CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED...)
B. The Material of Dreams- Memory in Dreams
That all the material composing the content of a dream
is somehow derived from experience, that it is reproduced or remembered in
the dream- this at least may be accepted as an incontestable fact. Yet it
would be wrong to assume that such a connection between the dream-content
and reality will be easily obvious from a comparison between the two. On
the contrary, the connection must be carefully sought, and in quite a
number of cases it may for a long while elude discovery. The reason for
this is to be found in a number of peculiarities evinced by the faculty of
memory in dreams; which peculiarities, though generally observed, have
hitherto defied explanation. It will be worth our while to examine these
characteristics exhaustively.
To begin with, it happens that certain material appears
in the dream- content which cannot be subsequently recognized, in the
waking state, as being part of one's knowledge and experience. One
remembers clearly enough having dreamed of the thing in question, but one
cannot recall the actual experience or the time of its occurrence. The
dreamer is therefore in the dark as to the source which the dream has
tapped, and is even tempted to believe in an independent productive
activity on the part of the dream, until, often long afterwards, a fresh
episode restores the memory of that former experience, which had been
given up for lost, and so reveals the source of the dream. One is
therefore forced to admit that in the dream something was known and
remembered that cannot be remembered in the waking state. *
* Vaschide even maintains that it has often been
observed that in one's dreams one speaks foreign languages more fluently
and with greater purity than in the waking state.
Delboeuf relates from his own experience an especially
impressive example of this kind. He saw in his dream the courtyard of his
house covered with snow, and found there two little lizards, half-frozen
and buried in the snow. Being a lover of animals he picked them up, warmed
them, and put them back into the hole in the wall which was reserved
especially for them. He also gave them a few fronds of a little fern which
was growing on the wall, and of which he knew they were very fond. In the
dream he knew the name of the plant; Asplenium ruta muralis. The dream
continued returning after a digression to the lizards, and to his
astonishment Delboeuf saw two other little lizards falling upon what was
left of the ferns. On turning his eyes to the open fields he saw a fifth
and a sixth lizard making for the hole in the wall, and finally the whole
road was covered by a procession of lizards, all wandering in the same
direction.
In his waking state Delboeuf knew only a few Latin
names of plants, and nothing of any Asplenium. To his great surprise he
discovered that a fern of this name did actually exist, and that the
correct name was Asplenium ruta muraria, which the dream had slightly
distorted. An accidental coincidence was of course inconceivable; yet
where he got his knowledge of the name Asplenium in the dream remained a
mystery to him.
The dream occurred in 1862. Sixteen years later, while
at the house of one of his friends, the philosopher noticed a small album
containing dried plants, such as are sold as souvenirs to visitors in many
parts of Switzerland. A sudden recollection came to him: he opened the
herbarium, discovered therein the Asplenium of his dream, and recognized
his own handwriting in the accompanying Latin name. The connection could
now be traced. In 1860, two years before the date of the lizard dream, one
of his friend's sisters, while on her wedding-journey, had paid a visit to
Delboeuf. She had with her at the time this very album, which was intended
for her brother, and Delboeuf had taken the trouble to write, at the
dictation of a botanist, the Latin name under each of the dried plants.
The same good fortune which gave this example its
unusual value enabled Delboeuf to trace yet another portion of this dream
to its forgotten source. One day in 1877 he came upon an old volume of an
illustrated periodical, in which he found the whole procession of lizards
pictured, just as he had dreamt of it in 1862. The volume bore the date
1861, and Delboeuf remembered that he had subscribed to the journal since
its first appearance.
That dreams have at their disposal recollections which
are inaccessible to the waking state is such a remarkable and
theoretically important fact that I should like to draw attention to the
point by recording yet other hypermnesic dreams. Maury relates that for
some time the word Mussidan used to occur to him during the day. He knew
it to be the name of a French city, but that was all. One night he dreamed
of a conversation with a certain person, who told him that she came from
Mussidan, and, in answer to his question as to where the city was, she
replied: "Mussidan is the principal town of a district in the department
of Dordogne." On waking, Maury gave no credence to the information
received in his dream; but the gazetteer showed it to be perfectly
correct. In this case the superior knowledge of the dreamer was confirmed,
but it was not possible to trace the forgotten source of this knowledge.
Jessen (p. 55) refers to a very similar incident, the
period of which is more remote. "Among others we may here mention the
dream of the elder Scaliger (Hennings, l.c., p. 300), who wrote a poem in
praise of the famous men of Verona, and to whom a man named Brugnolus
appeared in a dream, complaining that he had been neglected. Though
Scaliger could not remember that he had heard of the man, he wrote some
verses in his honour, and his son learned subsequently that a certain
Brugnolus had at one time been famed in Verona as a critic."
