CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED...)
E. The Psychological Peculiarities of Dreams
In our scientific investigation of dreams we start with
the assumption that dreams are a phenomenon of our own psychic activity;
yet the completed dream appears to us as something alien, whose authorship
we are so little inclined to recognize that we should be just as willing
to say "A dream came to me," as "I dreamed." Whence this "psychic
strangeness" of dreams? According to our exposition of the sources of
dreams, we must assume that it is not determined by the material which
finds its way into the dream-content, since this is for the most part
common both to dream-life and waking life. We might ask ourselves whether
this impression is not evoked by modifications of the psychic processes in
dreams, and we might even attempt to suggest that the existence of such
changes is the psychological characteristic of dreams.
No one has more strongly emphasized the essential
difference between dream-life and waking life and drawn more far reaching
conclusions from this difference than G. Th. Fechner in certain
observations contained in his Elemente der Psychophysik (Part II, p. 520).
He believes that "neither the simple depression of conscious psychic life
under the main threshold," nor the distraction of the attention from the
influences of the outer world, suffices to explain the peculiarities of
dream-life as compared with waking life. He believes, rather, that the
arena of dreams is other than the arena of the waking life of the mind.
"If the arena of psychophysical activity were the same during the sleeping
and the waking state, the dream, in my opinion, could only be a
continuation of the waking ideational life at a lower degree of intensity,
so that it would have to partake of the form and material of the latter.
But this is by no means the case."
What Fechner really meant by such a transposition of
the psychic activity has never been made clear, nor has anybody else, to
my knowledge, followed the path which he indicates in this remark. An
anatomical interpretation in the sense of physiological localization in
the brain, or even a histological stratification of the cerebral cortex,
must of course be excluded. The idea might, however, prove ingenious and
fruitful if it could refer to a psychical apparatus built up of a number
of successive and connected systems.
Other authors have been content to give prominence to
this or that palpable psychological peculiarity of the dream-life, and
even to take this as a starting-point for more comprehensive attempts at
explanation.
It has been justly remarked that one of the chief
peculiarities of dream-life makes its appearance even in the state of
falling asleep, and may be defined as the sleep-heralding phenomenon.
According to Schleiermacher (p. 351), the distinguishing characteristic of
the waking state is the fact that its psychic activity occurs in the form
of ideas rather than in that of images. But the dream thinks mainly in
visual images, and it may be noted that with the approach of sleep the
voluntary activities become impeded in proportion as involuntary
representations make their appearance, the latter belonging entirely to
the category of images. The incapacity for such ideational activities as
we feel to be deliberately willed, and the emergence of visual images,
which is regularly connected with this distraction- these are two constant
characteristics of dreams, and on psychological analysis we are compelled
to recognize them as essential characteristics of dream-life. As for the
images themselves the hypnogogic hallucinations- we have learned that even
in their content they are identical with dream-images. *
* Silberer has shown by excellent examples how in the
state of falling asleep even abstract thoughts may be changed into visible
plastic images, which, of course, express them. (Jahrbuch, Bleuler-Freud,
vol. i, 1900.) I shall return to the discussion of his findings later on.
Dreams, then, think preponderantly, but not
exclusively, in visual images. They make use also of auditory images, and,
to a lesser extent, of the other sensory impressions. Moreover, in dreams,
as in the waking state, many things are simply thought or imagined
(probably with the help of remnants of verbal conceptions). Characteristic
of dreams, however, are only those elements of their contents which behave
like images, that is, which more closely resemble perceptions than
mnemonic representations. Without entering upon a discussion of the nature
of hallucinations- a discussion familiar to every psychiatrist- we may
say, with every well-informed authority, that the dream hallucinates- that
is, that it replaces thoughts by hallucinations. In this respect visual
and acoustic impressions behave in the same way. It has been observed that
the recollection of a succession of notes heard as we are falling asleep
becomes transformed, when we have fallen asleep, into a hallucination of
the same melody, to give place, each time we wake, to the fainter and
qualitatively different representations of the memory, and resuming, each
time we doze off again, its hallucinatory character.
