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Title: The World of Dreams
Author: Ellis, Havelock
Language: English
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THE WORLD OF DREAMS
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE SOUL OF SPAIN.
AFFIRMATIONS. _Second Edition._
IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS.
IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS. _Second Series._
THE TASK OF SOCIAL HYGIENE.
THE
WORLD OF DREAMS
BY
HAVELOCK ELLIS
'Sleep has its own world'
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1922
PREFACE
There are at least four different ways of writing a book on dreams. There
is, for instance, the _literary_ method. In this way one goes to books
or to the memories of other people for one's material, and so collects
a great number of more or less wonderful stories. I have rejected this
method, for it is entirely untrustworthy. Dreams are elusive at the
best; only a very careful observer can set down a dream faithfully, even
directly after it has occurred, and no one can safely entrust a dream to
memory.
There is, again, what I may call the _clinical_ method of studying dreams
by the personal observation and collection of facts, with summation
and analysis of the results. On a large scale, with the aid of the
_questionnaire_, this method has been especially carried on in the United
States, notably at Clark University under the inspiration of Dr. Stanley
Hall. A strict and scientific adherence to the clinical method of studying
dreams has resulted in Professor Sante de Sanctis's book _I Sogni_ (first
edition 1899), which is, on the whole, the best book on dreams published
in recent years.
Then there is the _experimental_ method, which, not content with mere
objective study of the phenomena, endeavours to interfere with them and
to find out the results of interference. This method may be combined
with other methods of studying dreams. In its pure form it has in recent
years been especially practised by the late Mourly Vold. Its results are
not without interest, but they do not cover a large part of the field,
and they are not altogether reliable. Dreaming activity is so fluid and
suggestible--and this is notably so when experimenter and subject are the
same person--that interference with the phenomena deforms them, and we
cannot be sure that by experiment we have really learned much about the
life of dreams.
There is, finally, the _introspective_ method. This may be said to be
the earliest of the more scientific methods of studying dreams. Maine de
Biran was here a pioneer, and Maury, in his famous book, _Le Sommeil et
les Rêves_ (1861), which inaugurated the modern study of dreams, adopted
a mainly introspective method, though he was not always quite successful
in avoiding the fallacies of that method. It is in France that this method
has been most frequently and most successfully cultivated.
Professor Sigmund Freud's _Die Traumdeutung_ (first edition, 1900), may be
said to belong to the introspective class, though to a special division
which Freud himself terms psycho-analytic. This is undoubtedly the most
original, the most daring, the most challenging of recent books on dreams,
and is now the text-book of a whole school of investigators. It is not
a book to be neglected, for it is written by one of the profoundest of
living investigators into the obscure depths of the human soul. Even if
one rejects Freud's methods as unsatisfactory and his facts as unproved,
the work of one so bold and so sincere cannot fail to be helpful and
stimulating in the highest degree. If it is not the truth it will at least
help us to reach the truth.
The little book now presented to the reader belongs mainly to the
introspective group of dream studies, though not to the psycho-analytic
variety. It is based on data which have accumulated beneath my hands
during more than twenty years, and some of the ideas developed in it
were put forward in a paper 'On Dreaming of the Dead,' _Psychological
Review_, Sept. 1895; in 'A Note on Hypnagogic Paramnesia,' _Mind_, No.
22, 1896; and in 'The Stuff that Dreams are made of,' _Popular Science
Monthly_, April 1899. The book is not the outcome of experiment or of
any deliberate concentration of thought on dreaming. I have simply noted
down dream experiences,--most often in myself, less often in immediate
friends,--directly they have occurred, usually on awakening in the
morning. The few unimportant exceptions to the rule are duly noted. By
maintaining this rule I have been able to satisfy myself that everything
I have set down is reasonably accurate. Such a method certainly tends
towards the exclusion of peculiar and exceptional dreams. This I do
not greatly regret. I am chiefly interested in the problems of normal
dreaming; they are sufficiently puzzling and mysterious and they properly
present themselves for explanation first. I do not wish it to be
understood that I question the existence of telepathic and other abnormal
dream experiences. That is not the case. But it so happens that under the
conditions I have laid down I have not met with any dreams that clearly
and decisively belong to this abnormal class. Such few possible examples
as have come under my immediate observation (in no case as personal
experiences) are slight, and, moreover, sometimes of too intimate a
character for full exposition.
Thus my contribution to the psychology of dreaming is simple and
unpretentious; it deals only with the fundamental elements of the subject.
I do not make this statement entirely in a spirit of humility. It seems to
me that in the past the literature of dreaming has often been overweighted
by bad observation and reckless theory. By learning to observe and to
understand the ordinary nightly experience of dream life we shall best be
laying the foundation of future superstructures. For, rightly understood,
dreams may furnish us with clues to the whole of life.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
The House of Dreams--Fallacies in the Study of Dreams--Is it
possible to Study Dreams?--How Fallacies may be Avoided--Do
we always Dream during Sleep?--The Two Main
Sources of Dreams with their Sub-divisions, 1
CHAPTER II
THE ELEMENTS OF DREAM LIFE
The Spontaneous Procession of Dream Imagery--Its Kaleidoscopic
Character--Attention in Dreams--Relation of Drug
Visions and Hypnagogic Imagery to Dreaming--Colour in
Dreams--The Fusion of Dream Imagery--Compared to
Dissolving Views--Sources of the Imagery--Various types
of Fusion--The Sub-Conscious Element in Dreaming--Verbal
Transformations as Links in Dream Imagery--The
Reduplication of Visual Imagery in Motor and other Terms, 20
CHAPTER III
THE LOGIC OF DREAMS
All Dreaming is a Process of Reasoning--The Fundamental
Character of Reasoning--Reasoning as a Synthesis of
Images--Dream Reasoning Instinctive and Automatic--It
is also Consciously carried on--This a result of the
Fundamental Split in Intelligence--Dissociation--Dreaming
as a Disturbance of Apperception, 56
CHAPTER IV
THE SENSES IN DREAMS
All Dreams probably contain both Presentative and Representative
Elements--The Influence of Tactile Sensations on
Dreams--Dreams excited by Auditory Stimuli--Dreams
aroused by Odours and Tastes--The Influence of Visual
Stimuli--Difficulty of distinguishing between Actual and
Imagined Sensory Excitations--The Influence of Internal
Visceral Stimuli on Dreaming--Erotic Dreams--Vesical
Dreams--Cardiac Dreams and their Symbolism--Prodromic
Dreams--Prophetic Dreams, 71
CHAPTER V
EMOTION IN DREAMS
Emotion and Imagination--How Stimuli are transformed into
Emotion--Somnambulism--The Failure of Movement in
Dreams--Nightmare--Influence of the approach of Awakening
on imagined Dream movements--The Magnification of
Imagery--Peripheral and Cerebral Conditions combine to
produce this Imaginative Heightening--Emotion in Sleep
also Heightened--Dreams formed to explain Heightened
Emotions of unknown origin--The fundamental Place of
Emotion in Dreams--Visceral and especially Gastric disturbance
as a source of Emotion--Symbolism in Dreams--The
Dreamer's Moral Attitude--Why Murder so often takes
place in Dreams--Moral Feeling not Abolished in Dreams
though sometimes Impaired, 94
CHAPTER VI
AVIATION IN DREAMS
Dreams of Flying and Falling--Their Peculiar Vividness--Dreams
of Flying an Alleged Survival of Primeval Experiences--Best
explained as based on Respiratory Sensations
combined with Cutaneous Anaesthesia--The Explanation
of Dreams of Falling--The Sensation of Levitation sometimes
experienced by Ecstatic Saints--Also experienced at
the Moment of Death, 129
CHAPTER VII
SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS
The Dramatisation of Subjective Feelings Based on
Dissociation--Analogies in Waking Life--The Synaesthesias and
Number-forms--Symbolism in Language--In Music--The Organic Basis
of Dream Symbolism--The Omnipotence of Symbolism--Oneiromancy--The
Scientific Interpretation of Dreams--Why Symbolism prevails
in Dreaming--Freud's Theory of Dreaming--Dreams as Fulfilled
Wishes--Why this Theory cannot be applied to all Dreaming--The
Complete Form of Symbolism in Dreams--Splitting up of
Personality--Self-objectivation in Imaginary Personalities--The
Dramatic Element in Dreams--Hallucinations--Multiple
Personality--Insanity--Self-objectivation a Primitive Tendency--Its
Survival in Civilisation, 148
CHAPTER VIII
DREAMS OF THE DEAD
Mental Dissociation during sleep--Illustrated by the Dream of
Returning to School Life--The Typical Dream of a Dead
Friend--Examples--Early Records of this Type of Dream--Analysis
of such Dreams--Atypical Forms--The Consolation
sometimes afforded by Dreams of the Dead--Ancient
Legends of this Dream Type--The Influence of Dreams on
the Belief of Primitive Man in the Survival of the Dead, 194
CHAPTER IX
MEMORY IN DREAMS
The Apparent Rapidity of Thought in Dreams--This Phenomenon largely
due to the Dream being a Description of a Picture--The Experience
of Drowning Persons--The Sense of Time in Dreams--The Crumpling
of Consciousness in Dreams--The Recovery of Lost Memories through
the Relaxation of Attention--The Emergence in Dreams of Memories
not known to Waking Life--The Recollection of Forgotten Languages
in Sleep--The Perversions of Memory in Dreams--Paramnesic False
Recollections--Hypnagogic Paramnesia--Dreams mistaken for Actual
Events--The Phenomenon of Pseudo-Reminiscence--Its Relationship
to Epilepsy--Its Prevalence especially among Imaginative and
Nervously Exhausted Persons--The Theories put forward to Explain
it--A Fatigue Product--Conditioned by Defective Attention and
Apperception--Pseudo-Reminiscence a reversed Hallucination, 212
CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
The Fundamental Nature of Dreaming--Insanity and Dreaming--The
Child's Psychic State and the Dream State--Primitive
Thought and Dreams--Dreaming and Myth-Making--Genius
and Dreams--Dreaming as a Road into the Infinite, 261
INDEX, 283
THE WORLD OF DREAMS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The House of Dreams--Fallacies in the Study of Dreams--Is it
Possible to Study Dreams?--How Fallacies may be Avoided--Do we
always Dream during Sleep?--The Two Main Sources of Dreams with
their Sub-divisions.