A hypermnesic dream, especially remarkable for the fact
that a memory not at first recalled was afterwards recognized in a dream
which followed the first, is narrated by the Marquis d'Hervey de St.
Denis: * "I once dreamed of a young woman with fair golden hair, whom I
saw chatting with my sister as she showed her a piece of embroidery. In my
dream she seemed familiar to me; I thought, indeed, that I had seen her
repeatedly. After waking, her face was still quite vividly before me, but
I was absolutely unable to recognize it. I fell asleep again; the
dream-picture repeated itself. In this new dream I addressed the
golden-haired lady and asked her whether I had not had the pleasure of
meeting her somewhere. 'Of course,' she replied; 'don't you remember the
bathing-place at Pornic?' Thereupon I awoke, and I was then able to recall
with certainty and in detail the incidents with which this charming
dream-face was connected."
* See Vaschide, p. 232.
The same author * recorded that a musician of his
acquaintance once heard in a dream a melody which was absolutely new to
him. Not until many years later did he find it in an old collection of
musical compositions, though still he could not remember ever having seen
it before.
* Vaschide, p. 233
I believe that Myers has published a whole collection
of such hypermnesic dreams in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research, but these, unfortunately, are inaccessible to me. I think
everyone who occupies himself with dreams will recognize, as a very common
phenomenon, the fact that a dream will give proof of the knowledge and
recollection of matters of which the dreamer, in his waking state, did not
imagine himself to be cognizant. In my analytic investigations of nervous
patients, of which I shall speak later, I find that it happens many times
every week that I am able to convince them, from their dreams, that they
are perfectly well acquainted with quotations, obscene expressions, etc.,
and make use of them in their dreams, although they have forgotten them in
their waking state. I shall here cite an innocent example of dream-hypermnesia,
because it was easy to trace the source of the knowledge which was
accessible only in the dream.
A patient dreamed amongst other things (in a rather
long dream) that he ordered a kontuszowka in a cafe, and after telling me
this he asked me what it could be, as he had never heard the name before.
I was able to tell him that kontuszowka was a Polish liqueur, which he
could not have invented in his dream, as the name had long been familiar
to me from the advertisements. At first the patient would not believe me,
but some days later, after he had allowed his dream of the cafe to become
a reality, he noticed the name on a signboard at a street corner which for
some months he had been passing at least twice a day.
I have learned from my own dreams how largely the
discovery of the origin of individual dream-elements may be dependent on
chance. Thus, for some years before I had thought of writing this book, I
was haunted by the picture of a church tower of fairly simple
construction, which I could not remember ever having seen. I then suddenly
recognized it, with absolute certainty, at a small station between
Salzburg and Reichenhall. This was in the late nineties, and the first
time I had travelled over this route was in 1886. In later years, when I
was already busily engaged in the study of dreams, I was quite annoyed by
the frequent recurrence of the dream-image of a certain peculiar locality.
I saw, in definite orientation to my own person- on my left- a dark space
in which a number of grotesque sandstone figures stood out. A glimmering
recollection, which I did not quite believe, told me that it was the
entrance to a beer-cellar; but I could explain neither the meaning nor the
origin of this dream-picture. In 1907 I happened to go to Padua, which, to
my regret, I had been unable to visit since 1895. My first visit to this
beautiful university city had been unsatisfactory. I had been unable to
see Giotto's frescoes in the church of the Madonna dell' Arena: I set out
for the church, but turned back on being informed that it was closed for
the day. On my second visit, twelve years later, I thought I would
compensate myself for this disappointment, and before doing anything else
I set out for Madonna dell' Arena. In the street leading to it, on my
left, probably at the spot where I had turned back in 1895, I discovered
the place, with its sandstone figures, which I had so often seen in my
dream. It was, in fact, the entrance to a restaurant garden.
One of the sources from which dreams draw material for
reproduction- material of which some part is not recalled or utilized in
our waking thoughts- is to be found in childhood. Here I will cite only a
few of the authors who have observed and emphasized this fact:
Hildebrandt (p. 23): "It has already been expressly
admitted that a dream sometimes brings back to the mind, with a wonderful
power of reproduction, remote and even forgotten experiences from the
earliest periods of one's life."
Strumpell (p. 40): "The subject becomes more
interesting still when we remember how the dream sometimes drags out, as
it were, from the deepest and densest psychic deposits which later years
have piled upon the earliest experiences of childhood, the pictures of
certain persons, places and things, quite intact, and in all their
original freshness. This is confined not merely to such impressions as
were vividly perceived at the time of their occurrence, or were associated
with intense psychological values, to recur later in the dream as actual
reminiscences which give pleasure to the waking mind. On the contrary, the
depths of the dream-memory rather contain such images of persons, places,
things and early experiences as either possessed but little consciousness
and no psychic value whatsoever, or have long since lost both, and
therefore appear totally strange and unknown, both in the dream and in the
waking state, until their early origin is revealed."