The transformation of an idea into a hallucination is
not the only departure of the dream from the more or less corresponding
waking thought. From these images the dream creates a situation; it
represents something as actually present; it dramatizes an idea, as Spitta
(p. 145) puts it. But the peculiar character of this aspect of the
dream-life is completely intelligible only if we admit that in dreaming we
do not as a rule (the exceptions call for special examination) suppose
ourselves to be thinking, but actually experiencing; that is, we accept
the hallucination in perfectly good faith. The criticism that one has
experienced nothing, but that one has merely been thinking in a peculiar
manner- dreaming- occurs to us only on waking. It is this characteristic
which distinguishes the genuine dream from the day-dream, which is never
confused with reality.
The characteristics of the dream-life thus far
considered have been summed up by Burdach (p. 476) as follows: "As
characteristic features of the dream we may state (a) that the subjective
activity of our psyche appears as objective, inasmuch as our perceptive
faculties apprehend the products of phantasy as though they were sensory
activities... (b) that sleep abrogates our voluntary action; hence falling
asleep involves a certain degree of passivity... The images of sleep are
conditioned by the relaxation of our powers of will."
It now remains to account for the credulity of the mind
in respect to the dream-hallucinations which are able to make their
appearance only after the suspension of certain voluntary powers.
Strumpell asserts that in this respect the psyche behaves correctly and in
conformity with its mechanism. The dream-elements are by no means mere
representations, but true and actual experiences of the psyche, similar to
those which come to the waking state by way of the senses (p. 34). Whereas
in the waking state the mind thinks and imagines by means of verbal images
and language, in dreams it thinks and imagines in actual perceptual images
(p. 35). Dreams, moreover, reveal a spatial consciousness, inasmuch as in
dreams, just as in the waking state, sensations and images are transposed
into outer space (p. 36). It must therefore be admitted that in dreams the
mind preserves the same attitude in respect of images and perceptions as
in the waking state (p. 43). And if it forms erroneous conclusions in
respect of these images and perceptions, this is due to the fact that in
sleep it is deprived of that criterion which alone can distinguish between
sensory perceptions emanating from within and those coming from without.
It is unable to subject its images to those tests which alone can prove
their objective reality. Further, it neglects to differentiate between
those images which can be exchanged at will and those in respect of which
there is no free choice. It errs because it cannot apply the law of
causality to the content of its dreams (p. 58). In brief, its alienation
from the outer world is the very reason for its belief in its subjective
dream-world.
Delboeuf arrives at the same conclusion through a
somewhat different line of argument. We believe in the reality of
dream-pictures because in sleep we have no other impressions with which to
compare them; because we are cut off from the outer world. But it is not
because we are unable, when asleep, to test our hallucinations that we
believe in their reality. Dreams can make us believe that we are applying
such tests- that we are touching, say, the rose that we see in our dream;
and yet we are dreaming. According to Delboeuf there is no valid criterion
that can show whether something is a dream or a waking reality, except-
and that only pragmatically- the fact of waking. "I conclude that all that
has been experienced between falling asleep and waking is a delusion, if I
find on waking that I am lying undressed in bed" (p. 84). "I considered
the images of my dream real while I was asleep on account of the
unsleeping mental habit of assuming an outer world with which I can
contrast my ego." *
* Haffner, like Delboeuf, has attempted to explain the
act of dreaming by the alteration which an abnormally introduced condition
must have upon the otherwise correct functioning of the intact psychic
apparatus; but he describes this condition in somewhat different terms. He
states that the first distinguishing mark of dreams is the abolition of
time and space, i.e., the emancipation of the representation from the
individual's position in the spatial and temporal order. Associated with
this is the second fundamental character of dreams, the mistaking of the
hallucinations, imaginations, and phantasy-combinations for objective
perceptions. "The sum-total of the higher psychic functions, particularly
the formation of concepts, judgments, and conclusions on the one hand, and
free self-determination on the other hand, combine with the sensory
phantasy-images, and at all times have these as a substratum. These
activities too, therefore, participate in the erratic nature of the
dream-representations. We say they participate, for our faculties of
judgment and will are in themselves unaltered during sleep. As far as
their activity is concerned, we are just as shrewd and just as free as in
the waking state. A man cannot violate the laws of thought; that is, even
in a dream he cannot judge things to be identical which present themselves
to him as opposites. He can desire in a dream only that which he regards
as a good (sub ratione boni). But in this application of the laws of
thought and will the human intellect is led astray in dreams by confusing
one notion with another. Thus it happens that in dreams we formulate and
commit the greatest of contradictions, while, on the other hand, we
display the shrewdest judgment and arrive at the most logical conclusions,
and are able to make the most virtuous and sacred resolutions. The lack of
orientation is the whole secret of our flights of phantasy in dreams, and
the lack of critical reflection and agreement with other minds is the main
source of the reckless extravagances of our judgments, hopes and wishes in
dreams" (p. 18).