When we fall asleep we enter a dim and ancient house of shadow,
unillumined by any direct ray from the outer world of waking life. We are
borne about through its chambers, without conscious volition of our own;
we fall down its mouldy and rotten staircases, we are haunted by strange
sounds and odours from its mysterious recesses; we move among phantoms
we cannot consciously control. As we emerge into the world of daily life
again, for an instant the sunlight seems to flash into the obscure house
before the door closes behind us; we catch one vivid glimpse of the
chambers we have been wandering in, and a few more or less fragmentary
memories come back to us of the life we have led there. But they soon
fade away in the light of common day, and if a few hours later we seek to
recall the strange experiences we have passed through, it usually happens
that the visions of the night have already dissolved in memory into a few
shreds of mist we can no longer reconstruct.
For most of us our whole knowledge ends here. Our dreams are real enough
while they last, but the interests of waking life absorb us so entirely
that we rarely have leisure, and still less inclination, to subject our
sleeping adventures, trivial and absurd as they must usually seem, to the
careful tests which waking intelligence is accustomed to subject more
obviously important matters to. The world of dreams and the mysterious
light which prevails there[1] are abandoned entirely to our sleeping
activities.
This leading characteristic of dream life--the fact that it takes
place in another and more shadowy world and in a different kind of
consciousness[2]--has led to the criticism of the study of dreams from
the scientific side. We cannot really study our dreams, these objectors
say, because we--that is to say, our waking consciousness--cannot come
sufficiently closely in contact with them. Dreams, it is argued, are
inevitably transformed in our hands; what we are studying is not our
dreams, but only our waking, and probably altogether false, impressions
of our dreams. There is a certain element of truth in this objection. It
is very difficult, indeed impossible, to recall exactly, and in their
proper order, even the details of a real adventure which has only just
happened to us. It is, obviously, incomparably more difficult to recall an
experience which took place, under such shadowy conditions, in a world so
remote from the world of waking life. There is, further, the very definite
difficulty that we only catch our dreams for a moment by the light, as
it were, of the open door as we are emerging from sleep. In other words,
our waking consciousness is for a moment observing and interpreting a
process in another kind of consciousness, or even if we assert that it is
the same consciousness it is still a consciousness that has been working
under quite different conditions from waking consciousness, and accepting
data which in the waking state it would not accept. For the student
of dreams it must ever be a serious question how far the facts become
inevitably distorted in this process. Sleeping or waking, it is probable,
our consciousness never embraces the whole of the possible psychic field
within us. There are, when we are dreaming as well as when we are
awake--as will become clearer in the sequel--subconscious, or imperfectly
conscious, states just below our consciousness, and exerting an influence
upon it.[3] Our latent psychic possessions, among which dreams move, would
seem to be by no means always at the same depth; the specific gravity of
consciousness, as it were, varies, and these latent elements rise or fall,
becoming nearer to the conscious surface or falling further away from it.
But the greatest change must take place when the waking surface is reached
and the outer world breaks on sleeping consciousness. In that change
there is doubtless a process of necessary and automatic transformation
and interpretation. We may picture it, perhaps, as somewhat the same
process as when a person skilled in both languages takes up a foreign book
and reads it out in his own tongue. With practice the reader may become
unconscious that he is transforming everything, that the words he utters
are different from the words he sees, and that he even transposes their
order, sometimes putting in the middle of a sentence the verb he sees at
the end.
Yet even if we admit that the passage from sleeping to waking
consciousness involves a change as complete as this--and it is probable,
as we shall see, that some such change sometimes takes place--for a
faithful interpreter the sense still remains the same. It is impossible
to believe that the witness of waking consciousness to the nature of the
visions it has caught at the threshold between sleeping and waking life is
false, and the most convincing evidence of this is the utter unlikeness of
these visions to the data of ordinary waking life.
But even this conclusion has been subjected to severe criticism which we
have to face before we proceed further. Foucault, an acute investigator of
dream psychology--carrying to its extreme point a position more partially
and tentatively stated by Delbœuf and Tannery--has denied that our dreams,
as they finally present themselves to waking consciousness, at all
correspond to the psychic process in sleep upon which they are founded,
and he especially insists that the logical connections are superadded.[4]
He considers that dreaming is an 'observation of memory' made under such
conditions that 'it would be very imprudent to regard the remembrance of
the dream as reproducing faithfully the mental state of sleep.' During
sleep, he believes, our dream ideas proceed, concurrently, it may be, but
separately and independently; at the moment when awakening begins, the
mind, as an act of immediate memory, grasps the plurality of separate
pictures and applies itself spontaneously to the task of organising them
according to the rules of logic and the laws of the real world, making
a drama of them as like as possible to the dramas of waking life.[5] He
agrees with Goblot that 'the dream we remember is a waking thought,'
and with Tannery that 'we do not remember our dreams, but only the
reconstructions of them we effected at the moment of waking.' It is after
awakening, Foucault concludes, that the dream develops, and its final
shape depends on the period at which it is noted down; 'the evolution
of the dream after awakening is a logical evolution, dominated and
directed by the instinctive need to give a reasonable appearance to the
_ensemble_ of images and sensations present to the mind, and to assimilate
the representation of the dream to the system of representations which
constitutes our knowledge of the real world.'[6]
In arguing his thesis, Foucault makes much of the modifications which can
be proved to take place if any one is asked to repeat a dream at intervals
of months. Under the influence of time and repetition a dream becomes more
coherent and more conformed to reality. In illustration Foucault presents
two versions of an insignificant dream in which a lady imagines that she
is out with her husband for a drive, and in the course of it experiences a
natural need which she seeks an opportunity to satisfy; the details of the
first version were highly improbable; some months later they had become
much more like what might have occurred in real life. Such a process,
Foucault thinks, is taking place from the first in the making of dreams as
we know them awake.
There are, undoubtedly, facts which may seem to support Foucault's
argument that the logic of the dream, as we know it, is not in the
original dream, but is introduced afterwards. Thus I once dreamed in the
morning that I asked my wife if she had been into a certain room, and
that she replied, 'Can't get in.' I immediately awoke and realised that
my wife had actually spoken these words, not to me, but to an approaching
servant, in anticipation of a message about entering a neighbouring room
of which the door was locked. It is thus evident that although it seemed
to me in my dream that the question came first and the answer followed in
the ordinary course, in reality the answer came first. The question was a
theory, supplied automatically by sleeping intelligence and prefixed to
the answer, in which order they both appeared to sleeping consciousness,
that is to say, in the only way in which sleeping consciousness can ever
be known, as translated into waking consciousness.[7]
It must be borne in mind that such a dream as I have recorded--in which an
actual sensory experience is introduced, untransformed, as a foreign body
into sleeping consciousness--is not a typical dream. Dreams are, however,
without doubt of various kinds, and we may well admit that there is a
class of dreams formed in this way. That supposition will, indeed, be
helpful in explaining several dreams I shall have to record. The process
is much the same as when a nervous person receives a telegram, and at once
assumes that some dreaded accident has occurred, and that the telegram is
the announcement of it. The craving for reasons is instinctive, and the
dreamer's sense of logic even dominates his sense of time.
But Foucault's argument is that waking consciousness effects this logical
construction of the dream. Here his position is weak and incapable of
proof. It is, indeed, contrary to all the tests we are able to apply
to it. If it is the object of the logic of our dreams to make them
conformable to our waking experience, that end, we must admit, is in most
cases very far from being attained. In their original form, as Foucault
views the matter, our dreams are simple dissociated images. In that shape
they would present nothing whatever to shock the consciousness of waking
life. The logic, hypothetically introduced solely to make them conformable
to real life, is frequently a preposterous logic such as the consciousness
of waking life could not accept or even conceive. This fact alone serves
to throw serious doubt upon the theory that it is waking consciousness
which impresses its logic upon our dreams.
Nor, again, is there any analogy, and still less identity, between the
process whereby we grasp a dream when we awake, and the process whereby
the memory of a dream is transformed during months of waking life.
The latter is part of a general process affecting all our memories in
greater or less degree. I visit, for instance, a foreign cathedral, and
take careful note of the character and arrangement of buttresses and
piers; a few months later, if I have failed to set the facts down, my
memory of them will become uncertain, confused, and incorrect. But I need
not, therefore, lose faith in the tolerable exactitude of my original
impressions. In the same way, we cannot argue that the shifting memory
of a dream during a long period of time throws the slightest doubt on
the accuracy of our original impression of it. We never catch a dream in
course of formation. As it presents itself to consciousness on awakening
there may be doubtful points and there may be missing links, but the dream
is, once for all, completed, and if there are doubtful points or missing
links we recognise them as such. We make no attempt to supply a logic that
is not there, and we never see any such process going on involuntarily. I
should, indeed, myself be inclined to say that there is always a kind of
gap between sleeping consciousness and waking consciousness; the change
from the one to the other kind of consciousness seems to be effected
by a slight shock, and the perception of the already completed dream
is the first effort of waking consciousness. The existence of such a
shock is indicated by the fact that, even at the first moment of waking
consciousness, we never realise that a moment ago we were asleep. As soon
as we realise that we are awake it seems to us that we have already been
awake for an uncertain but distinct period of time; some people, indeed,
especially old people, on awaking, feel this so strongly that they deny
they have been asleep. It once happened to me to be in the neighbourhood
of a dynamite factory at the moment when a very disastrous explosion
occurred; at the time my back was to the factory, and I am quite unable
to say how long an interval occurred between the shock of the explosion
and my own action in turning round to observe the straight shaft of smoke
and solid material high in the air; there was a gap in consciousness,
an interval of unknown and seemingly considerable length, caused by the
deafening shock of the explosion, although it is probable that my action
in turning round was almost or quite instantaneous. It seems to me that
the transition from sleeping consciousness to waking consciousness occurs
in a similar manner on a smaller scale.
