CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED...)
C. Dream-Stimuli and Sources
What is meant by dream-stimuli and dream-sources may be
explained by a reference to the popular saying: "Dreams come from the
stomach." This notion covers a theory which conceives the dream as
resulting from a disturbance of sleep. We should not have dreamed if some
disturbing element had not come into play during our sleep, and the dream
is the reaction against this disturbance.
The discussion of the exciting causes of dreams
occupies a great deal of space in the literature of dreams. It is obvious
that this problem could have made its appearance only after dreams had
become an object of biological investigation. The ancients, who conceived
of dreams as divine inspirations, had no need to look for stimuli; for
them a dream was due to the will of divine or demonic powers, and its
content was the product of their special knowledge and intention. Science,
however, immediately raised the question whether the stimuli of dreams
were single or multiple, and this in turn led to the consideration whether
the causal explanation of dreams belonged to the region of psychology or
to that of physiology. Most authors appear to assume that disturbance of
sleep, and hence dreams, may arise from various causes, and that physical
as well as mental stimuli may play the part of dream-excitants. Opinions
differ widely in preferring this or the other factor as the cause of
dreams, and in classifying them in the order of importance.
Whenever the sources of dreams are completely
enumerated they fall into the following four categories, which have also
been employed in the classification of dreams: (1) external (objective)
sensory stimuli; (2) internal (subjective) sensory stimuli; (3) internal
(organic) physical stimuli; (4) Purely psychical sources of excitation.
1. External sensory stimuli
The younger Strumpell, the son of the philosopher,
whose work on dreams has already more than once served us as a guide in
considering the problems of dreams, has, as is well known, recorded his
observations of a patient afflicted with general anaesthesia of the skin
and with paralysis of several of the higher sensory organs. This man would
laps into sleep whenever the few remaining sensory paths between himself
and the outer world were closed. When we wish to fall asleep we are
accustomed to strive for a condition similar to that obtaining in
Strumpell's experiment. We close the most important sensory portals, the
eyes, and we endeavour to protect the other senses from all stimuli or
from any change of the stimuli already acting upon them. We then fall
asleep, although our preparations are never wholly successful. For we can
never completely insulate the sensory organs, nor can we entirely abolish
the excitability of the sensory organs themselves. That we may at any time
be awakened by intenser stimuli should prove to us "that the mind has
remained in constant communication with the external world even during
sleep." The sensory stimuli that reach us during sleep may easily become
the source of dreams.
There are a great many stimuli of this nature, ranging
from those unavoidable stimuli which are proper to the state of sleep or
occasionally admitted by it, to those fortuitous stimuli which are
calculated to wake the sleeper. Thus a strong light may fall upon the
eyes, a noise may be heard, or an odour may irritate the mucous membranes
of the nose. In our unintentional movements during sleep we may lay bare
parts of the body, and thus expose them to a sensation of cold, or by a
change of position we may excite sensations of pressure and touch. A
mosquito may bite us, or a slight nocturnal mischance may simultaneously
attack more than one sense- organ. Observers have called attention to a
whole series of dreams in which the stimulus ascertained on waking and
some part of the dream-content corresponded to such a degree that the
stimulus could be recognized as the source of the dream.
I shall here cite a number of such dreams, collected by
Jessen (p. 527), which are traceable to more or less accidental objective
sensory stimuli. Every noise indistinctly perceived gives rise to
corresponding dream- representations; the rolling of thunder takes us into
the thick of battle, the crowing of a cock may be transformed into human
shrieks of terror, and the creaking of a door may conjure up dreams of
burglars breaking into the house. When one of our blankets slips off us at
night we may dream that we are walking about naked, or falling into water.
If we lie diagonally across the bed with our feet extending beyond the
edge, we may dream of standing on the brink of a terrifying precipice, or
of falling from a great height. Should our head accidentally get under the
pillow we may imagine a huge rock overhanging us and about to crush us
under its weight. An accumulation of semen produces voluptuous dreams, and
local pains give rise to ideas of suffering ill-treatment, of hostile
attacks, or of accidental bodily injuries....
"Meier (Versuch einer Erklarung des Nachtwandelns,
Halle, 1758, p. 33) once dreamed of being attacked by several men who
threw him flat on the ground and drove a stake into the earth between his
first and second toes. While imagining this in his dream he suddenly awoke
and felt a piece of straw sticking between his toes. The same author,
according to Hemmings (Von den Traumen und Nachtwandlern, Weimar, 1784, p.