If the turning-away from the outer world is accepted as
the decisive cause of the most conspicuous characteristics of our dreams,
it will be worth our while to consider certain subtle observations of
Burdach's, which will throw some light on the relation of the sleeping
psyche to the outer world, and at the same time serve to prevent our
over-estimating the importance of the above deductions. "Sleep," says
Burdach, "results only under the condition that the mind is not excited by
sensory stimuli... yet it is not so much a lack of sensory stimuli that
conditions sleep as a lack of interest in them; * some sensory impressions
are even necessary in so far as they serve to calm the mind; thus the
miller can fall asleep only when he hears the clatter of his mill, and he
who finds it necessary, as a matter of precaution, to burn a light at
night, cannot fall asleep in the dark" (p. 457).
* Compare with this the element of "Desinteret," in
which Claparede (1905) finds the mechanism of falling asleep.
"During sleep the psyche isolates itself from the outer
world, and withdraws from the periphery.... Nevertheless, the connection
is not entirely broken; if one did not hear and feel during sleep, but
only after waking, one would assuredly never be awakened at all. The
continuance of sensation is even more plainly shown by the fact that we
are not always awakened by the mere force of the sensory impression, but
by its relation to the psyche. An indifferent word does not arouse the
sleeper, but if called by name he wakes... so that even in sleep the
psyche discriminates between sensations.... Hence one may even be awakened
by the obliteration of a sensory stimulus, if this is related to anything
of imagined importance. Thus one man wakes when the nightlight is
extinguished, and the miller when his mill comes to a standstill; that is,
waking is due to the cessation of a sensory activity, and this presupposes
that the activity has been perceived, but has not disturbed the mind, its
effect being indifferent, or actually reassuring" (p. 46, etc.).
Even if we are willing to disregard these by no means
trifling objections, we must yet admit that the qualities of dream-life
hitherto considered, which are attributed to withdrawal from the outer
world, cannot fully account for the strangeness of dreams. For otherwise
it would be possible to reconvert the hallucinations of the dream into
mental images, and the situations of the dream into thoughts, and thus to
achieve the task of dream-interpretation. Now this is precisely what we do
when we reproduce a dream from memory after waking, and no matter whether
we are fully or only partially successful in this retranslation, the dream
still remains as mysterious as before.
Furthermore, all writers unhesitatingly assume that
still other and profounder changes take place in the plastic material of
waking life. Strumpell seeks to isolate one of these changes as follows:
(p. 17) "With the cessation of active sensory perception and of normal
consciousness, the psyche is deprived of the soil in which its feelings,
desires, interests, and activities are rooted. Those psychic states,
feelings, interests, and valuations, which in the waking state adhere to
memory-images, succumb to an obscuring pressure, in consequence of which
their connection with these images is severed; the perceptual images of
things, persons, localities, events and actions of the waking state are,
individually, abundantly reproduced, but none of these brings with it its
psychic value. Deprived of this, they hover in the mind dependent on their
own resources..."
This annihilation of psychic values, which is in turn
referred to a turning away from the outer world, is, according to
Strumpell, very largely responsible for the impression of strangeness with
which the dream is coloured in our memory.