Although the view of Foucault that the dream is logically organised
after sleep has ended seems, when we examine the evidence in its favour,
to be unacceptable, we may still admit that, in some cases at all
events, the dream only assumes final shape at the moment when sleeping
consciousness is breaking up, that the dream, as we know it, is a final
synthetic attempt of sleeping consciousness as it dissolves on the
approach of waking consciousness. Sleeping consciousness, we may even
imagine as saying to itself in effect: 'Here comes our master, Waking
Consciousness, who attaches such mighty importance to reason and logic
and so forth. Quick! gather things up, put them in order--any order will
do--before he enters to take possession.' That is to say, in other words,
that as sleeping consciousness comes nearer to the threshold of waking
consciousness it is possible that the need for the same kind of causation
or sequence which is manifested in waking consciousness may begin to make
itself felt even to sleeping consciousness. Even this assumption seems,
however, as regards most dreams, to be extravagant. In any case, and at
whatever stage the dream is finally constituted, we are not entitled, it
seems to me, to believe that any stage of its constitution falls outside
the frontiers of sleep. It is satisfactory to be able to feel justified in
reaching this conclusion. For if dreams were chiefly or mainly the product
of waking consciousness they would certainly lose a considerable part of
their significance and interest.
Even, however, when we have reached this conclusion the path of the
student is still far from easy. The undoubted fact that in any case the
difficulties of observing and recording dreams are very great cannot fail
to make us extremely careful. Although the dreams of some persons, who
may be regarded as themselves of vivid and dramatic temperament, seem to
be habitually vivid and dramatic to an extent which, in my own case, is
extremely rare, one is usually justified in feeling a certain amount of
suspicion in regard to dream-narratives which are at every point clear,
coherent, connected, and intelligible. Dreams, as I know them on awaking
from sleep, occasionally present episodes to which these epithets may be
applied, but on the whole they are full of obscurities, of uncertainties,
of inexplicable lacunae. The memory of dream events is lost so rapidly
that one is constantly obliged to leave the exact nature of a detail in
doubt. One seems to be recalling a landscape seen by a lightning flash. It
is for this reason that I have made it a rule only to admit dreams which
are noted very shortly, and if possible immediately, after the moment
of awakening. It is further of importance in recording one's dreams, to
note the emotional attitude experienced during the dream as well as any
physical sensations felt on awakening. The attitude of dream consciousness
towards dream visions usually varies from that of waking consciousness,
although the normal extent of the difference is a disputable point. When I
read dream narratives of landscapes which, as described, appear at every
point as beautiful and impressive to waking consciousness as they appeared
to dreaming consciousness, I usually suspect that, granting the good faith
and accuracy of the narrator, we are really concerned, not with dreams
in the proper sense, but with visions experienced under more abnormal
conditions, and especially with drug visions. In the present inquiry I
am only concerned to ascertain the most elementary and fundamental laws
of the dream world, as they occur in fairly ordinary and normal persons,
and therefore it becomes necessary to be very strict as to the conditions
under which they were recorded. It is the most ordinary dreams that are
most likely to reveal the ordinary laws of dream life, but for this end
it is necessary that they should be recorded with the greatest accuracy
attainable.
I am myself neither a constant nor, usually, a very vivid dreamer, and
in these respects I am probably a fairly ordinary and normal person; the
personal material which I have accumulated, though it spreads over twenty
years, is not notably copious. Nor have I ever directed my attention in
any systematic and concentrated manner to my dream life. To do so would
be, I believe, to distort the phenomena. I have merely recorded any
significant phenomena as they occurred.
To remark that one is not a constant dreamer is not to assert that
dreaming is rare, but merely that one's recollection of it is rare.
Though we may only catch a glimpse of our latest vision of the night
as we leave the house of sleep, it may well be that there were many
earlier adventures of the night which are beyond the reach of waking
consciousness. Sometimes, it is curious to note, we become vaguely
conscious, during the day, for the first time, of a dream we have had
during the night. Many psychologists, as well as metaphysicians--fearful
to admit that the activity of the soul could ever cease--believe that we
dream during the whole period of sleep; this has of recent years been
the opinion of Vaschide, Foucault, Näcke, and Sir Arthur Mitchell, as it
formerly was of Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir Henry Holland, and Schaaffhausen.
In earlier days Hippocrates, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Cabanis seem to
have been of the same opinion. On the other hand, Locke, Macnish, and
Carpenter held that deep sleep is dreamless; this is also the opinion
of Wundt, Beaunis, Strümpell, Weygandt, Hammond, and Jastrow. Moreover,
there are some people, like Lessing, who, so far as they know, never
dream at all. My own personal experience scarcely inclines me to accept
without qualification the belief that we are always dreaming during
sleep. I find that my remembered dreams tend to be correlated with some
slight mental or physical disturbance, and therefore it seems to me
probable that, if dreams are continuous during sleep, they must, during
completely undisturbed sleep, be of an extremely faint and shadowy
character. To return to a metaphor I have before used, we may say that
sleeping consciousness in its descent from the surface of the waking life
may fall to a point at which its specific gravity being practically the
same as that of its environment, a state approaching complete repose is
attained.[8] It cannot of course be said that the failure to remember
dreams is any argument against their occurrence. It is well known that
when the psychic activity of sleep assumes a definitely motor shape,
as in talking in sleep and in somnambulism, it is very rare for any
recollection to remain on awakening, though we cannot doubt that psychic
activity has been present. In the same way the dream that we remember
when awakened from sound sleep by another person is by no means always
due to that awakening. This is shown by the fact that if we were turning
round or making other movements just before being thus awakened, the
dream we remember--in one such case a dream of making one's way with
difficulty between a sofa and a chair--may have no relation to the
circumstance of the awakening, but clearly be suggested by the movements
made during sleep, though these movements themselves remain unknown to
waking consciousness. The movements of dogs during sound sleep--the
rhythmical lifting of the paws, the wagging of the tail--point in the same
direction.[9]
The fact that failure of memory by no means proves the absence of dreaming
may be illustrated, not only by the forgetfulness of what takes place
during hypnotic sleep, but by what we sometimes witness during partial
anaesthesia maintained by drugs. This was well shown in a case I was once
concerned with, where it was necessary to administer chloroform (preceded
by the alcohol-chloroform-ether mixture) for a prolonged period during
a difficult first confinement. The drug was not given to the point of
causing complete abolition of mental activity, and the patient talked,
and occasionally sang, throughout, referring to various events in her
life, from childhood onwards. The sensation and the expression of pain
were not altogether abolished, for slight cries and remarks about the
discomfort and constraint imposed upon her were sometimes mingled in the
same sentence with quite irrelevant remarks concerning, for instance,
trivial details of housekeeping. Confusions of incompatible ideas also
took place, as during ordinary dreaming. 'Where is the three-cornered
nurse,' she thus asked, 'who does not mind what she does?' There was
also the abnormal suggestibility of dream consciousness. The questions
of bystanders were answered but always with a tendency to agree with
everything that was said, this tendency even displaying itself with a
certain ingenuity as when in reply to the playful random query: 'Were
you drunk or sleeping last night?' she answered, with some hesitation:
'A little of both, I think.' To the casual observer, it might seem that
there was a state of full consciousness on the basis of which a partial
delirium had established itself. Yet on recovery from the drug there was
no recollection of anything whatever that had taken place during its
administration, and no sense of the lapse of time.
Fantastic and marvellous as our dreams may sometimes be, they are in
practically all cases made up of very simple elements. It is desirable
that we should at the outset have a provisional notion as to the sources
of these simple elements. Most writers on dreams hold that there are two
great sources from which these elements are drawn: the vast reservoir of
memories and the actual physical sensations experienced at the moment of
dreaming, and interpreted by sleeping consciousness. Various names have
been given to these two groups, the recognition of which is at least
as old as Aristotle.[10] Thus Sully calls them central and peripheral,
Tissié, psychic and sensorial, Foucault, imaginative and perceptive.
Fairly convenient names are those adopted by Miss Calkins, who calls the
first group representative, the second group presentative, meaning by
representative 'connected through the fact of association with the waking
life of the past,' and by presentative 'connected through sense excitation
with the immediate present.'[11]
The representative group falls into two subdivisions, according as the
memories are of old or of recent date; these subdivisions are often quite
distinct, recent dream memories belonging--probably with most people--to
the previous day, while old dream memories are usually drawn from the
experience of many years past, and frequently from early life. In the
same way presentative impressions fall into two subdivisions, according
as they refer to external stimuli present to the senses, or to internal
disturbances within the organism. It is scarcely necessary to observe that
any or all of these four sub-groups, into which the whole of our dream
life may be analysed, may become woven together in the same dream.
I have called the classification 'provisional' because, though it is
convenient to adopt it for the sake of orderly arrangement, when we come
to consider the matter it will be found that the material of dreams is
in reality all of the same order, and purely psychic, though it may be
differentiated in accordance with the character of the stimulus which
evokes the psychic material of which it is made. Strictly speaking,
the source of the dream as a dream can only be central, and a truly
presentative dream is impossible. If our senses receive an impression,
external or internal, and we recognise and accept that impression for
what we should recognise and accept it when awake, then we cannot be
said to be dreaming. The internal and external stimuli which act upon
sleeping consciousness are not a part of that consciousness, nor in any
real sense its source or its cause. The ray of sunlight that falls on the
dreamer, the falling off of his bedclothes, the indigestible supper he
ate last night--these things can no more 'account' for his dream than the
postman's knock can account for the contents of the letter he delivers.