258), "dreamed on another occasion, when his nightshirt was rather too
tight round his neck, that he was being hanged. In his youth Hoffbauer
dreamed of having fallen from a high wall, and found, on waking, that the
bedstead had come apart, and that he had actually fallen on to the
floor.... Gregory relates that he once applied a hot-water bottle to his
feet, and dreamed of taking a trip to the summit of Mount Etna, where he
found the heat of the soil almost unbearable. After having a blister
applied to his head, another man dreamed of being scalped by Indians;
still another, whose shirt was damp, dreamed that he was dragged through a
stream. An attack of gout caused a patient to believe that he was in the
hands of the Inquisition, and suffering the pains of torture (Macnish)."
The argument that there is a resemblance between the
dream-stimulus and the dream-content would be confirmed if, by a
systematic induction of stimuli, we should succeed in producing dreams
corresponding to these stimuli. According to Macnish such experiments had
already been made by Giron de Buzareingues. "He left his knee exposed and
dreamed of travelling on a mail- coach by night. He remarked, in this
connection, that travellers were well aware how cold the knees become in a
coach at night. On another occasion he left the back of his head
uncovered, and dreamed that he was taking part in a religious ceremony in
the open air. In the country where he lived it was customary to keep the
head always covered except on occasions of this kind."
Maury reports fresh observation on self-induced dreams
of his own. (A number of other experiments were unsuccessful.)
1. He was tickled with a feather on his lips and on the
tip of his nose. He dreamed of an awful torture, viz., that a mask of
pitch was stuck to his face and then forcibly torn off, bringing the skin
with it.
2. Scissors were whetted against a pair of tweezers. He
heard bells ringing, then sounds of tumult which took him back to the days
of the Revolution of 1848.
3. Eau de Cologne was held to his nostrils. He found
himself in Cairo, in the shop of Johann Maria Farina. This was followed by
fantastic adventures which he was not able to recall.
4. His neck was lightly pinched. He dreamed that a
blister was being applied, and thought of a doctor who had treated him in
childhood.
5. A hot iron was brought near his face. He dreamed
that chauffeurs * had broken into the house, and were forcing the
occupants to give up their money by thrusting their feet into braziers.
The Duchesse d'Abrantes, whose secretary he imagined himself to be then
entered the room.
* Chauffeurs were bands of robbers in the Vendee who
resorted to this form of torture.
6. A drop of water was allowed to fall on to his
forehead. He imagined himself in Italy, perspiring heavily, and drinking
the white wine of Orvieto.
7. When the light of a candle screened with red paper
was allowed to fall on his face, he dreamed of thunder, of heat, and of a
storm at sea which he once witnessed in the English Channel.
Hervey, Weygandt, and others have made attempts to
produce dreams experimentally.
Many have observed the striking skill of the dream in
interweaving into its structure sudden impressions from the outer world,
in such a manner as to represent a gradually approaching catastrophe
(Hildebrandt). "In former years," this author relates, "I occasionally
made use of an alarm-clock in order to wake punctually at a certain hour
in the morning. It probably happened hundreds of times that the sound of
this instrument fitted into an apparently very long and connected dream,
as though the entire dream had been especially designed for it, as though
it found in this sound its appropriate and logically indispensable climax,
its inevitable denouement."
I shall presently have occasion to cite three of these
alarm-clock dreams in a different connection.
Volkelt (p. 68) relates: "A composer once dreamed that
he was teaching a class, and was just explaining something to his pupils.
When he had finished he turned to one of the boys with the question: 'Did
you understand me?' The boy cried out like one possessed 'Oh, ja!' Annoyed
by this, he reprimanded his pupil for shouting. But now the entire class
was screaming 'Orja,' then 'Eurjo,' and finally 'Feuerjo.' He was then
aroused by the actual fire alarm in the street."
Garnier (Traite des facultes de l'ame, 1865), on the
authority of Radestock, relates that Napoleon I, while sleeping in a
carriage, was awakened from a dream by an explosion which took him back to
the crossing of the Tagliamento and the bombardment of the Austrians, so
that he started up, crying, "We have been undermined."
The following dream of Maury's has become celebrated:
He was ill in bed; his mother was sitting beside him. He dreamed of the
Reign of Terror during the Revolution. He witnessed some terrible scenes
of murder, and finally he himself was summoned before the Tribunal. There
he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the sorry heroes of
those terrible days; he had to give an account of himself, and after all
manner of incidents which did not fix themselves in his memory, he was
sentenced to death. Accompanied by an enormous crowd, he was led to the
place of execution. He mounted the scaffold; the executioner tied him to
the plank, it tipped over, and the knife of the guillotine fell. He felt
his head severed from his trunk, and awakened in terrible anxiety, only to
find that the head-board of the bed had fallen, and had actually struck
the cervical vertebrae just where the knife of the guillotine would have
fallen.