We have seen that the very fact of falling asleep
involves a renunciation of one of the psychic activities- namely, the
voluntary guidance of the flow of ideas. Thus the supposition obtrudes
itself (though it is in any case a natural one) that the state of sleep
may extend even to the psychic functions. One or another of these
functions is perhaps entirely suspended; we have now to consider whether
the rest continue to operate undisturbed, whether they are able to perform
their normal work under the circumstances. The idea occurs to us that the
peculiarities of the dream may be explained by the restricted activity of
the psyche during sleep, and the impression made by the dream upon our
waking judgment tends to confirm this view. The dream is incoherent; it
reconciles, without hesitation, the worst contradictions; it admits
impossibilities; it disregards the authoritative knowledge of the waking
state, and it shows us as ethically and morally obtuse. He who should
behave in the waking state as his dreams represent him as behaving would
be considered insane. He who in the waking state should speak as he does
in his dreams, or relate such things as occur in his dreams, would impress
us as a feeble-minded or muddle-headed person. It seems to us, then, that
we are merely speaking in accordance with the facts of the case when we
rate psychic activity in dreams very low, and especially when we assert
that in dreams the higher intellectual activities are suspended or at
least greatly impaired.
With unusual unanimity (the exceptions will be dealt
with elsewhere) the writers on the subject have pronounced such judgments
as lead immediately to a definite theory or explanation of dream-life. It
is now time to supplement the resume which I have just given by a series
of quotations from a number of authors- philosophers and physicians-
bearing upon the psychological characteristics of the dream.
According to Lemoine, the incoherence of the
dream-images is the sole essential characteristic of the dream.
Maury agrees with him (Le Sommeil, p. 163): "Il n'y a
pas des reves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque
incoherence, quelque absurdite." *
* There are no dreams which are absolutely reasonable
which do not contain some incoherence, some absurdity.
According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta, the dream lacks
any intelligible objective coherence.
Dugas says: "Les reve, c'est l'anarchie psychique,
affective et mentale, c'est le jeu des fonctions livrees a elles-memes et
s'exercant sans controle et sans but; dans le reve l'esprit est un
automate spirituel." *
* The dream is psychic anarchy, emotional and
intellectual, the playing of functions, freed of themselves and performing
without control and without end; in the dream, the mind is a spiritual
automaton.
"The relaxation, dissolution, and promiscuous confusion
of the world of ideas and images held together in waking life by the
logical power of the central ego" is conceded even by Volkelt (p. 14),
according to whose theory the psychic activity during sleep appears to be
by no means aimless.
The absurdity of the associations of ideas which occur
in dreams can hardly be more strongly stigmatized than it was by Cicero
(De Divinatione, II. lxxi): "Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam
monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare." *
* There is no imaginable thing too absurd, too
involved, or too abnormal for us to dream about.
Fechner says (p. 522): "It is as though the
psychological activity of the brain of a reasonable person were to migrate
into that of a fool."
Radestock (p. 145): "It seems indeed impossible to
recognize any stable laws in this preposterous behaviour. Withdrawing
itself from the strict policing of the rational will that guides our
waking ideas, and from the processes of attention, the dream, in crazy
sport, whirls all things about in kaleidoscopic confusion."
Hildebrandt (p. 45): "What wonderful jumps the dreamer
permits himself, for instance, in his chain of reasoning! With what
unconcern he sees the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down!
What ridiculous contradictions he is able to tolerate in the order of
nature and of society, before things go too far, and the very excess of
nonsense leads to an awakening! Sometimes we quite innocently calculate
that three times three make twenty; and we are not in the least surprised
if a dog recites poetry to us, if a dead person walks to his grave, or if
a rock floats on the water. We solemnly go to visit the duchy of Bernburg
or the principality of Liechtenstein in order to inspect its navy; or we
allow ourselves to be recruited as a volunteer by Charles XII just before
the battle of Poltava."
Binz (p. 33), referring to the theory of dreams
resulting from these impressions, says: "Of ten dreams nine at least have
an absurd content. We unite in them persons or things which do not bear
the slightest relation to one another. In the next moment, as in a
kaleidoscope, the grouping changes to one, if possible, even more
nonsensical and irrational than before; and so the shifting play of the
drowsy brain continues, until we wake, put a hand to our forehead, and ask
ourselves whether we still really possess the faculty of rational
imagination and thought."
Maury, Le Sommeil (p. 50) makes, in respect of the
relation of the dream-image to the waking thoughts, a comparison which a
physician will find especially impressive: "La production de ces images
que chez l'homme eveille fait le plus souvent naitre la volonte,
correspond, pour l'intelligence, a ce que sont pour la motilite certains
mouvements que nous offrent la choree et les affections paralytiques...."