Whatever the stimuli from the physical world that may knock at the door
of dreaming consciousness, that consciousness is apart from them, and
stimuli can only reach it by undergoing transformation. They must put off
the character which they wear as phenomena of the waking world; they must
put on the character of phenomena of another world, the world of dreams.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The subdued quality of the light in normal dreaming--the
usual absence of sunshine and generally even of colour--has long been
noted. 'We never dream of being in the sunshine,' says Henry Dircks
(_Lancet_, 11th June 1870, p. 863), though too absolutely; 'light and
shade form no requisite elements.... The liveliest and most impressive
dream is, in reality, a true night scene, very dubiously lighted up, and
in which the nearest objects are those which we principally observe and
which most interest us.']
[Footnote 2: As some writers give a rather special meaning to the word
'consciousness,' I may say that I simply mean by it (as defined by
Baldwin and Stout in the _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_)
'the distinctive character of whatever may be called mental life,' or,
as Professor Stratton puts it, in defence of this broad definition
(_Psychological Bulletin_, April 1906), 'consciousness designates the
common and generic feature of our psychic acts.' Dreaming then becomes,
as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'conscious process during sleep.' It
should be added that there is much uncertainty about any definition
of consciousness. Bode ('Some Recent Definitions of Consciousness,'
_Psychological Review_, July 1908) thinks it 'a matter for legitimate
doubt' whether any definition of consciousness can be adequate, and
Mercier (art. 'Consciousness' in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_) boldly proclaims--quite justly, I think--that 'consciousness is
not susceptible of definition,' for we can never go behind it or outside
it. That we have to admit various kinds, or at all events various degrees,
of consciousness will become clear in our discussion of dreaming.]
[Footnote 3: By 'subconscious' is meant, as defined by Baldwin and
Stout, 'not clearly recognised in a present state of consciousness, yet
entering into the development of subsequent states of consciousness.' Some
psychologists strongly dislike the word 'subconscious.' They are even
disposed to argue that there is no subconscious mind, and that before and
after the stage of 'awareness,' psychic facts only exist as 'dispositions
of brain cells.' The psychologist, however, as such, has no concern with
brain cells which belong to the histologist. When we occupy ourselves with
dreams we realise at every step that it is possible for psychic states to
exist and to affect our 'awareness,' while at the same time they are not
immediately within the sphere of that 'awareness.' Psychic states of this
kind seem most properly termed 'subconscious,' that is to say slightly,
partially, or imperfectly conscious. Any objection to so precise and
convenient a term for a real phenomenon seems, indeed, to belong to the
sphere of personal idiosyncrasy into which we have perhaps no right to
intrude.]
[Footnote 4: Foucault, _Le Rêve_, 1906.]
[Footnote 5: Foucault, _op. cit._, ch. iv.]
[Footnote 6: Foucault, _op. cit._, p. 49.]
[Footnote 7: This occasionally retrospective character of dreams has long
been known, and was referred to by the writer of an article on 'Dreams and
Dreaming' in the _Lancet_ for 24th November 1877.]
[Footnote 8: The old French case (quoted by Macnish) of a woman, with a
portion of her skull removed, whose brain bulged out during dreams but
was motionless in dreamless sleep, as well as the more recent similar
case known to Hammond (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 233), supports the
belief that the psychic activity which is not manifested in rememberable
dreams is probably at the most of a very shadowy character. Even during
waking life psychic activity often falls to a very low ebb; Beaunis, who
has investigated this question ('Comment Fonctionne mon Cerveau,' _Revue
Philosophique_, January 1909), describes a condition which he names
'psychic twilight' and regards as frequently occurring.]
[Footnote 9: Lucretius long ago referred to the significance of this fact
(lib. iv. vv. 988-994), and he stated that the hallucination persisted
for a time even after the dog had awakened. I have never myself been able
to see any trace of such hypnagogic hallucination or delusion in dogs who
awake from dreams, though I have frequently looked for it; it always seems
to me that the dog who seemingly awakes from a dream of hunting grasps the
fireside facts of life around him immediately and easily.]
[Footnote 10: This classification of the sources of dreams has, however,
been generally accepted for little more than a century. At an earlier
period it was not usually believed to cover the whole ground. Thus Des
Laurens (A. Laurentius) in the sixteenth century, in his treatise on the
Disease of Melancholy (insanity), says that there are three kinds of
dreams: (1) of Nature (_i.e._ due to external causes); (2) of the mind
(_i.e._ based on memories); and, above both these classes, (3) dreams from
God and the devil.]
[Footnote 11: M. W. Calkins, 'Statistics of Dreams,' _American Journal of
Psychology_, April 1893.]
CHAPTER II
THE ELEMENTS OF DREAM LIFE
The Spontaneous Procession of Dream Imagery--Its Kaleidoscopic
Character--Attention in Dreams--Relation of Drug Visions and
Hypnagogic Imagery to Dreaming--Colour in Dreams--The Fusion
of Dream Imagery--Compared to Dissolving Views--Sources of the
Imagery--Various types of Fusion--The Subconscious Element in
Dreaming--Verbal Transformations as Links in Dream Imagery--The
Reduplication of Visual Imagery in Motor and other Terms.
Perhaps the most elementary fact about dream vision is the perpetual and
unceasing change which it is undergoing at every moment. Sight is for
most of us the chief sensory activity of sleeping as it is of waking
life; the commonest kind of dream is mainly a picture, but it is always
a living and moving picture, however inanimate the objects which appear
in vision before us would be in real life. No man ever gazed at a dream
picture which was at rest to his sleeping eye as are the pictures we gaze
at with our waking eyes. So far as my own experience is concerned, I have
rarely in sleep seen a sentence, a word, a letter written on a sheet of
dream-paper which was not changing beneath the eye of sleep. I dream,
for instance, that I wish to stamp a letter, and look in my pocket-book
for a penny stamp; I am able to find stamps of other values, I am able
to find penny stamps that are torn or defaced or of an antiquated type
disused thirty years ago; all sorts of stamps, as well as little pictures
resembling stamps, develop and multiply beneath my gaze; the stamp I
seek remains unfound, probably because it had appeared at the beginning
of the series and suggested all the rest. That is indicated by another
dream (experienced, it may be noted, during the early stage of a cold in
the head): I have to catch a train; I see my hat hanging on a peg among
other hats, and I move towards it; but as I do so it has vanished; and I
wander among rows of hats, of all shapes and sizes, but not one of them
mine. Sleeping consciousness is a stream in which we never bathe twice,
for it is renewed every second. It is this as much as any characteristic
of the visual dream--for the mainly auditory or motor dream often presents
less difficulty in this respect--which makes it so difficult to recall
and reproduce. We are, as it were, gazing at a constantly revolving
kaleidoscope in which every slightest turn produces a new pattern,
somewhat resembling that which immediately preceded it--so that, if the
kaleidoscope were conscious we should say that each picture had been
suggested by the preceding pattern--but yet definitely novel.[12]
Delbœuf has denied that this process ever involves any real metamorphosis
of images; he regarded it as an illusion due to rapid succession of
distinct images which are afterwards combined in memory. That view is
not, however, tenable; apart from the fact that it makes the illegitimate
assumption that our recollection of a dream is entirely unreliable,
it must be remembered that (as Giessler has pointed out) the shock of
emotional horror or surprise that frequently accompanies such dreams
suffices to prove the reality of the metamorphosis. Thus I once, as a
youth, had a vivid dream of an albatross that became transformed into a
woman, the beautiful eyes of the albatross taking on a womanly expression,
but the bird's beak only being imperfectly changed into a nose as the
bird-woman murmured, 'Do you love me?' In this case the vivid surprise of
the dream was precisely associated with the simultaneous existence of the
two sets of characters.
It is not, however, necessary that there should be any metamorphosis of
dream images, nor even that the procession of dream imagery should be
continuous. And whether or not there is metamorphosis of images, whether
the imagery is continuous or discontinuous, it seems to me that we must
admit the possibility of its spontaneous character. That is, indeed, a
debated, and, it may be admitted, a debateable point. Thus Foucault[13]
accounts for the multiplication of almost similar images sometimes
witnessed in dreams as due to _desire;_ we see a number of things because
we desire to possess a number of these things, and he explains a dream
of Delbœuf's, of a procession of lizards, as due to the fact that Delbœuf
was a collector of lizards, in the same way as he would explain the dreams
of thirsty people who imagine they are drinking repeated glasses of water
or wine. I am quite unable to accept this explanation. The shifting and
multiplication of dream imagery, as in the procession of lizards, is a
fundamental and elementary character of spontaneous mental imagery, and
is constant in some drug visions, notably those occasioned by mescal.[14]
The repetition of imaginary drinks in the dreams of a thirsty man belongs
to another more special class in explanation of which desire may be more
properly invoked; it is merely the expression of the fact that after the
imaginary drink the dreamer remains thirsty, and the suggested image is
therefore repeated.
That in some cases there is what we may call a deliberate subconscious
selection in the imagery presented to consciousness in dreams, there can
be no doubt. But mental imagery is deeper and more elemental than any
of the higher psychic functions even when exerted subconsciously. Just
as the immense procession of continuous and totally unfamiliar imagery
which is evoked by the action of mescal on the visual centres has no more
connection with the subject's volition or desires than the procession
of the starry skies, so likewise, we seem bound to admit, it may be in
the case of a succession of separate images in dreams. It is nearly
always possible to find a link of connection between any two images
chosen at random, and the link is often a real subconscious link, but not
necessarily so. Discontinuous images may arise, it seems probable, from
a psychic basis deeper than choice, their appearance being determined by
their own dynamic condition at the moment. We must, as Baron Mourre[15]
not quite happily puts it, take into account 'the physiological state of
ideas.' If we hold to the belief that dreaming is based on a fundamental
and elementary tendency to the formation of continuous or discontinuous
images, which may or may not be controlled by psychic emotions or
impulses, we shall be delivered from many hazardous speculations.
