CHAPTER ONE:
THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF DREAM-PROBLEMS
(UP TO 1900)
In the following pages I shall demonstrate that there
is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams,
and that on the application of this technique every dream will reveal
itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which
may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the
waking state. Further, I shall endeavor to elucidate the processes which
underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these
processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or cooperation
is responsible for our dreams. This done, my investigation will terminate,
as it will have reached the point where the problem of the dream merges
into more comprehensive problems, and to solve these we must have recourse
to material of a different kind.
I shall begin by giving a short account of the views of
earlier writers on this subject, and of the status of the dream-problem in
contemporary science; since in the course of this treatise I shall not
often have occasion to refer to either. In spite of thousands of years of
endeavor, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding
of dreams. This fact has been so universally acknowledged by previous
writers on the subject that it seems hardly necessary to quote individual
opinions. The reader will find, in the works listed at the end of this
work, many stimulating observations, and plenty of interesting material
relating to our subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true
nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of its enigmas. The
educated layman, of course, knows even less of the matter.
The conception of the dream that was held in
prehistoric ages by primitive peoples, and the influence which it may have
exerted on the formation of their conceptions of the universe, and of the
soul, is a theme of such great interest that it is only with reluctance
that I refrain from dealing with it in these pages. I will refer the
reader to the well-known works of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Herbert
Spencer, E. B. Tylor, and other writers; I will only add that we shall not
realize the importance of these problems and speculations until we have
completed the task of dream- interpretation that lies before us.
A reminiscence of the concept of the dream that was
held in primitive times seems to underlie the evaluation of the dream
which was current among the peoples of classical antiquity. * They took it
for granted that dreams were related to the world of the supernatural
beings in whom they believed, and that they brought inspirations from the
gods and demons. Moreover, it appeared to them that dreams must serve a
special purpose in respect of the dreamer; that, as a rule, they predicted
the future. The extraordinary variations in the content of dreams, and in
the impressions which they produced on the dreamer, made it, of course,
very difficult to formulate a coherent conception of them, and
necessitated manifold differentiations and group-formations, according to
their value and reliability. The valuation of dreams by the individual
philosophers of antiquity naturally depended on the importance which they
were prepared to attribute to manticism in general.
* The following remarks are based on Buchsenschutz's
careful essay, Traum und Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin 1868).
In the two works of Aristotle in which there is mention
of dreams, they are already regarded as constituting a problem of
psychology. We are told that the dream is not god-sent, that it is not of
divine but of demonic origin. For nature is really demonic, not divine;
that is to say, the dream is not a supernatural revelation, but is subject
to the laws of the human spirit, which has, of course, a kinship with the
divine. The dream is defined as the psychic activity of the sleeper,
inasmuch as he is asleep. Aristotle was acquainted with some of the
characteristics of the dream-life; for example, he knew that a dream
converts the slight sensations perceived in sleep into intense sensations
("one imagines that one is walking through fire, and feels hot, if this or
that part of the body becomes only quite slightly warm"), which led him to
conclude that dreams might easily betray to the physician the first
indications of an incipient physical change which escaped observation
during the day. *
* The relationship between dreams and disease is
discussed by Hippocrates in a chapter of his famous work.
As has been said, those writers of antiquity who
preceded Aristotle did not regard the dream as a product of the dreaming
psyche, but as an inspiration of divine origin, and in ancient times the
two opposing tendencies which we shall find throughout the ages in respect
of the evaluation of the dream- life were already perceptible. The
ancients distinguished between the true and valuable dreams which were
sent to the dreamer as warnings, or to foretell future events, and the
vain, fraudulent, and empty dreams whose object was to misguide him or
lead him to destruction.
Gruppe * speaks of such a classification of dreams,
citing Macrobius and Artemidorus: "Dreams were divided into two classes;
the first class was believed to be influenced only by the present (or the
past), and was unimportant in respect of the future; it included the
enuknia (insomnia), which directly reproduce a given idea or its opposite;
e.g., hunger or its satiation; and the phantasmata, which elaborate the
given idea phantastically, as e.g. the nightmare, ephialtes. The second
class of dreams, on the other hand, was determinative of the future. To
this belonged:
1. Direct prophecies received in the dream (chrematismos,
oraculum);
2. the foretelling of a future event (orama, visio);
3. the symbolic dream, which requires interpretation (oneiros,
somnium.)
