out; think, for example, of
flying in dreams!
But the stairs up which I go are not those of my own
house; at first I do not recognize them; only the person coming towards me
informs me of their whereabouts. This woman is the maid of an old lady
whom I visit twice daily in order to give her hypodermic injections; the
stairs, too, are precisely similar to those which I have to climb twice a
day in this old lady's house.
How do these stairs and this woman get into my dream?
The shame of not being fully dressed is undoubtedly of a sexual character;
the servant of whom I dream is older than I, surly, and by no means
attractive. These questions remind me of the following incident: When I
pay my morning visit at this house I am usually seized with a desire to
clear my throat; the sputum falls on the stairs. There is no spittoon on
either of the two floors, and I consider that the stairs should be kept
clean not at my expense, but rather by the provision of a spittoon. The
housekeeper, another elderly, curmudgeonly person, but, as I willingly
admit, a woman of cleanly instincts, takes a different view of the matter.
She lies in wait for me, to see whether I shall take the liberty referred
to, and, if she sees that I do, I can distinctly hear her growl. For days
thereafter, when we meet she refuses to greet me with the customary signs
of respect. On the day before the dream the housekeeper's attitude was
reinforced by that of the maid. I had just furnished my usual hurried
visit to the patient when the servant confronted me in the ante-room,
observing: "You might as well have wiped your shoes today, doctor, before
you came into the room. The red carpet is all dirty again from your feet."
This is the only justification for the appearance of the stairs and the
maid in my dream.
Between my leaping upstairs and my spitting on the
stairs there is an intimate connection. Pharyngitis and cardiac troubles
are both supposed to be punishments for the vice of smoking, on account of
which vice my own housekeeper does not credit me with excessive tidiness,
so that my reputation suffers in both the houses which my dream fuses into
one.
I must postpone the further interpretation of this
dream until I can indicate the origin of the typical dream of being
incompletely clothed. In the meantime, as a provisional deduction from the
dream just related, I note that the dream-sensation of inhibited movement
is always aroused at a point where a certain connection requires it. A
peculiar condition of my motor system during sleep cannot be responsible
for this dream-content, since a moment earlier I found myself, as though
in confirmation of this fact, skipping lightly up the stairs. |