When we thus start with the recognition of a more or less spontaneous
procession of images as the elemental stuff of dreams, one of the first
problems we encounter is the relation of attention to that imagery. What
is the degree and the nature of the attention we exert in dreams?
'Sleep from the psychological point of view,' says Foucault, 'is a state
of profound distraction or total inattention.' And Mourre shows by dreams
of his own that any exercise of will in dreaming leads to awakening, and
that the deeper the sleep the more absent is volition from dreams. Hence
the involuntary wavering and perpetually mere meaningless change of dream
imagery. Such concentration as is possible during sleep usually reveals
a shifting, oscillating, uncertain movement of the vision before us. We
are, as it were, reading a sign-post in the dusk, or making guesses at the
names of the stations as our express train flashes by the painted letters.
It is this factor in dreams which causes them so often to baffle our
analysis. There is thus a failure of sleeping attention to fix definitely
the final result--a failure which itself may evidently serve to carry
on the dream process by suggesting new images and combinations. It can
scarcely be said, however, that the question of attention in dreams is
thus settled. It would be inconceivable that the terrible occurrences
that may overtake us in dreams and the emotional turmoil aroused should
be accompanied by 'total inattention and distraction.' Nor can it be
said that that supposition agrees with the vivid memory which our dreams
sometimes leave. We can probably account for the phenomena much more
satisfactorily by adopting Ribot's useful distinction between voluntary
attention and spontaneous attention.[16] Voluntary or artificial attention
is a product of education and training. It is directed by extrinsic
force, is the result of deliberation, and is accompanied by some feeling
of effort. It always acts on the muscles and by the muscles; without
muscular tension there can be no voluntary attention. Spontaneous or
natural attention, on the other hand, is that more fundamental kind of
attention which exists anteriorly to any education or training, and is
the only kind of attention which animals and young children are capable
of. It may be weak or strong, but always and everywhere it is based on
emotional states; every creature moved by pleasure and pain is capable
of spontaneous attention under the influence of those stimuli. These two
kinds of attention are at the opposite poles from each other, and are
incompatible with each other. There can be no doubt that, as Ribot himself
pointed out, it is voluntary attention that is defective (though it may
not always be entirely absent) in dreams;[17] the muscular weakness and
inco-ordination of sleep involve this lack of attention which is indeed an
essential condition of the restoration and repose of sleep. But all the
characters of spontaneous attention are present. The attention we exercise
in dreams is mainly of this fundamental, automatic, involuntary character,
conditioned by the emotions we experience, and for the most part escaping
all the efforts of our voluntary attention. Further, it has been ably
argued by Leroy that a similar state of involuntary automatic attention,
with concomitant diminution or disturbance of voluntary attention, is
a necessary condition for the appearance of the visual and auditory
hallucinations abnormally experienced in the waking state.[18]
There is, then, at the basis of dreaming a seemingly spontaneous
procession of dream imagery which is always undergoing transformation
into something different, yet not wholly different, from that which went
before. It seems a mechanical flow of images, regulated by associations
of resemblance, which sleeping consciousness recognises without either
controlling or introducing foreign elements. This is probably the
most elementary form of dreaming, that which is nearest to waking
consciousness, and that in which the peripheral and retinal element of
dreaming plays the largest part.
The fundamental character of this spontaneous self-evolving procession of
imagery is indicated by the significant fact that it tends to take place
whenever the more retinal and peripheral part of the visual apparatus is
affected by the exhaustion of undue stimulation, or even when the organism
generally is disturbed or run down, as in neurasthenic conditions.[19]
The most obtrusive and familiar example of visual imagery is furnished by
the procession of perpetually shifting and changing after-images which
continue to evolve for a considerable time after we have looked at the
sun or other brilliant object.[20] Less striking, but more intimately
akin to the imagery of dreams, are the hypnagogic visions occurring as we
fall asleep, especially after a day during which vision has been unusually
stimulated and fatigued, though they do not seem necessarily dependent
on such fatigue. Most vivid and instructive of all is the procession of
visual imagery evoked by certain drugs. Of these the most remarkable and
potent, as well as the best for study, is probably mescal, which happens
also to be the only one with which I am myself well acquainted.[21] This
substance provokes a constant succession of self-evolving visual imagery
which constantly approaches and constantly eludes the semblance of real
things; in the earlier stages these images closely resemble those produced
by the kaleidoscope, and they change in a somewhat similar manner. Such
spontaneous evolution of imagery is evidently a fundamental aptitude of
the visual apparatus which many very slightly abnormal conditions may
bring into prominence.
The power of opium is somewhat similar, and, as DeQuincey long since
pointed out, such power is simply a revival of a faculty usually possessed
by children, although, judging from my own experiences with mescal, drugs
exert it in a far more vivid and potent degree than that in which it
usually occurs in the child. The psychologists of childhood have not
often investigated this phenomenon,[22] but so far as my own inquiries
go, all or nearly all persons have possessed, when children, the power
of seeing visions in the dark on the curtain of the closed eyelids,
perhaps the representation of fairy tales they had read, perhaps merely
commonplace processions of individuals or events, a tendency sometimes
appearing for the same figure to recur again and again. I think it is
fairly certain that the so-called 'lies' of children, told in good faith,
are in part due to the occasional eruption of this faculty into daylight
life. People who deny that they ever possessed this power have, almost
certainly, only forgotten. I should myself be inclined to deny that I had
ever had any such visionary faculty if it were not that I can recall one
occasion of its presence, at about the age of seven, when sleeping with a
cousin of the same age; we amused ourselves by burying our heads in the
pillows and watching a connected series of pictures which we were both
alike able to see, each announcing any change in the picture as soon as it
took place. This fact of community of vision served to impress on my mind
the existence of a faculty of which otherwise I can recall no trace.[23]
Of these various groups of allied phenomena, that which more especially
concerns us in the investigation of dreams is the group of phenomena most
strictly called hypnagogic, belonging, that is to say, to the ante-chamber
of sleep, when the senses are in repose and waking consciousness is
slipping away, or else when, as we leave the world of dreams, waking
consciousness is flowing back again. This state has been known from
very ancient times. Aristotle referred to it, and in the dawn of modern
scientific thought Hobbes described allied phenomena.[24] The strictly
psychological study of hypnagogic visions seems to have begun with
Baillarger.[25] Then, some years later, Maury, who had a rich personal
experience of such phenomena, devoted a chapter to the hypnagogic state,
and gave it its recognised name.[26]
Hypnagogic imagery, there can be little doubt, is not a purely ocular
phenomenon, even when it is stimulated by ocular fatigue. It is a mixed
phenomenon, partly retinal and partly central. That is to say that the eye
supplies entoptic glimmerings, and the brain, acting on the suggestions
thus received, superposes mental pictures to those glimmerings.[27] They
are thus analogous to the pictures we may see in the fire or in the
clouds. It must be added that the other senses also furnish corresponding
rudiments which are filled in by the central activity; this is notably the
case with faint buzzings and sounds in the ear, and in addition, muscular
twitches and internal visceral sensations, all these becoming more
prominent as the attentive activity of waking life subsides.[28]
What is the relation of hypnagogic imagery to dreams? Johannes Müller,
the great physiologist, long ago identified them, as previously had
Gruithuisen and Burdach, while Maury--who himself possessed, however, a
somewhat abnormal and irritable nervous system--regarded hypnotic imagery
as furnishing the whole of the formative element of dreams, as being 'the
embryogeny of dreams'; he frequently found that images which appeared
to him in this way before going to sleep reappeared in dreams. This is
supported by Mourly Vold, who made experiments on himself, and by fixing
images as he fell asleep dreamed of the same images. Goblot, however,
while regarding hypnagogic imagery as analogous with dream imagery, denies
that it is identical. Since the hypnagogic state is the porch to sleep
and dreams--the praedormitium, as Weir Mitchell terms it--we can scarcely
fail to admit with Maury that hypnagogic imagery presents us with the
germinal stuff of dreams. If it is not identical with the fully formed
dream, it is still the early stage of dreaming. This is certainly the
view suggested by my own experience, even though I have never definitely
recognised a dream as related to a previous hypnagogic image. It has,
however, occasionally happened to me that as I have begun to lose waking
consciousness a procession of images has drifted before my vision, and
suddenly one of the figures I see has spoken. This hallucinatory voice
occurring before I was fully asleep has startled me into full waking
consciousness, and I have realised that, while yet in the hypnagogic
stage, I was assisting at the birth of a dream.
There is one point, it may be noted in passing, at which dreams do not
usually correspond with some of the phenomena with which we may most
naturally compare them. I refer to their presentation of colour. In
the dreams of most people colour is rare. We seem usually, from this
point of view, to remember a dream as we would remember a photograph,
or, if any colour at all is present, a tinted drawing. Judging from my
own experience, I should say that it is difficult to decide whether the
absence of colour is due to its actual absence from the dream imagery,
or merely to its failure to make any impression on memory. Some careful
observers have, however, stated that the colour of their dream imagery is
definitely grey. Thus Beaunis states that his dream imagery is usually
_en grisaille_, like an image recalled in the waking state, though
occasionally the colour is vivid, and Dr. Savage says that in his dreams
colour is rarely or never present. 'I see landscapes of black and white,
and flowers assume their true form, but not their colours.'[29] This
greyness of dream imagery corresponds to the disappearance of colour
under chloroform anaesthesia. 'So long as the eyes could be held open
voluntarily,' says Elmer Jones, 'vision seemed quite normal, save that
the colours of the spectrum faded out into a grey band.' Even in the
early stage of some insanities also, as Stoddart has found, some degree
of colour-blindness is present.[30] Grace Andrews states, indeed, that
in nearly half of her own visual dreams colour sensations were included.