This dream gave rise to an interesting discussion,
initiated by Le Lorrain and Egger in the Revue Philosophique, as to
whether, and how, it was possible for the dreamer to crowd together an
amount of dream-content apparently so large in the short space of time
elapsing between the perception of the waking stimulus and the moment of
actual waking.
Examples of this nature show that objective stimuli
occurring in sleep are among the most firmly-established of all the
sources of dreams; they are, indeed, the only stimuli of which the layman
knows anything whatever. If we ask an educated person who is not familiar
with the literature of dreams how dreams originate, he is certain to reply
by a reference to a case known to him in which a dream has been explained
after waking by a recognized objective stimulus. Science, however, cannot
stop here, but is incited to further investigation by the observation that
the stimulus influencing the senses during sleep does not appear in the
dream at all in its true form, but is replaced by some other
representation, which is in some way related to it. But the relation
existing between the stimulus and the resulting dream is, according to
Maury, "une affinite quelconque mais qui n'est pas unique et exclusive" *
(p. 72). If we read, for example, three of Hildebrandt's "alarm-clock
dreams," we shall be compelled to ask why the same casual stimulus evoked
so many different results, and why just these results and no others.
* A sort of relation which is, however, neither unique
nor exclusive.
(p. 37): "I am taking a walk on a beautiful spring
morning. I stroll through the green meadows to a neighbouring village,
where I see numbers of the inhabitants going to church, wearing their best
clothes and carrying their hymn-books under their arms. I remember that it
is Sunday, and that the morning service will soon begin. I decide to
attend it, but as I am rather overheated I think I will wait in the
churchyard until I am cooler. While reading the various epitaphs, I hear
the sexton climbing the church- tower, and I see above me the
small bell which is about to ring for the beginning of
service. For a little while it hangs motionless; then it begins to swing,
and suddenly its notes resound so clearly and penetratingly that my sleep
comes to an end. But the notes of the bell come from the alarm-clock."
"A second combination. It is a bright winter day; the
streets are deep in snow. I have promised to go on a sleigh-ride, but I
have to wait some time before I am told that the sleigh is at the door.
Now I am preparing to get into the sleigh. I put on my furs, the
foot-warmer is put in, and at last I have taken my seat. But still my
departure is delayed. At last the reins are twitched, the horses start,
and the sleigh bells, now violently shaken, strike up their familiar music
with a force that instantly tears the gossamer of my dream. Again it is
only the shrill note of my alarm- clock."
"Yet a third example. I see the kitchen-maid walking
along the passage to the dining-room, with a pile of several dozen plates.
The porcelain column in her arms seems to me to be in danger of losing its
equilibrium. 'Take care,' I exclaim, 'you will drop the whole pile!' The
usual retort is naturally made- that she is used to such things, etc.
Meanwhile I continue to follow her with my anxious gaze, and behold, at
the threshold the fragile plates fall and crash and roll across the floor
in hundreds of pieces. But I soon perceive that the endless din is not
really a rattling but a true ringing, and with this ringing the dreamer
now becomes aware that the alarm-clock has done its duty."
The question why the dreaming mind misjudges the nature
of the objective sensory stimulus has been answered by Strumpell, and in
an almost identical fashion by Wundt; their explanation is that the
reaction of the mind to the stimulus attacking sleep is complicated and
confused by the formation of illusions. A sensory impression is recognized
by us and correctly interpreted- that is, it is classed with the
memory-group to which it belongs according to all previous experience if
the impression is strong, clear, and sufficiently prolonged, and if we
have sufficient time to submit it to those mental processes. But if these
conditions are not fulfilled we mistake the object which gives rise to the
impression, and on the basis of this impression we construct an illusion.
"If one takes a walk in an open field and perceives indistinctly a distant
object, it may happen that one will at first take it for a horse." On
closer inspection the image of a cow, resting, may obtrude itself, and the
picture may finally resolve itself with certainty into a group of people
sitting on the ground. The impressions which the mind receives during
sleep from external stimuli are of a similarly indistinct nature; they
give rise to illusions because the impression evokes a greater or lesser
number of memory-images, through which it acquires its psychic value. As
for the question, in which of the many possible spheres of memory the
corresponding images are aroused, and which of the possible associative
connections are brought into play, that- to quote Strumpell again- is
indeterminable, and is left, as it were, to the caprices of the mind.