This theory survived for many centuries."
* Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, p.
390.
Connected with these varying estimations of the dream
was the problem of "dream-interpretation." Dreams in general were expected
to yield important solutions, but not every dream was immediately
understood, and it was impossible to be sure that a certain
incomprehensible dream did not really foretell something of importance, so
that an effort was made to replace the incomprehensible content of the
dream by something that should be at once comprehensible and significant.
In later antiquity Artemidorus of Daldis was regarded as the greatest
authority on dream-interpretation. His comprehensive works must serve to
compensate us for the lost works of a similar nature. * The pre-scientific
conception of the dream which obtained among the ancients was, of course,
in perfect keeping with their general conception of the universe, which
was accustomed to project as an external reality that which possessed
reality only in the life of the psyche. Further, it accounted for the main
impression made upon the waking life by the morning memory of the dream;
for in this memory the dream, as compared with the rest of the psychic
content, seems to be something alien, coming, as it were, from another
world. It would be an error to suppose that theory of the supernatural
origin of dreams lacks followers even in our own times; for quite apart
from pietistic and mystical writers- who cling, as they are perfectly
justified in doing, to the remnants of the once predominant realm of the
supernatural until these remnants have been swept away by scientific
explanation- we not infrequently find that quite intelligent persons, who
in other respects are averse from anything of a romantic nature, go so far
as to base their religious belief in the existence and co-operation of
superhuman spiritual powers on the inexplicable nature of the phenomena of
dreams (Haffner). The validity ascribed to the dream-life by certain
schools of philosophy- for example, by the school of Schelling- is a
distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in the divinity of dreams
which prevailed in antiquity; and for some thinkers the mantic or
prophetic power of dreams is still a subject of debate. This is due to the
fact that the explanations attempted by psychology are too inadequate to
cope with the accumulated material, however strongly the scientific
thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be repudiated.
* For the later history of dream-interpretation in the
Middle Ages consult Diepgen, and the special investigations of M. Forster,
Gotthard, and others. The interpretation of dreams among the Jews has been
studied by Amoli, Amram, and Lowinger, and recently, with reference to the
psycho- analytic standpoint, by Lauer. Details of the Arabic methods of
dream- interpretation are furnished by Drexl, F. Schwarz, and the
missionary Tfinkdji. The interpretation of dreams among the Japanese has
been investigated by Miura and Iwaya, among the Chinese by Secker, and
among the Indians by Negelein.
To write strongly the history of our scientific
knowledge of the dream- problem is extremely difficult, because, valuable
though this knowledge may be in certain respects, no real progress in a
definite direction is as yet discernible. No real foundation of verified
results has hitherto been established on which future investigators might
continue to build. Every new author approaches the same problems afresh,
and from the very beginning. If I were to enumerate such authors in
chronological order, giving a survey of the opinions which each has held
concerning the problems of the dream, I should be quite unable to draw a
clear and complete picture of the present state of our knowledge on the
subject. I have therefore preferred to base my method of treatment on
themes rather than on authors, and in attempting the solution of each
problem of the dream I shall cite the material found in the literature of
the subject.
But as I have not succeeded in mastering the whole of
this literature- for it is widely dispersed, and interwoven with the
literature of other subjects- I must ask my readers to rest content with
my survey as it stands, provided that no fundamental fact or important
point of view has been overlooked.
Until recently most authors have been inclined to deal
with the subjects of sleep and dreams in conjunction, and together with
these they have commonly dealt with analogous conditions of a
psycho-pathological nature, and other dream-like phenomena, such as
hallucinations, visions, etc. In recent works, on the other hand, there
has been a tendency to keep more closely to the theme, and to consider, as
a special subject, the separate problems of the dream-life. In this change
I should like to perceive an expression of the growing conviction that
enlightenment and agreement in such obscure matters may be attained only
by a series of detailed investigations. Such a detailed investigation, and
one of a special psychological nature, is expounded in these pages. I have
had little occasion to concern myself with the problem of sleep, as this
is essentially a physiological problem, although the changes in the
functional determination of the psychic apparatus should be included in a
description of the sleeping state. The literature of sleep will therefore
not be considered here.
A scientific interest in the phenomena of dreams as
such leads us to propound the following problems, which to a certain
extent, interdependent, merge into one another. |