Volkelt (p. 119): "It is especially to be remarked how
readily infantile and youthful reminiscences enter into our dreams. What
we have long ceased to think about, what has long since lost all
importance for us, is constantly recalled by the dream."
The control which the dream exercises over material
from our childhood, most of which, as is well known, falls into the
lacunae of our conscious memory, is responsible for the production of
interesting hypermnesic dreams, of which I shall cite a few more examples.
Maury relates (p. 92) that as a child he often went
from his native city, Meaux, to the neighbouring Trilport, where his
father was superintending the construction of a bridge. One night a dream
transported him to Trilport and he was once more playing in the streets
there. A man approached him, wearing a sort of uniform. Maury asked him
his name, and he introduced himself, saying that his name was C, and that
he was a bridge-guard. On waking, Maury, who still doubted the actuality
of the reminiscence, asked his old servant, who had been with him in his
childhood, whether she remembered a man of this name. "Of course," was the
reply; "he used to be watchman on the bridge which your father was
building then."
Maury records another example, which demonstrates no
less clearly the reliability of the reminiscences of childhood that emerge
in our dreams. M. F., who as a child had lived in Montbrison, decided,
after an absence of twenty-five years, to visit his home and the old
friends of his family. The night before his departure he dreamt that he
had reached his destination, and that near Montbrison he met a man whom he
did not know by sight, and who told him that he was M. F., a friend of his
father's. The dreamer remembered that as a child he had known a gentleman
of this name, but on waking he could no longer recall his features.
Several days later, having actually arrived at Montbrison, he found once
more the locality of his dream, which he had thought was unknown to him,
and there he met a man whom he at once recognized as the M. F. of his
dream, with only this difference, that the real person was very much older
than his dream-image.
Here I might relate one of my own dreams, in which the
recalled impression takes the form of an association. In my dream I saw a
man whom I recognized, while dreaming, as the doctor of my native town.
His face was not distinct, but his features were blended with those of one
of my schoolmasters, whom I still meet from time to time. What association
there was between the two persons I could not discover on waking, but upon
questioning my mother concerning the doctor I learned that he was a one-
eyed man. The schoolmaster, whose image in my dream obscured that of the
physician, had also only one eye. I had not seen the doctor for thirty-
eight years, and as far as I know I had never thought of him in my waking
state, although a scar on my chin might have reminded me of his
professional attentions.
As though to counterbalance the excessive part which is
played in our dreams by the impressions of childhood, many authors assert
that the majority of dreams reveal elements drawn from our most recent
experiences. Robert (p. 46) even declares that the normal dream generally
occupies itself only with the impressions of the last few days. We shall
find, indeed, that the theory of the dream advanced by Robert absolutely
requires that our oldest impressions should be thrust into the background,
and our most recent ones brought to the fore. However, the fact here
stated by Robert is correct; this I can confirm from my own
investigations. Nelson, an American author, holds that the impressions
received in a dream most frequently date from the second day before the
dream, or from the third day before it, as though the impressions of the
day immediately preceding the dream were not sufficiently weakened and
remote.
Many authors who are unwilling to question the intimate
connection between the dream-content and the waking state have been struck
by the fact that the impressions which have intensely occupied the waking
mind appear in dreams only after they have been to some extent removed
from the mental activities of the day. Thus, as a rule, we do not dream of
a beloved person who is dead while we are still overwhelmed with sorrow (Delage).
Yet Miss Hallam, one of the most recent observers, has collected examples
which reveal the very opposite behaviour in this respect, and upholds the
claims of psychological individuality in this matter.
The third, most remarkable, and at the same time most
incomprehensible, peculiarity of memory in dreams is shown in the
selection of the material reproduced; for here it is not, as in the waking
state, only the most significant things that are held to be worth
remembering, but also the most indifferent and insignificant details. In
this connection I will quote those authors who have expressed their
surprise in the most emphatic language.
Hildebrandt (p. 11): "For it is a remarkable fact that
dreams do not, as a rule, take their elements from important and
far-reaching events, or from the intense and urgent interests of the
preceding day, but from unimportant incidents, from the worthless odds and
ends of recent experience or of the remoter past. The most shocking death
in our family, the impressions of which keep us awake long into the night,
is obliterated from our memories until the first moment of waking brings
it back to us with distressing force. On the other hand, the wart on the
forehead of a passing stranger, to whom we did not give a moment's thought
once he was out of sight, finds a place in our dreams."