Here we may take our choice. We may admit that the laws
of dream-formation cannot really be traced any further, and so refrain
from asking whether or not the interpretation of the illusion evoked by
the sensory impression depends upon still other conditions; or we may
assume that the objective sensory stimulus encroaching upon sleep plays
only a modest role as a dream- source, and that other factors determine
the choice of the memory-image to be evoked. Indeed, on carefully
examining Maury's experimentally produced dreams, which I have purposely
cited in detail, one is inclined to object that his investigations trace
the origin of only one element of the dreams, and that the rest of the
dream-content seems too independent and too full of detail to be explained
by a single requirement, namely, that it must correspond with the element
experimentally introduced. Indeed, one even begins to doubt the illusion
theory, and the power of objective impressions to shape the dream, when
one realizes that such impressions are sometimes subjected to the most
peculiar and far-fetched interpretations in our dreams. Thus M. Simon
tells of a dream in which he saw persons of gigantic stature * seated at a
table, and heard distinctly the horrible clattering produced by the impact
of their jaws as they chewed their food. On waking he heard the clatter of
a horse's hooves as it galloped past his window. If in this case the sound
of the horse's hooves had revived ideas from the memory-sphere of
Gulliver's Travels, the sojourn with the giants of Brobdingnag, and the
virtuous horse-like creatures- as I should perhaps interpret the dream
without any assistance on the author's part- ought not the choice of a
memory-sphere so alien to the stimulus to be further elucidated by other
motives?
* Gigantic persons in a dream justify the assumption
that the dream is dealing with a scene from the dreamer's childhood. This
interpretation of the dream as a reminiscence of Gulliver's Travels is, by
the way, a good example of how an interpretation should not be made. The
dream-interpreter should not permit his own intelligence to operate in
disregard of the dreamer's impressions.
2. Internal (subjective) sensory stimuli
All objections to the contrary notwithstanding, we must
admit that the role of the objective sensory stimuli as producers of
dreams has been indisputably established, and if, having regard to their
nature and their frequency, these stimuli seem perhaps insufficient to
explain all dream- pictures, this indicates that we should look for other
dream-sources which act in a similar fashion. I do not know where the idea
first arose that together with the external sensory stimuli the internal
(subjective) stimuli should also be considered, but as a matter of fact
this has been done more or less explicitly in all the more recent
descriptions of the aetiology of dreams. "I believe," says Wundt (p. 363),
"that an important part is played in dream-illusions by those subjective
sensations of sight and hearing which are familiar to us in the waking
state as a luminous chaos in the dark field of the vision, and a ringing,
buzzing, etc., of the ears, and in especial, subjective irritations of the
retina. This explains the remarkable tendency of dreams to delude the eyes
with numbers of similar or identical objects. Thus we see outspread before
our eyes innumerable birds, butterflies, fishes, coloured beads, flowers,
etc. Here the luminous dust in the dark field of vision has assumed
fantastic forms, and the many luminous points of which it consists are
embodied in our dreams in as many single images, which, owing to the
mobility of the luminous chaos, are seen as moving objects. This is
perhaps the reason of the dream's decided preference for the most varied
animal forms, for owing to the multiplicity of such forms they can readily
adapt themselves to the subjective luminous images."
The subjective sensory stimuli as a source of dreams
have the obvious advantage that, unlike objective stimuli, they are
independent of external accidents. They are, so to speak, at the disposal
of the interpretation whenever they are required. But they are inferior to
the objective sensory stimuli by the fact that their claim to the role of
dream-inciters- which observation and experiment have established in the
case of objective stimuli- can in their case be verified with difficulty
or not at all. The main proof of the dream-inciting power of subjective
sensory stimuli is afforded by the so-called hypnogogic hallucinations,
which have been described by Johann Muller as "phantastic visual
manifestations." They are those very vivid and changeable pictures which
with many people occur constantly during the period of falling asleep, and
which may linger for a while even after the eyes have been opened. Maury,
who was very subject to these pictures, made a thorough study of them, and
maintained that they were related to or rather identical with
dream-images. This had already been asserted by Johann Muller. Maury
maintains that a certain psychic passivity is necessary for their origin;
that it requires a relaxation of the intensity of attention (p. 59). But
one may perceive a hypnogogic hallucination in any frame of mind if one
falls into such a lethargy for a moment, after which one may perhaps wake
up, until this oft-repeated process terminates in sleep. According to
Maury, if one wakes up shortly after such an experience, it is often
possible to trace in the dream the images which one has perceived before
falling asleep as hypnogogic hallucinations (p. 134). Thus Maury on one
occasion saw a series of images of grotesque figures with distorted
features and curiously dressed hair, which obtruded themselves upon him
with incredible importunity during the period of falling asleep, and
which, upon waking, he recalled having seen in his dream. On another
occasion, while suffering from hunger, because he was subjecting himself
to a rather strict diet, he saw in one of his hypnogogic states a plate,
and a hand armed with a fork taking some food from the plate. In his dream
he found himself at a table abundantly supplied with food, and heard the
clatter of the diner's forks. On yet another occasion, after falling
asleep with strained and painful eyes, he had a hypnogogic hallucination
of microscopically small characters, which he was able to decipher, one by
one, only with a great effort; and on waking from sleep an hour later he
recalled a dream in which there was an open book with very small letters,
which he was obliged to read through with laborious effort.