* For the rest, he considers the dream "toute une serie de degradations de
la faculte pensante et raisonnante" *(2) (p. 27).
* The production of those images which, in the waking
man, most often excite the will, correspond, for the mind, to those which
are, for the motility, certain movements that offer St. Vitus' dance and
paralytic affections...
*(2) A whole series of degradations of the faculty of
thinking and reasoning.
It is hardly necessary to cite the utterances of those
authors who repeat Maury's assertion in respect of the higher individual
psychic activities.
According to Strumpell, in dreams- and even, of course,
where the nonsensical nature of the dream is not obvious- all the logical
operations of the mind, based on relations and associations, recede into
the background (p. 26). According to Spitta (p. 148) ideas in dreams are
entirely withdrawn from the laws of causality; while Radestock and others
emphasize the feebleness of judgment and logical inference peculiar to
dreams. According to Jodl (p. 123), there is no criticism in dreams, no
correcting of a series of perceptions by the content of consciousness as a
whole. The same author states that "All the activities of consciousness
occur in dreams, but they are imperfect, inhibited, and mutually
isolated." The contradictions of our conscious knowledge which occur in
dreams are explained by Stricker and many others on the ground that facts
are forgotten in dreams, or that the logical relations between ideas are
lost (p. 98), etc., etc.
Those authors who, in general, judge so unfavorably of
the psychic activities of the dreamer nevertheless agree that dreams do
retain a certain remnant of psychic activity. Wundt, whose teaching has
influenced so many other investigators of dream-problems, expressly admits
this. We may ask, what are the nature and composition of the remnants of
normal psychic life which manifest themselves in dreams? It is pretty
generally acknowledged that the reproductive faculty, the memory, seems to
be the least affected in dreams; it may, indeed, show a certain
superiority over the same function in waking life (see chapter I, B), even
though some of the absurdities of dreams are to be explained by the
forgetfulness of dream-life. According to Spitta, it is the sentimental
life of the psyche which is not affected by sleep, and which thus directs
our dreams. By sentiment (Gemut) he means "the constant sum of the
emotions as the inmost subjective essence of the man" (p. 84).
Scholz (p. 37) sees in dreams a psychic activity which
manifests itself in the "allegorizing interpretation" to which the
dream-material is subjected. Siebeck (p. 11) likewise perceives in dreams
a "supplementary interpretative activity" of the psyche, which applies
itself to all that is observed and perceived. Any judgment of the part
played in dreams by what is presumed to be the highest psychical function,
i.e., consciousness, presents a peculiar difficulty. Since it is only
through consciousness that we can know anything of dreams, there can be no
doubt as to its being retained. Spitta, however, believes that only
consciousness is retained in the dream, but not self-consciousness.
Delboeuf confesses that he is unable to comprehend this distinction.
The laws of association which connect our mental images
hold good also for what is represented in dreams; indeed, in dreams the
dominance of these laws is more obvious and complete than in the waking
state. Strumpell (p. 70) says: "Dreams would appear to proceed either
exclusively in accordance with the laws of pure representation, or in
accordance with the laws of organic stimuli accompanied by such
representations; that is, without being influenced by reflection, reason,
aesthetic taste, or moral judgment." The authors whose opinions I here
reproduce conceive the formation of the dream somewhat as follows: The sum
of sensory stimuli of varying origin (discussed elsewhere) that are
operative in sleep at first awaken in the psyche a number of images which
present themselves as hallucinations (according to Wundt, it is more
correct to say "as illusions," because of their origin in external and
internal stimuli). These combine with one another in accordance with the
known laws of association, and, in accordance with the same laws, they in
turn evoke a new series of representations (images). The whole of this
material is then elaborated as far as possible by the still active remnant
of the thinking and organizing faculties of the psyche (cf. Wundt and
Weygandt). Thus far, however, no one has been successful in discerning the
motive which would decide what particular law of association is to be
obeyed by those images which do not originate in external stimuli.