This seems to me exceptional. In my own experience, the emergence of a
single colour, which usually strikes me as beautiful, is not rare. I see,
for instance, a friend drinking wine copiously from a large goblet, and
I judge by the colour of the wine that it is hock, or I am impressed by
the shimmering grey tone of the poplin dresses worn by a group of ladies,
which seems to indicate that the tone of the whole picture was not grey. I
am inclined to think that when colour in a dream becomes more pronounced
than this, the dream is not normal, but is associated with some degree of
cerebral disturbance, and especially the presence of headache. This would
agree with the fact that persons subject to migraine are liable to visual
colour phenomena. As an example of a vivid colour dream associated with
headache, I may bring forward the following: I dreamed that an artist of
note, with whom I am acquainted, was painting my portrait. (The pose of
the portrait was standing, but I was lying down; this, however, caused
me no surprise.) I saw the colours of the picture with great vividness,
and I noted the extreme rapidity with which the artist painted; thus the
red and black pattern of the necktie he had given me was suddenly changed
to a totally different blue pattern, and the whole picture then appeared
as a harmony of blues, the rapidity with which the artist effected these
changes impressing me as very remarkable. In another dream in which I saw
a painter occupied on a picture, a landscape representing sunrise, memory
recalled the effect of light as vivid, but no definite sense of colour
remained. This seems to me the normal condition of things in the ordinary
dreams of most persons, colour, when it occurs, or when it is remembered,
being for the most part confined to a single object or a single tint, and
often being associated with a feeling of aesthetic pleasure.
In ordinary dreaming there is usually something more than a spontaneous
procession of related imagery. There is a more definitely central and
psychic element. There is association, not only by obvious resemblance,
but by contiguity, usually the casual contiguity of images received
during the previous day, which forces together images related to each
other indeed, but by no means obviously. Dreaming consciousness embodies
and actively co-ordinates definite, and not merely random, images. The
passive and spontaneous flow of imagery is thus modified in its course.
The image of the magic lantern well illustrates this character of
dream experiences. The movement of the cinematograph, indeed, scarcely
corresponds to that fusion of heterogeneous images which marks dream
visions. Our dreams are like dissolving views in which the dissolving
process is carried on swiftly or slowly, but always uninterruptedly, so
that at any moment two (often, indeed, more) incongruous pictures are
presented to consciousness, which strives to make one whole of them, and
sometimes succeeds, and is sometimes baffled. Or we may say that the
problem presented to dreaming consciousness resembles that experiment
in which psychologists pronounce three wholly unconnected words and
require the subject to combine them at once in a connected sentence. It
is unnecessary to add that such analogies fail to indicate the subtle
complexity of the apparatus which is at work in the manufacture of dreams.
By this mechanism of dreaming, isolated impressions, or else impressions
which have a resemblance or a connection which is not obvious to the
waking intelligence, flow together in dreams to be welded into a whole.
There is produced, in the strictest sense, a _confusion_. For instance, a
lady, who in the course of the day has admired a fine baby and bought a
big fish for dinner, dreams with horror and surprise of finding a fully
developed live baby sewed up in a large cod-fish. Again, a lady who had
been cooking in the course of the day and in the evening had read a
scientific description of the way birds obtain and utilise their food,
such as fruit and snails, dreams at night that she has discovered when out
walking a kind of animal-fruit, a damson containing a snail within it,
which she views with delight as admirably adapted for culinary purposes.
Another lady, after carving a duck at dinner, dreams that she is trying
to cut off a duck's leg, but seems to realise in her dream at the same
time that it is really her husband's neck she is hacking at.[31] In a
dream of my own, children's heads took the form and shape of flowers
of various shapes and hues, though mainly of the composite order (like
chrysanthemums), and their eyes looked out from between the petals.
It must be added that in a very considerable proportion of cases the
combinations produced in dreams are far more plausible than in any of
the instances just narrated; the whole dream may thus easily follow as
commonplace and matter-of-fact a course as in real life. Thus, after
going to live in a new neighbourhood, I dreamed that I entered a shop
belonging to a certain firm, and saw there an employé who, in real life,
to my knowledge, had previously left another shop belonging to the same
firm; an entirely probable combination was thus effected, and the dream
conversation that followed was equally natural and probable. We do not
go out of our way in dreams to invent absurdities; we simply accept the
data presented to us, dealing with them as rationally as the intellectual
instruments at our disposal may permit.
The dream constituted by the falling together of trivial reminiscences
is not always, however, as commonplace and plausible as in the dream
just narrated. In other cases the falling together of equally trivial
reminiscences may constitute a fantastic and imaginative picture
altogether outside waking experience or waking thought. Thus I dream that
it is my duty to watch beside a great king while he sleeps. He lies on a
huge bed, fully clothed and booted, and with a great crimson mantle thrown
over him. I am permitted to lie on the edge of the bed outside the mantle,
but must on no account close my eyes, for I must be ready to respond at
once to his call. The elements of such a picture are obviously so simple
and commonplace that it is not surprising that I could not find that even
one of them had been specially present to waking consciousness. Yet the
picture that at that particular moment they fell together to compose--like
the broken fragments of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope--is altogether
alien alike to my experience and to my imagination.
The source of the common confusion of dream imagery is to be found in
very varying motives. In a large proportion of cases, what we witness is
merely the flowing together of impressions which have no real resemblance,
but which happen to have been received at nearly the same time, and to
admit of being fused; thus, in one case, occupation during the day partly
in the fowl-yard and partly in the garden, led a lady to the dream project
of breeding chickens by planting fowls' heads. Very frequently, however,
there is a real resemblance in the two objects combined, although it is
not a resemblance which would ever present itself to waking consciousness.
The fowl-yard will supply another instance of this confusion also. I went
to sleep thinking of a friend who was that night to stay at a certain
hotel I had never seen. I dreamed that I saw the hotel in question; its
façade was not unlike that of a common type of hotel, but the roof was
flat and at no very great height from the ground, so that I was able to
overlook the building and see into all the windows, an arrangement that
struck me as bad. My ability to overlook the building was not, however,
accompanied by any perception of its diminutiveness. On awakening I
remembered that my wife had received a chicken incubator the day before,
and we had examined it in the evening. The image of the hotel had fused
with the image of the incubator.
In another dream of the same type I imagined that I was with a dentist
who was about to extract a tooth from a patient. Before applying the
forceps he remarked to me (at the same time setting fire to a perfumed
cloth at the end of something like a broomstick, in order to dissipate
the unpleasant odour) that it was the largest tooth he had ever seen.
When extracted I found that it was indeed enormous, in the shape of a
caldron, with walls an inch thick. Taking from my pocket a tape measure
(such as I carried in waking life), I found the diameter to be not less
than twenty-five inches; the interior was like roughly-hewn rock, and
there were sea-weeds and lichen-like growths within. The size of the tooth
seemed to me large, but not extraordinarily so. It is well known that pain
in the teeth, or the dentist's manipulations, cause those organs to seem
of extravagant extent; in dreams this tendency rules unchecked; thus a
friend once dreamed that mice were playing about in a cavity in her tooth.
But for the dream just quoted, there was no known dental origin; it arose
solely or chiefly from a walk during the previous afternoon among the
rocks of the Cornish coast at low tide, and the fantastic analogy, which
had not occurred to waking consciousness, suggested itself during sleep.
In another dream, illustrating the same kind of confusion of images having
a real resemblance unnoticed in waking life, I seemed to see on a table a
small hand-gong of a common type, struck by a hammer, but on striking it
repeatedly, it produced flashes of light instead of the sounds normally
produced by a gong. I concluded that the instrument must be out of order
and called some one to attend to it, whereupon we proceeded to deal
with it as though it were a diminutive battery of the kind used to work
electric bells. The gong was one familiar to me at the time in daily
life; on the previous day I had casually observed that it was misplaced.
In my dream I discovered a resemblance which actually exists between a
gong of the type in question and the lever-handle for turning on the
electric light, soothing a certain doubt by saying to myself in my dream
that the instrument served both for the production of sound and of light.
This link of connection led to the association of an electric battery with
the hand-gong, as well as to the attribution to the gong of light-giving
properties.[32]
Such a dream serves as a transition to another very common kind of
confusion of imagery in which two altogether unlike images are amalgamated
through each happening to have in the mind a link of connection with some
third idea. I dreamed that my wife's dog--a dog who, in real life, was
constantly getting into trouble--had killed a child in the neighbouring
town. On going thither I entered a butcher's shop, and saw the child lying
on a table, mutilated and bleeding. After a time, however, I learned
that it was not a child, but a pig that had been killed, and what I had
previously taken for a child was now visibly a dead pig. I felt ashamed
of my mistake, and the sympathy I had experienced now seemed excessive,
especially when the butcher remarked that it was all right as he had been
fattening the pig and meant to kill it soon anyhow. Then the pig was cut
open, though it made daring attempts to come to life again, during which
I awoke. It is clear how, in this case, the idea of the butcher's shop
served as a bridge from the image of the child to the image of the pig.
Again, after a day in which I had received a letter from a lady, unknown
to me, living in France, and later on had written out a summary of a
criminal case in which a detective had to go over to France, I dreamed
that some one told me that the lady I had heard from was a detective in
the service of the French Government, and this explanation, though it
seemed somewhat surprising, fully satisfied me. Here, it will be seen,
the idea of France served as a bridge, and was utilised by sleeping
consciousness to supply an answer to a question which had been asked by
waking consciousness.
The confusion of imagery may be more remote, embodying abstract ideas and
without reference to recent impressions. Thus I dreamed that my wife was
expounding to me a theory by which the substitution of slates for tiles
in roofing had been accompanied by, and intimately associated with, the
growing diminution of crime in England. I opposed this theory, pointing
out the picturesqueness of tiles, their cheapness, and greater comfort
both in winter and summer, but at the same time it occurred to me as a
peculiar coincidence that tiles should have a sanguinary tinge suggestive
of criminal bloodthirstiness. I need scarcely say that this bizarre theory
had never suggested itself to my waking thoughts. There was, however, a
real connecting link in the confusion--the redness, and it is a noteworthy
point, of great significance in the interpretation of dreams, that that
link, although clearly active from the first, remained subconscious until
the end of the dream, when it presented itself as an entirely novel
coincidence.