Not only pictures, but auditory hallucinations of
words, names, etc., may also occur hypnogogically, and then repeat
themselves in the dream, like an overture announcing the principal motif
of the opera which is to follow.
A more recent observer of hypnogogic hallucinations, G.
Trumbull Ladd, follows the same lines as Johann Muller and Maury. By dint
of practice he succeeded in acquiring the faculty of suddenly arousing
himself, without opening his eyes, two to five minutes after gradually
falling asleep. This enabled him to compare the disappearing retinal
sensations with the dream- images remaining in his memory. He assures us
that an intimate relation between the two can always be recognized,
inasmuch as the luminous dots and lines of light spontaneously perceived
by the retina produce, so to speak, the outline or scheme of the
psychically perceived dream-images. For example, a dream in which he saw
before him clearly printed lines, which he read and studied, corresponded
with a number of luminous spots arranged in parallel lines; or, to express
it in his own words: The clearly printed page resolved itself into an
object which appeared to his waking perception like part of an actual
printed page seen through a small hole in a sheet of paper, but at a
distance too great to permit of its being read. Without in any way
underestimating the central element of the phenomenon, Ladd believes that
hardly any visual dream occurs in our minds that is not based on material
furnished by this internal condition of retinal irritability. This is
particularly true of dreams which occur shortly after falling asleep in a
dark room, while dreams occurring in the morning, near the period of
waking, receive their stimulus from the objective light penetrating the
eye in a brightly-lit room. The shifting and infinitely variable character
of the spontaneous luminous excitations of the retina exactly corresponds
with the fitful succession of images presented to us in our dreams. If we
attach any importance to Ladd's observations, we cannot underrate the
productiveness of this subjective source of stimuli; for visual images, as
we know, are the principal constituents of our dreams. The share
contributed by the other senses, excepting, perhaps, the sense of hearing,
is relatively insignificant and inconstant.
3. Internal (organic) physical stimuli
If we are disposed to look for the sources of dreams
not outside but inside the organism, we must remember that almost all our
internal organs, which in a state of health hardly remind us of their
existence, may, in states of excitation- as we call them- or in disease,
become a source of the most painful sensations, and must therefore be put
on a par with the external excitants of pain and sensation. Strumpell, for
example, gives expression to a long-familiar experience when he declares
that "during sleep the psyche becomes far more deeply and broadly
conscious of its coporality than in the waking state, and it is compelled
to receive and to be influenced by certain stimulating impressions
originating in parts of the body, and in alterations of the body, of which
it is unconscious in the waking state." Even Aristotle declares it to be
quite possible that a dream may draw our attention to incipient morbid
conditions which we have not noticed in the waking state (owing to the
exaggerated intensity of the impressions experienced in the dream; and
some medical authors, who certainly did not believe in the prophetic
nature of dreams, have admitted the significance of dreams, at least in so
far as the predicting of disease is concerned. [Cf. M. Simon, p. 31, and
many earlier writers.] *
* In addition to the diagnostic valuation of dreams
(e.g., by Hippocrates) mention must also be made of their therapeutic
significance in antiquity.
Among the Greeks there were dream oracles, which were
vouchsafed to patients in quest of recovery. The patient betook himself to
the temple of Apollo or Aesculapius; there he was subjected to various
ceremonies, bathed, rubbed and perfumed. A state of exaltation having been
thus induced, he was made to lie down in the temple on the skin of a
sacrificial ram. He fell asleep and dreamed of remedies, which he saw in
their natural form, or in symbolic images which the priests afterwards
interpreted.
For further references concerning the remedial dreams
of the Greeks, cf. Lehmann, i, 74; Bouche-Leclerq; Hermann, Gottesd.
Altert. d. Gr., SS 41; Privataltert. SS 38, 16; Bottinger in Sprengel's
Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med., ii, p. 163, et seq.; W. Lloyd, Magnetism and
Mesmerism in Antiquity, London, 1877; Dollinger, Heidentum und Judentum,
p. 130.
Even in our days there seems to be no lack of
authenticated examples of such diagnostic achievements on the part of
dreams. Thus Tissie cites from Artigues (Essai sur la valeur semeiologique
des Reves) the history of a woman of forty-three, who, during several
years of apparently perfect health, was troubled with anxiety-dreams, and
in whom a medical examination subsequently revealed an incipient affection
of the heart, to which she presently succumbed.