Strumpell (p. 39) speaks of "cases in which the
analysis of a dream brings to light elements which, although derived from
the experiences of yesterday or the day before yesterday, were yet so
unimportant and worthless for the waking state that they were forgotten
soon after they were experienced. Some experiences may be the chance-heard
remarks of other persons, or their superficially observed actions, or,
fleeting perceptions of things or persons, or isolated phrases that we
have read, etc."
Havelock Ellis (p. 727): "The profound emotions of
waking life, the questions and problems on which we spend our chief
voluntary mental energy, are not those which usually present themselves at
once to dream- consciousness. It is, so far as the immediate past is
concerned, mostly the trifling, the incidental, the 'forgotten'
impressions of daily life which reappear in our dreams. The psychic
activities that are awake most intensely are those that sleep most
profoundly."
It is precisely in connection with these
characteristics of memory in dreams that Binz (p. 45) finds occasion to
express dissatisfaction with the explanations of dreams which he himself
had favoured: "And the normal dream raises similar questions. Why do we
not always dream of mental impressions of the day before, instead of going
back, without any perceptible reason, to the almost forgotten past, now
lying far behind us? Why, in a dream, does consciousness so often revive
the impression of indifferent memory- pictures, while the cerebral cells
that bear the most sensitive records of experience remain for the most
part inert and numb, unless an acute revival during the waking state has
quite recently excited them?"
We can readily understand how the strange preference
shown by the dream- memory for the indifferent and therefore disregarded
details of daily experience must commonly lead us altogether to overlook
the dependence of dreams on the waking state, or must at least make it
difficult for us to prove this dependence in any individual case. Thus it
happened that in the statistical treatment of her own and her friend's
dream, Miss Whiton Calkins found that 11 per cent of the entire number
showed no relation to the waking state. Hildebrandt was certainly correct
in his assertion that all our dream-images could be genetically explained
if we devoted enough time and material to the tracing of their origin. To
be sure, he calls this "a most tedious and thankless job. For most often
it would lead us to ferret out all sorts of psychically worthless things
from the remotest corners of our storehouse of memories, and to bring to
light all sorts of quite indifferent events of long ago from the oblivion
which may have overtaken them an hour after their occurrence." I must,
however, express my regret that this discerning author refrained from
following the path which at first sight seemed so unpromising, for it
would have led him directly to the central point of the explanation of
dreams.
The behaviour of memory in dreams is surely most
significant for any theory of memory whatsoever. It teaches us that
"nothing which we have once psychically possessed is ever entirely lost" (Scholz,
p. 34); or as Delboeuf puts it, "que toute impression, meme la plus
insignificante, laisse une trace inalterable, indifiniment susceptible de
reparaitre au jour"; * a conclusion to which we are urged by so many other
pathological manifestations of mental life. Let us bear in mind this
extraordinary capacity of the memory in dreams, in order the more keenly
to realize the contradiction which has to be put forward in certain
dream-theories to be mentioned later, which seek to explain the
absurdities and incoherences of dreams by a partial forgetting of what we
have known during the day.
* That every impression, even the most insignificant,
leaves an ineradicable mark, indefinitely capable of reappearing by day.
It might even occur to one to reduce the phenomenon of
dreaming to that of remembering, and to regard the dream as the
manifestation of a reproductive activity, unresting even at night, which
is an end in itself. This would seem to be in agreement with statements
such as those made by Pilcz, according to which definite relations between
the time of dreaming and the contents of a dream may be demonstrated,
inasmuch as the impressions reproduced by the dream in deep sleep belong
to the remote past, while those reproduced towards morning are of recent
origin. But such a conception is rendered improbable from the outset by
the manner in which the dream deals with the material to be remembered.
Strumpell rightly calls our attention to the fact that repetitions of
experiences do not occur in dreams. It is true that a dream will make a
beginning in that direction, but the next link is wanting; it appears in a
different form, or is replaced by something entirely novel. The dream
gives us only fragmentary reproductions; this is so far the rule that it
permits of a theoretical generalization. Still, there are exceptions in
which an episode is repeated in a dream as completely as it can be
reproduced by our waking memory. Delboeuf relates of one of his university
colleagues that a dream of his repeated, in all its details, a perilous
drive in which he escaped accident as if by miracle. Miss Calkins mentions
two dreams the contents of which exactly reproduced an experience of the
previous day, and in a later chapter I shall have occasion to give an
example that came to my knowledge of a childish experience which recurred
unchanged in a dream. *
* From subsequent experience I am able to state that it
is not at all rare to find in dreams reproductions of simple and
unimportant occupations of everyday life, such as packing trunks,
preparing food in the kitchen, etc., but in such dreams the dreamer
himself emphasizes not the character of the recollection but its
"reality"- "I really did this during the day." |