I dreamed once that I was with a doctor in his surgery, and saw in his
hand a note from a patient saying that doctors were fools and did him no
good, but he had lately taken some _selvdrolla_, recommended by a friend,
and it had done him more good than anything, so please send him some
more. I saw the note clearly, not, indeed, being conscious of reading it
word by word, but only of its meaning as I looked at it; the one word I
actually seemed to see, letter by letter, was the name of the drug, and
that changed and fluctuated beneath my vision as I gazed at it, the final
impression being _selvdrolla_. The doctor took from a shelf a bottle
containing a bright yellow oleaginous fluid, and poured a little out,
remarking that it had lately come into favour, especially in uric acid
disorders, but was extremely expensive. I expressed my surprise, having
never before heard of it. Then, again to my surprise, he poured rather
copiously from the bottle on to a plate of food, saying, in explanation,
that it was pleasant to take and not dangerous. This was a vivid morning
dream, and on awakening I had no difficulty in detecting the source of its
various minor details, especially a note received on the previous evening
and containing a dubious figure, the precise nature of which I had used
my pocket lens to determine. But what was _selvdrolla_, the most vivid
element of the dream? I sought vainly among my recent memories, and had
almost renounced the search when I recalled a large bottle of salad oil
seen on the supper table the previous evening; not, indeed, resembling
the dream bottle, but containing a precisely similar fluid. _Selvdrolla_
was evidently a corruption of 'salad oil.' This dream illustrates the
uncertainty of dream consciousness, but it also illustrates at the same
time the element of certainty in dream _subconsciousness_. Throughout my
dream I remained, consciously, in entire ignorance as to the real nature
of _selvdrolla_, yet a latent element in consciousness was all the time
presenting it to me in ever clearer imagery. We see that the subconscious
element of dream life treats the conscious part much as a good-natured
teacher treats a child whose lesson is only half learned, giving repeated
clues and hints which the stupid child understands only at the last
moment, or not at all. It is, indeed, a universal method, the method of
Nature with man, throughout the whole of human evolution.
It will be seen that at this point we are brought into contact with
another characteristic of dream life: there is often more in dreams than
dreaming consciousness is able to realise. On the one hand, the elements
of dream life are drawn from a wider field than is normally accessible to
waking consciousness; on the other hand, the focus of dream consciousness
is narrower than that of waking consciousness, and cannot apperceive all
that is going on. There is at once more extension and more contraction
than in the psychic life of the waking world. A very large part of the
psychic life of sleep is outside our power, and some of it is even beyond
our sight.
It will be observed that the perpetual movement and the constant fusion
of images which constitute the most fundamental character of dream life
really combine two characteristics which, abstractly regarded, are
distinct. The tendency of the dream image to be ever changing, ever
putting forth some new feature which more or less radically alters its
nature, is not a phenomenon of precisely the same nature as the tendency
for two definite images, well known to waking consciousness, to become
fused together, consciously or unconsciously, in dreams. Practically,
however, there is no line of demarcation. What happens is that the image
is ever spontaneously changing, and that each change is at once recognised
by dreaming consciousness as a known object. Thus I dreamed that I was in
a drawing-room and saw a beautiful and attractive woman with an unusually
low evening dress entirely revealing the breasts; then, between the
breasts, three additional nipples appeared, and I realised in my dream
that here was a case of supernumerary breasts of sufficient scientific
interest to be carefully examined later on; and then, as I gazed, I saw
a number of little fleshy nipple-like protuberances on the body, and
thereupon I realised that I was really looking at a case of the rare
skin disease termed _molluscum fibrosum_. Thus the perpetually wavering
and developing image is at the same time a succession of quite different
images. On the other hand, when we seem to have a fusion of two definite
images, what we really see in most cases is one image melting into the
other and gradually losing its earlier character. In either case the
process is the same interplay of automatic peripheral imagery and central
ideas, whether the new image is brought into focus by, as it were, a
current in consciousness, or is merely suggested by a spontaneous change
in the previous image. How far the image suggests the idea or the idea the
image, it is extremely difficult in most cases to say. The phenomenon we
witness is a perpetually dissolving view; the vital process behind that
phenomenon we must usually be content to be ignorant of.
It sometimes happens that the dream image is slowly transformed without
the dreamer realising the transformation. Thus an image of a doll may
take on the character of a human being. In a dream of this kind--possibly
suggested by Villiers de l'Isle Adam's _L'Eve Future_, though that
book had not been recently in my mind--I imagined that a lady of my
acquaintance (whose identity I could not recall on awakening) had taken
a fancy to possess an artificial woman, constructed with vast ingenuity
and at enormous expense. The skin and hair seemed real as I noted with
a certain horror on observing the breasts and armpits, but in places--I
noticed especially one arm--the creature was as defective as an ill-made
doll. It was, however, able to walk with a little support, and, most
remarkable of all, it gave intelligent answers to questions; this alone
it was that caused me a certain surprise. What at the beginning of the
dream had only been an artificial image was evidently becoming a real
human being, and one can readily believe that such stories as that of
Pygmalion's statue may have been suggested by dream experiences.
The dream is mainly a dissolving view, because for most of us it is above
all a visual phenomenon. Those people who, in their dreams, at all events,
if not also in waking life, are largely of auditory type, experience
dreams in which words play exactly the same shifting, developing, and
dissolving part played by images in the persons of more markedly visual
type. In their dreams they resemble those insane people who, in some
feeble and confusional states, manifest echolalia and confabulation, their
ideas drifting along the associational paths of least resistance suggested
by every random word they hear. Maury records successions of dream
imagery strung together in a similar manner by a procession of verbal
transformations; thus in one oft-quoted dream the scenes were connected by
the words, _kilomètre_, _kilos_, _Gilolo_, _Lobelia_, _Lopez_, _loto_.[33]
In such a case the procession of verbal auditory imagery constitutes
the basis of the dream. This is probably rare. In most people the basis
of the dream is furnished by visual imagery, and auditory images only
occasionally form an associative link, being more usually subordinated to
the visual elements.
The speech peculiarities of dreams have been very thoroughly investigated
by Kraepelin,[34] who has brought together two hundred and eighty-one
examples, partly observed in himself, though they are not common, and
Kraepelin considers that the hearing centres fall more deeply asleep
than the visual centres, the eyes being already sufficiently protected
by the lids.[35] Kraepelin classifies the speech disturbances of dreams
into two great groups: (1) _paraphasia_, or disturbance of word-finding,
where the idea is associated with a wrong word, which is sometimes a new
formation[36]; and (2) _disorders of oration_, in which the peculiarity
lies, not in the words, but in their order. The speech disturbances of
dreams, Kraepelin remarks, spring from deep disturbance of thought, such
as occur in sensorial aphasia, and, as in such aphasia, the dreamer thinks
his nonsense is quite clear and reasonable. Much the same may occur in
alcoholic delirium and in _dementia præcox_.
The invention of new words probably occurs frequently in dreams, without
leaving a clear trace in memory, and still more frequently, perhaps, as
in the 'selvdrolla' dream, already recorded, there are seeming new verbal
formations which are really mere corruptions of imperfectly realised
words. An example of a definite and precise new word seems to be furnished
by the following dream, which was at all points vivid and precise. I saw
quite close to me a huge tawny bird, with an orange bill. The creature
got up and moved away, seeming as large as an ostrich. I asked a lady,
standing by, who had some ornithological knowledge, what the bird was,
and she replied that she thought it was a _jaleisa_. Then I asked the
same question of a poor woman who was passing, curious to know what she
would answer; she said, 'Oh, it's a kind of starling.' There was no doubt
in my dream as to the spelling of 'jaleisa,' but I am quite unable to
account for the word.[37] It so happened, however, that before I went to
bed I had been reading one of Calderon's plays, and I imagine that this
pseudo-Spanish word had formed itself in my brain among the echoes of
Calderon's enchanting music. The question arises as to why that ignorant
old woman should have called the jaleisa a starling. It seems just
possible that the more familiar name was suggested by the last syllable
of the strange bird's name, the association being verbal. It is equally
possible, and perhaps more likely, that the association followed by the
more usual visual channel, and that the jaleisa's orange beak suggested
the large orange beaks of newly hatched starlings, which had once, many
years previously, vividly attracted my attention.
A probable illustration of the influence of verbal association in
diverting the current of a dream is seen in the harrowing narrative that
follows: A lady dreamed that she went to an entertainment which turned
out to be a kind of revival meeting, presided over by a lady, and full of
uproar. It was suddenly realised that Hell was underneath the hall, and a
man, supposed to be a slave, was torn to pieces and cast into Hell. A lady
present was so much affected by the scene that she threw herself into a
pool of water, and was drowned, her body being afterwards pulled out by a
working man with a pitchfork. The dreamer was so overcome by these tragic
events that she felt that there was nothing left but to commit suicide.
Resolving to drown herself, she went to a lighthouse (which, however,
somewhat resembled a bathing machine) on a height, in order to throw
herself down into the sea. It was of an exquisite green tint, extremely
lovely and attractive, but she had not the courage to leap in. She thought
it might give her courage if she had a good meal first, so she returned to
the hall and joined the lady who had presided over the meeting. They sat
down to a dish of roast mutton, but, as they were eating, suddenly looked
at each other with mutual understanding; they realised that they were
eating the woman who had been drowned, and, it will be remarked, had been
pulled out of the water by a fork. It was possible to account for every
element of which this dream was made up, but its tragic character was
unsupported by anything in waking life, and entirely native to the dream.
The possibility of any guiding link between 'Hell' and 'hall' had not
presented itself to the dreamer, nor had it occurred to me when I set down
the dream as here reproduced. It must be noted, however, that the revival
meeting would itself tend to suggest the idea of Hell. It seems probable
that verbal associations usually play only a subordinate part.