Serious derangements of the internal organs clearly
excite dreams in quite a number of persons. The frequency of
anxiety-dreams in diseases of the heart and lungs has been generally
realized; indeed, this function of the dream-life is emphasized by so many
writers that I shall here content myself with a reference to the
literature of the subject (Radestock, Spitta, Maury, M. Simon, Tissie).
Tissie even believes that the diseased organs impress upon the
dream-content its characteristic features. The dreams of persons suffering
from diseases of the heart are generally very brief, and end in a
terrified awakening; death under terrible circumstances almost always find
a place in their content. Those suffering from diseases of the lungs dream
of suffocation, of being crushed, and of flight, and a great many of them
are subject to the familiar nightmare- which, by the way, Borner has
succeeded in inducing experimentally by lying on the face and covering the
mouth and nostrils. In digestive disturbances the dream contains ideas
from the sphere of gustatory enjoyment and disgust. Finally, the influence
of sexual excitement on the dream-content is obvious enough in everyone's
experience, and provides the strongest confirmation of the whole theory of
dream-instigation by organic sensation.
Moreover, if we study the literature of dreams it
becomes quite evident that some writers (Maury, Weygandt) have been led to
the study of dream- problems by the influence their own pathological state
has had on the content of their dreams.
The enlargement of the number of dream-sources by such
undeniably established facts is, however, not so important as one might be
led to suppose; for dreams are, after all, phenomena which occur in
healthy persons- perhaps in all persons, and every night- and a
pathological state of the organs is evidently not one of the indispensable
conditions. For us, however, the question is not whence particular dreams
originate, but rather: what is the exciting cause of ordinary dreams in
normal people?
But we have only to go a step farther to find a source
of dreams which is more prolific than any of those mentioned above, and
which promises indeed to be inexhaustible. If it is established that the
bodily organs become, in sickness, an exciting source of dreams, and if we
admit that the mind, when diverted during sleep from the outer world, can
devote more of its attention to the interior of the body, we may readily
assume that the organs need not necessarily become diseased in order to
permit stimuli, which in one way or another grow into dream-images, to
reach the sleeping mind. What in the waking state we vaguely perceive as a
general sensation, perceptible by its quality alone- a sensation to which,
in the opinion of physicians, all the organic systems contribute their
share- this general sensation would at night attain a greater potency,
and, acting through its individual components, would constitute the most
prolific as well as the most usual source of dream-representations. We
should then have to discover the laws by which organic stimuli are
translated into dream- representations.
This theory of the origin of dreams is the one most
favored by all medical writers. The obscurity which conceals the essence
of our being- the "moi splanchnique" as Tissie terms it- from our
knowledge, and the obscurity of the origin of dreams, correspond so
closely that it was inevitable that they should be brought into relation
with one another. The theory according to which the organic sensations are
responsible for dreams has, moreover, another attraction for the
physician, inasmuch as it favors the etiological union of the dream with
mental derangement, both of which reveal so many points of agreement in
their manifestations, since changes in the general organic massive
sensation and in the stimuli emanating from the internal organs are also
considered to have a far-reaching significance as regards the origin of
the psychoses. It is therefore not surprising that the organic stimulus
theory can be traced to several writers who have propounded this theory
independently.
A number of writers have followed the train of thought
developed by Schopenhauer in 1851. Our conception of the universe has its
origin in the recasting by the intellect of the impressions which reach it
from without in the moulds of time, space and causality. During the day
the stimuli proceeding from the interior of the organism, from the
sympathetic nervous system, exert at most an unconscious influence on our
mood. At night, however, when the overwhelming effect of the impressions
of the day is no longer operative, the impressions that surge upward from
within are able to force themselves on our attention- just as in the night
we hear the rippling of the brook that was drowned in the clamor of the
day. But how else can the intellect react to these stimuli than by
transforming them in accordance with its own function into things which
occupy space and time and follow the lines of causality?- and so a dream
originates. Thus Scherner, and after him Volkelt, endeavored to discover
the more intimate relations between physical sensations and
dream-pictures; but we shall reserve the discussion of this point for our
chapter on the theory of dreams.
As a result of a singularly logical analysis, the
psychiatrist Krauss referred the origin of dreams, and also of deliria and
delusions, to the same element, namely, to organically determined
sensations. According to him, there is hardly any part of the organism
which might not become the starting-point of a dream or a delusion.
Organically determined sensations, he says, "may be divided into two
classes: (1) general sensations- those affecting the whole system; (2)
specific sensations- those that are immanent in the principal systems of
the vegetative organism, and which may in turn be subdivided into five
groups: (a) the muscular, (b) the pneumatic, (c) the gastric, (d) the
sexual, (e) the peripheral sensations (p. 33 of the second article)."