But it has been repeatedly observed that the
associations which connect the dream-images with one another are of a
particular kind, differing from those found in the activities of the
waking mind. Thus Volkelt (p. 15): "In dreams the ideas chase and seize
upon one another on the strength of accidental similarities and barely
perceptible connections. All dreams are pervaded by casual and
unconstrained associations of this kind." Maury attaches great value to
this characteristic of the connection of ideas, for it allows him to draw
a closer analogy between the dream-life and certain mental derangements.
He recognizes two main characteristics of "deliria": "(1) une action
spontanee et comme automatique de l'esprit; (2) une association vicieuse
et irreguliere des idees" * (p. 126). Maury gives us two excellent
examples from his own dreams, in which the mere similarity of sound
decides the connection between the dream-representations. Once he dreamed
that he was on a pilgrimage (pelerinage) to Jerusalem, or to Mecca. After
many adventures he found himself in the company of the chemist Pelletier;
the latter, after some conversation, gave him a galvanized shovel (pelle)
which became his great broadsword in the next portion of the dream (p.
137). In another dream he was walking along a highway where he read the
distances on the kilometre-stones; presently he found himself at a
grocer's who had a large pair of scales; a man put kilogramme weights into
the scales, in order to weigh Maury; the grocer then said to him: "You are
not in Paris, but on the island Gilolo." This was followed by a number of
pictures, in which he saw the flower lobelia, and then General Lopez, of
whose death he had read a little while previously. Finally he awoke as he
was playing a game of lotto. *(2)
* (1) An action of the mind spontaneous and as though
automatic; (2) a defective and irregular association of ideas.
*(2) Later on we shall be able to understand the
meaning of dreams like these which are full of words with similar sounds
or the same initial letters.
We are, indeed, quite well aware that this low estimate
of the psychic activities of the dream has not been allowed to pass
without contradiction from various quarters. Yet here contradiction would
seem rather difficult. It is not a matter of much significance that one of
the depreciators of dream-life, Spitta (p. 118), should assure us that the
same psychological laws which govern the waking state rule the dream also,
or that another (Dugas) should state: "Le reve n'est pas deraison ni meme
irraison pure," * so long as neither of them has attempted to bring this
opinion into harmony with the psychic anarchy and dissolution of all
mental functions in the dream which they themselves have described.
However, the possibility seems to have dawned upon others that the madness
of the dream is perhaps not without its method- that it is perhaps only a
disguise, a dramatic pretence, like that of Hamlet, to whose madness this
perspicacious judgment refers. These authors must either have refrained
from judging by appearances, or the appearances were, in their case,
altogether different.
* The dream is neither pure derangement nor pure
irrationality.
Without lingering over its superficial absurdity,
Havelock Ellis considers the dream as "an archaic world of vast emotions
and imperfect thoughts," the study of which may acquaint us with the
primitive stages of the development of mental life. J. Sully (p. 362)
presents the same conception of the dream in a still more comprehensive
and penetrating fashion. His statements deserve all the more consideration
when it is added that he, perhaps more than any other psychologist, was
convinced of the veiled significance of the dream. "Now our dreams are a
means of conserving these successive personalities. When asleep we go back
to the old ways of looking at things and of feeling about them, to
impulses and activities which long ago dominated us." A thinker like
Delboeuf asserts- without, indeed, adducing proof in the face of
contradictory data, and hence without real justification- "Dans le
sommeil, hormis la perception, toutes les facultes de l'esprit,
intelligence, imagination, memoire, volonte, moralite, restent intactes
dans leur essence; seulement, elles s'appliquent a des objets imaginaires
et mobiles. Le songeur est un acteur qui joue a volonte les fous et les
sages, les bourreaux et les victimes, les nains et les geants, les demons
et les anges" * (p. 222). The Marquis Hervey, *(2) who is flatly
contradicted by Maury, and whose essay I have been unable to obtain
despite all my efforts, appears emphatically to protest against the
under-estimation of the psychic capacity in the dream. Maury speaks of him
as follows (p. 19): "M. le Marquis Hervey prete a l'intelligence durant le
sommeil toute sa liberte d'action et d'attention, et il ne semble faire
consister le sommeil que dans l'occlusion des sens, dans leur fermeture au
monde exterieur; en sorte que l'homme qui dort ne se distingue guere,
selon sa maniere de voir, de l'homme qui laisse vaguer sa pensee en se
bouchant les sens; toute la difference qui separe alors la pensee
ordinaire du celle du dormeur c'est que, chez celui-ci, l'idee prend une
forme visible, objective, et ressemble, a s'y meprendre, a la sensation
determinee par les objets exterieurs; le souvenir revet l'apparence du
fait present." *(3)
* In sleep, excepting perception, all the faculties of
the mind intellect, imagination, memory, will, morality- remain intact in
their essence; only, they are applied to imaginary and variable objects.