The origin of the dream-image from physical sensations
is conceived by Krauss as follows: The awakened sensation, in accordance
with some law of association, evokes an idea or image bearing some
relation to it, and combines with this idea or image, forming an organic
structure, towards which, however, the consciousness does not maintain its
normal attitude. For it does not bestow any attention on the sensation,
but concerns itself entirely with the accompanying ideas; and this
explains why the facts of the case have been so long misunderstood (p. 11
ff.). Krauss even gives this process the special name of
"transubstantiation of the sensations into dream-images" (p. 24).
The influence of organic physical stimuli on the
formation of dreams is today almost universally admitted, but the question
as to the nature of the law underlying this relation is answered in
various ways, and often obscurely. On the basis of the theory of physical
excitation the special task of dream-interpretation is to trace back the
content of a dream to the causative organic stimulus, and if we do not
accept the rules of interpretation advanced by Scherner, we shall often
find ourselves confronted by the awkward fact that the organic source of
excitation reveals itself only in the content of the dream.
A certain agreement, however, appears in the
interpretation of the various forms of dreams which have been designated
as "typical," because they recur in so many persons with almost the same
content. Among these are the well- known dreams of falling from a height,
of the dropping out of teeth, of flying, and of embarrassment because one
is naked or scantily clad. This last type of dream is said to be caused
simply by the dreamer's perception, felt in his sleep, that he has thrown
off the bedclothes and is uncovered. The dream that one's teeth are
dropping out is explained by "dental irritation," which does not, however,
of necessity imply a morbid condition of irritability in the teeth.
According to Strumpell, the flying dream is the adequate image employed by
the mind to interpret the quantum of stimulus emanating from the rising
and sinking of the pulmonary lobes when the cutaneous sensation of the
thorax has lapsed into insensibility. This latter condition causes the
sensation which gives rise to images of hovering in the air. The dream of
falling from a height is said to be due to the fact that an arm falls away
from the body, or a flexed knee is suddenly extended, after
unconsciousness of the sensation of cutaneous pressure has supervened,
whereupon this sensation returns to consciousness, and the transition from
unconsciousness to consciousness embodies itself psychically as a dream of
falling (Strumpell, p. 118). The weakness of these fairly plausible
attempts at explanation clearly lies in the fact that without any further
elucidation they allow this or that group of organic sensations to
disappear from psychic perception, or to obtrude themselves upon it, until
the constellation favourable for the explanation has been established.
Later on, however, I shall have occasion to return to the subject of
typical dreams and their origin.
From a comparison of a series of similar dreams, M.
Simon endeavored to formulate certain rules governing the influence of
organic sensations on the nature of the resulting dream. He says (p. 34):
"If during sleep any organic apparatus, which normally participates in the
expression of an affect, for any reason enters into the state of
excitation to which it is usually aroused by the affect, the dream thus
produced will contain representations which harmonize with that affect."
Another rule reads as follows (p. 35): "If, during
sleep, an organic apparatus is in a state of activity, stimulation, or
disturbance, the dream will present ideas which correspond with the nature
of the organic function performed by that apparatus."
Mourly Vold has undertaken to prove the supposed
influence of bodily sensation on the production of dreams by experimenting
on a single physiological territory. He changed the positions of a
sleeper's limbs, and compared the resulting dreams with these changes. He
recorded the following results:
1. The position of a limb in a dream corresponds
approximately to that of reality, i.e., we dream of a static condition of
the limb which corresponds with the actual condition.
2. When one dreams of a moving limb it always happens
that one of the positions occurring in the execution of this movement
corresponds with the actual position.
3. The position of one's own limb may in the dream be
attributed to another person.
4. One may also dream that the movement in question is
impeded.
5. The limb in any particular position may appear in
the dream as an animal or monster, in which case a certain analogy between
the two is established.
6. The behaviour of a limb may in the dream incite
ideas which bear some relation or other to this limb. Thus, for example,
if we are using our fingers we dream of numerals.
Results such as these would lead me to conclude that
even the theory of organic stimulation cannot entirely abolish the
apparent freedom of the determination of the dream-picture which will be
evoked. *
* See below for a further discussion of the two volumes
of records of dreams since published by this writer.
4. Psychic sources of excitation
When considering the relation of dreams to waking life,
and the provenance of the material of dreams, we learned that the earliest
as well as the most recent investigators are agreed that men dream of what
they do during the day, and of the things that interest them in the waking
state. This interest, continued from waking life into sleep, is not only a
psychic bond, joining the dream to life, but it is also a source of dreams
whose importance must not be underestimated, and which, taken together
with those stimuli which become active and of interest during sleep,
suffices to explain the origin of all dream-images. Yet we have also heard
the very contrary of this asserted; namely, that dreams bear the sleeper
away from the interests of the day, and that in most cases we do not dream
of things which have occupied our attention during the day until after
they have lost, for our waking life, the stimulating force of belonging to
the present. Hence in the analysis of dream-life we are reminded at every
step that it is inadmissible to frame general rules without making
provision for qualifications by introducing such terms as "frequently,"
"as a rule," "in most cases," and without being prepared to admit the
validity of exceptions.
If interest during the waking state together with the
internal and external stimuli that occur during sleep, sufficed to cover
the whole aetiology of dreams, we should be in a position to give a
satisfactory account of the origin of all the elements of a dream; the
problem of the dream-sources would then be solved, leaving us only the
task of discriminating between the part played by the psychic and that
played by the somatic dream-stimuli in individual dreams. But as a matter
of fact no such complete solution of a dream has ever been achieved in any
case, and everyone who has attempted such a solution has found that
components of the dream- and usually a great many of them- are left whose
source he is unable to trace. The interests of the day as a psychic source
of dreams are obviously not so influential as to justify the confident
assertion that every dreamer continues the activities of his waking life
in his dreams.
Other dream-sources of a psychic nature are not known.
Hence, with the exception perhaps of the explanation of dreams given by
Scherner, to which reference will be made later on, all the explanations
found in the literature of the subject show a considerable hiatus whenever
there is a question of tracing the images and ideas which are the most
characteristic material of dreams. In this dilemma the majority of authors
have developed a tendency to belittle as far as possible the share of the
psychic factor, which is so difficult to determine, in the evocation of
dreams. To be sure, they distinguish as major divisions the nerve-stimulus
dream and the association-dream, and assert that the latter has its source
exclusively in reproduction (Wundt, p. 365), but they cannot dismiss the
doubt as to "whether they appear without any impulsion from organic
stimuli" (Volkelt, p. 127). And even the characteristic quality of the
pure association-dream disappears. To quote Volkelt (p. 118): "In the
association-dream proper, there is no longer any question of such a stable
nucleus. Here the loose grouping penetrates even to the very centre of the
dream. The imaginative life, already released from the control of reason
and intellect, is here no longer held together by the more important
psychical and physical stimuli, but is left to its own uncontrolled and
confused divagations." Wundt, too, attempts to belittle the psychic factor
in the evocation of dreams by asserting that "the phantasms of the dream
are perhaps unjustly regarded as pure hallucinations. Probably most
dream-representations are really illusions, inasmuch as they emanate from
the slight sensory impressions which are never extinguished during sleep"
(p. 359, et seq.). Weygandt has adopted this view, and generalizes upon
it. He asserts that "the most immediate causes of all
dream-representations are sensory stimuli to which reproductive
associations then attach themselves" (p. 17). Tissie goes still further in
suppressing the psychic sources of excitation (p. 183): "Les reves
d'origine absolument psychique n'existent pas"; * and elsewhere (p. 6),
"Les pensees de nos reves nous viennent de dehors...." *(2)
* Dreams do not exist whose origin is totally psychic.
*(2) The thoughts of our dreams come from outside.
Those writers who, like the eminent philosopher Wundt,
adopt a middle course, do not hesitate to assert that in most dreams there
is a cooperation of the somatic stimuli and psychic stimuli which are
either unknown or are identified with the interests of the day.
We shall learn later that the problem of
dream-formation may be solved by the disclosure of an entirely unsuspected
psychic source of excitation. In the meanwhile we shall not be surprised
at the over-estimation of the influence of those stimuli which do not
originate in the psychic life. It is not merely because they alone may
easily be found, and even confirmed by experiment, but because the somatic
conception of the origin of dreams entirely corresponds with the mode of
thought prevalent in modern psychiatry. Here, it is true, the mastery of
the brain over the organism is most emphatically stressed; but everything
that might show that the psychic life is independent of demonstrable
organic changes, or spontaneous in its manifestations, is alarming to the
contemporary psychiatrist, as though such an admission must mean a return
to the old-world natural philosophy and the metaphysical conception of the
nature of the soul. The distrust of the psychiatrist has placed the psyche
under tutelage, so to speak; it requires that none of the impulses of the
psyche shall reveal an autonomous power. Yet this attitude merely betrays
a lack of confidence in the stability of the causal concatenation between
the physical and the psychic. Even where on investigation the psychic may
be recognized as the primary cause of a phenomenon, a more profound
comprehension of the subject will one day succeed in following up the path
that leads to the organic basis of the psychic. But where the psychic
must, in the present state of our knowledge, be accepted as the terminus,
it need not on that account be disavowed. |