The dreamer is an actor who plays at will the mad and the wise,
executioner and victim, dwarf and giant, devil and angel.
*(2) Hervey de St. Denys.
*(3) The Marquis Hervey attributes to the intelligence
during sleep all its freedom of action and attention, and he seems to make
sleep consist only of the shutting of the senses, of their closing to the
outside world; except for his manner of seeing, the man asleep is hardly
distinguishable from the man who allows his mind to wander while he
obstructs his senses; the whole difference, then, between ordinary thought
and that of the sleeper, is that with the latter the idea takes an
objective and visible shape, which resembles, to all appearances,
sensation determined by exterior objects; memory takes on the appearance
of present fact.
Maury adds, however, "qu'il y a une difference de plus
et capitale a savoir que les facultes intellectuelles de l'homme endormi
n'offrent pas l'equilibre qu'elles gardent chez l'homme eveille." *
* That there is a further and important difference in
that the mental faculties of the sleeping man do not offer the equilibrium
which they keep in the waking state.
In Vaschide, who gives us fully information as to
Hervey's book, we find that this author expresses himself as follows, in
respect to the apparent incoherence of dreams: "L'image du reve est la
copie de l'idee. Le principal est l'idee; la vision n'est pas
qu'accessoire. Ceci etabli, il faut savoir suivre la marche des idees, il
faut savoir analyser le tissu des reves; l'incoherence devient alors
comprehensible, les conceptions les plus fantasques deviennent des faits
simples et parfaitement logiques" * (p. 146). And (p. 147): "Les reves les
plus bizarres trouvent meme une explication des plus logiques quand on
sait les analyser." *(2)
* The image in a dream is a copy of an idea. The main
thing is the idea; the vision is only accessory. This established, it is
necessary to know how to follow the progression of ideas, how to analyse
the texture of the dreams; incoherence then is understandable, the most
fantastic concepts become simple and perfectly logical facts.
*(2) Even the most bizarre dreams find a most logical
explanation when one knows how to analyse them.
J. Starke has drawn attention to the fact that a
similar solution of the incoherence of dreams was put forward in 1799 by
an old writer, Wolf Davidson, who was unknown to me (p. 136): "The
peculiar leaps of our imaginings in the dream-state all have their cause
in the laws of association, but this connection often occurs very
obscurely in the soul, so that we frequently seem to observe a leap of the
imagination where none really exists."
The evaluation of the dream as a psychic product in the
literature of the subject varies over a very wide scale; it extends from
the extreme of under-estimation, as we have already seen, through
premonitions that it may have a value as yet unrevealed, to an exaggerated
over-estimation, which sets the dream-life far above the capacities of
waking life. In his psychological characterization of dream-life,
Hildebrandt, as we know, groups it into three antinomies, and he combines
in the third of these antinomies the two extreme points of this scale of
values (p. 19): "It is the contrast between, on the one hand, an
enhancement, an increase of potentiality, which often amounts to
virtuosity, and on the other hand a decided diminution and enfeeblement of
the psychic life, often to a sub-human level."
"As regards the first, who is there that cannot confirm
from his own experience the fact that in the workings and weavings of the
genius of dreams, there are sometimes exhibited a profundity and sincerity
of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a clearness of view, a subtlety of
observation and a readiness of wit, such as we should have modestly to
deny that we always possessed in our waking life? Dreams have a wonderful
poetry, an apposite allegory, an incomparable sense of humour, a
delightful irony. They see the world in the light of a peculiar
idealization, and often intensify the effect of their phenomena by the
most ingenious understanding of the reality underlying them. They show us
earthly beauty in a truly heavenly radiance, the sublime in its supremest
majesty, and that which we know to be terrible in its most frightful form,
while the ridiculous becomes indescribably and drastically comical. And on
waking we are sometimes still so full of one of these impressions that it
will occur to us that such things have never yet been offered to us by the
real world."
One might here ask oneself: do these depreciatory
remarks and these enthusiastic praises really refer to the self-same
phenomenon? Have some writers overlooked the foolish and others the
profound and sensitive dreams? And if both kinds of dreams do occur- that
is, dreams that merit both these judgments- does it not seem idle to seek
a psychological characterization of the dream? Would it not suffice to
state that everything is possible in the dream, from the lowest
degradation of the psychic life to its flight to heights unknown in the
waking state? Convenient as such a solution might be, it has this against
it: that behind the efforts of all the investigators of dreams there seems
to lurk the assumption that there is in dreams some characteristic which
is universally valid in its essential features, and which must eliminate
all these contradictions.
It is unquestionably true that the mental capacities of
dreams found readier and warmer recognition in the intellectual period now
lying behind us, when philosophy rather than exact natural science ruled
the more intelligent minds. Statements like that of Schubert, to the
effect that the dream frees the mind from the power of external nature,
that it liberates the soul from the chains of sensory life, together with
similar opinions expressed by the younger Fichte * and others, who
represent dreams as a soaring of the mind to a higher plane- all these
seem hardly conceivable to us today; they are repeated at present only by
mystics and devotees. *(2) With the advance of a scientific mode of
thought a reaction took place in the estimation of dreams. It is the
medical writers who are most inclined to underrate the psychic activity in
dreams, as being insignificant and valueless; while philosophers and
unprofessional observers- amateur psychologists- whose contributions to
the subject in especial must not be overlooked, have for the most part, in
agreement with popular belief, laid emphasis on the psychological value of
dreams. Those who are inclined to underrate the psychic activity of dreams
naturally show a preference for the somatic sources of excitation in the
aetiology of the dream; those who admit that the dreaming mind may retain
the greater part of its waking faculties naturally have no motive for
denying the existence of autonomous stimulations
* Cf. Haffner and Spitta.
*(2) That brilliant mystic, Du Prel, one of the few
writers for the omission of whose name in earlier editions of this book I
should like to apologize, has said that, so far as the human mind is
concerned, it is not the waking state but dreams which are the gateway to
metaphysics (Philosophie der Mystik, p. 59).
Among the superior accomplishments which one may be
tempted, even on a sober comparison, to ascribe to the dream-life, that of
memory is the most impressive. We have fully discussed the by no means
rare experiences which prove this superiority. Another privilege of the
dream-life, often extolled by the older writers- namely, the fact that it
can overstep the limitations of time and space- is easily recognized as an
illusion. This privilege, as Hildebrandt remarks, is merely illusory;
dreams disregard time and space only as does waking thought, and only
because dreaming is itself a form of thinking. Dreams are supposed to
enjoy a further advantage in respect of time- to be independent of the
passage of time in yet another sense. Dreams like Maury's dream of his
execution (p. 147 above) seem to show that the perceptual content which
the dream can compress into a very short space of time far exceeds that
which can be mastered by our psychic activity in its waking thoughts.
These conclusions have, however, been disputed. The essays of Le Lorrain
and Egger on The Apparent Duration of Dreams gave rise to a long and
interesting discussion, which in all probability has not yet found the
final explanation of this profound and delicate problem. *
* For the further literature of the subject, and a
critical discussion of these problems, the reader is referred to
Tobowolska's dissertation (Paris, 1900).
That dreams are able to continue the intellectual
activities of the day and to carry them to a point which could not be
arrived at during the day, that they may resolve doubts and problems, and
that they may be the source of fresh inspiration in poets and composers,
seems, in the light of numerous records, and of the collection of
instances compiled by Chabaneix, to be proved beyond question. But even
though the facts may be beyond dispute, their interpretation is subject to
many doubts on wider grounds. *
* Compare Havelock Ellis's criticism in The World of
Dreams, p. 268.
Finally, the alleged divinatory power of the dream has
become a subject of contention in which almost insuperable objections are
confronted by obstinate and reiterated assertions. It is, of course, right
that we should refrain from denying that this view has any basis whatever
in fact, since it is quite possible that a number of such cases may before
long be explained on purely natural psychological grounds. |