Sometimes the verbal links of association in dreams, far from introducing
tragedy, lead, by the conjunction of two words of the same sound, to puns.
Thus a dreamer imagined that he and some friends were looking at a house
with its bedroom or bedrooms open to the air, the front wall being gone,
and they were laughing at the comical effect when a mysterious voice came
saying, 'A three-walled bedroom is a side-burst stor(e)y.' As the dreamer
awoke, he found himself laughing at this juxtaposition of the idea of the
storey of a house-side split open, and the idea of a side-splitting story.
The conditions of psychic activity during sleep--when ideas drift together
from widely separated regions along channels of association which are
usually held closed by the higher intellectual processes--seem, indeed,
to be specially favourable to the production of puns and allied forms
of witticism.[38] They may, therefore, be properly regarded as closely
associated with subconscious activity.[39]
A verbal link is seen in the following 'recipe' invented on another
occasion by the same dreamer:--
'Call in the tipcat, cut off its tail;
Fold up some eggs in a saucepan;
Sit on the rest, like an elderly male,
And gulp down the whole as a horse can.'
It is evident that the tipcat suggested a cat's tail, while the suggestion
of a cooking recipe in 'cut off its tail' led on to eggs and saucepan; the
eggs suggested 'sitting,' while 'gulp,' as the dreamer noted, appeared as
'gallop,' and suggested the horse. The ease with which the whole fell into
a completely rhymed doggerel stanza is due to the fact that the dreamer is
a poet.[40]
A more common phenomenon in my experience than association by verbal clues
is a transference from visual terms into the terms of some other sense,
and a repetition in that form. Thus a lady dreams that a large and very
beautiful picture resembling tapestry forms itself before her, and in it
she sees herself, only much more beautiful in shape, standing by a tree,
and on the other side of the tree an old friend is standing, while there
are a crowd of people around. Then she sees her friend touch her on the
arm. At the same time the dreamer feels the touch. The visual image is
reduplicated in a motor form. Such a phenomenon is doubtless a natural
result of the special conditions of dream life. In waking life the senses
are working co-ordinately, and if we see ourselves touched we shall
probably feel ourselves touched. But in dreams the body is a vision, and
not our real body, and when we see it touched, we realise we ought to feel
it touched, and a tactile sensation is thus suggested and experienced.
There are, however, other reduplications to which this explanation
will not apply. Thus I imagined I was sitting at a window, at the top
of a house, writing. As I looked up from my table I saw, with all the
emotions naturally accompanying such a sight, a woman in her nightdress
appear at a lofty window some distance off, and throw herself down. I
went on writing, however, and found that in the course of my literary
employment--I am not clear as to its precise nature--the very next thing I
had to do was to describe exactly such a scene as I had just witnessed. I
was extremely puzzled at such an extraordinary coincidence; it seemed to
me wholly inexplicable. Again I dreamed that I was coming up the Thames
(apparently in a steamboat), reading a novel, written by a friend, which
was the history of some one who arrives in England coming up the Thames
to London, by what I felt to be an extraordinary coincidence, in exactly
the same way as I was at the moment. Then I found myself seemingly at the
end of a London pier, with the river rippling at my feet, and in front
the superb panorama of London; exactly the scene which, in less detail,
was described in the book. Such dreams, reduplicating the imagery in
a new sensory medium, are fairly common, with me at all events. The
association is less that of analogy than of sensory media, as of the
visual image becoming a verbal motor image. In other cases a scene is
first seen as in reality, and then in a picture. Thus I dreamed that I
was witnessing the performance of an orchestra, and observed that all
the players had instruments of ancient pattern which, I understood,
had been in constant use for several hundred years; I could recall the
shapes of many on awaking, and none of them were quite modern; I could
not, however, recall the character of the music, which seemed to make no
impression on me, since I was absorbed in observing the shapes of the
instruments. I specially observed an old framed engraving hanging on the
wall, in my dream, representing precisely one of the instruments played
on, and I understood that it was called a _bourdon_.[41] It is interesting
to observe the profound astonishment with which sleeping consciousness
apperceives such simple reduplication.
In dreams planes of existence that in waking life are fundamentally
distinct are brought together, so that events belonging to different
planes move on the same plane, and even become combined. Acting and life,
the picture and the reality, are no longer absolutely distinct. Art and
life flow in the same channel. The reason, doubtless, is that for the
dreamer the world of waking life, the world of things as they are to the
waking senses, is closed and cannot even be completely recalled. So that
all modes of representation are strictly on the same level, and it is,
therefore, perfectly natural and logical that they should stand side by
side and merge into one another.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: The simile of the kaleidoscope for the most elementary
process of dreaming has often suggested itself. Thus in an article on
dreaming in the _Lancet_ (24th November 1877) we read: 'The combinations
are new, but the materials are old, some recent, many remote and
forgotten.... The turn of the kaleidoscope is instantaneous and any new
idea thrown into the field, perhaps in the act of turning, becomes an
integral part of the picture.']
[Footnote 13: Foucault, _Le Rêve_, p. 182.]
[Footnote 14: This is in accordance with the view of Wundt, who attributes
this multiplication of imagery to the retinal element.]
[Footnote 15: Baron Charles Mourre, 'La Volonté dans le Rêve,' _Revue
Philosophique_, May 1903.]
[Footnote 16: Ribot, _Psychologie de l'Attention_, 1889, chs. i. and ii.]
[Footnote 17: Maine de Biran, perhaps the earliest accurate introspective
observer of dreaming, noted the absence of all voluntary active attention.
Beaunis regards attention as possible in dreams, but fails to distinguish
between different kinds of attention.]
[Footnote 18: B. Leroy, 'Nature des Hallucinations,' _Revue
Philosophique_, June 1907. As regards the importance of the absence of
voluntary attention in the production of visual images, it may be remarked
that even the after-image of a bright object in waking life is much more
vivid when it occurs in a state of inattention and distraction. I noticed
this phenomenon some years ago, especially when studying mescal, and in
recent years it has been recorded by J. H. Hyslop (_Psychological Review_,
May 1903).]
[Footnote 19: We must be cautious in assuming that such imagery is purely
retinal. Scripture ('Cerebral light,' _Studies from the Yale Psychological
Laboratory_, vol. v., 1899) argues that even the so-called 'retinal light'
or '_eigenlicht_' is cerebral, not retinal at all, since it is single and
not double, and differs from after-images, which are displaced by pressure
on eyeball. This view is perhaps too extreme in the opposite direction.]
[Footnote 20: For a full and interesting study of these, see S. J. Franz,
'After-images' (Monograph Supplements to _Psychological Review_, vol.
iii., No. 2, June 1899). He agrees with those who regard after-images as
entirely retinal in origin.]
[Footnote 21: See Havelock Ellis, 'A New Artificial Paradise,'
_Contemporary Review_, January 1898; _ib._ 'Mescal: A Study of a Divine
Plant,' _Popular Science Monthly_, May 1902.]
[Footnote 22: G. E. Partridge, however ('Reverie,' _Pedagogical Seminary_,
April 1898), has investigated hypnagogic phenomena in 826 children. They
were asked to describe what they saw at night with closed eyes before
falling asleep. Among these children 58·5 per cent. of those aged from
thirteen to sixteen saw things at night in this way; of those aged six
the proportion was higher, 64·2 per cent. There seemed to be a maximum at
about the age of ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age.
Stars were most frequently mentioned, being spoken of by 151 children,
colours by 145, people and faces 77, animals 31, scenes of the day 21,
flowers and fruit 18, pictures 15, God and angels 13. Partridge calls
these phenomena hypnagogic; while, however, the hypnagogic visions of
adults may well be a relic of children's visions, the latter have much
greater range and vitality, for they are not confined to the moment before
sleep, and the child sometimes has a certain amount of control over them.
E. Guyon has studied hypnagogic and allied visions in children in his
Paris thesis, _Sur les Hallucinations Hypnagogiques_, 1903. He believes
that children always find them terrifying. That, however, is far from
being the case and is merely due to a pre-occupation with morbid cases,
which naturally attract most attention. (This is also illustrated by the
examples given by Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,' _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1897, pp. 186 _et seq._) The visions of the healthy child
are not terrifying, and he accepts them in a completely matter-of-course
way. He is no more puzzled or troubled by his waking dreams than by his
sleeping dreams.]
[Footnote 23: The earliest detailed, though not typical, description of
this phenomenon I have met with is by Dr. Simon Forman, the astrologer,
in his entertaining _Autobiography_, written in 1600. He says that, as a
child of six, 'So soon as he was always laid down to sleep he should see
in visions always many mighty mountains and hills come rolling against
him, as though they would overrun him and fall on him and bruise him, yet
he got up always to the top of them and with much ado went over them. Then
should he see many great waters like to drown him, boiling and raging
against him as though they would swallow him up, yet he thought he did
overpass them. And these dreams and visions he had every night continually
for three or four years' space.' He believed they were sent him by God to
signify the troubles of his later years. De Quincey accurately described
the phenomenon in 1821, in his _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater:_
'I know not whether my reader is aware, that many children, perhaps
most, have a power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts
of phantoms: in some, that power is simply a mechanic affection of the
eye; others have a voluntary or a semi-voluntary power to dismiss or to
summon them, or, as a child once said to me when I questioned him on this
matter, "I can tell them to go and they go; but sometimes they come, when
I don't tell them to come."' E. H. Clarke (_Visions_, 1878, pp. 212-216)
discussed the ability of children to see visions, and pointed out the
element of will in this ability. It seems unusual for auditory impressions
to intrude, though J. A. Symonds (biography by Horatio Brown, vol. i. p.
7), in describing his own night-terrors as a child, speaks of phantasmal
voices which blended with the caterwauling of cats on the roof.]
[Footnote 24: 'From being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical
figures,' Hobbes says after referring to the after-images of the sun
(_Leviathan_, part i., ch. 2), 'a man shall in the dark (though awake)
have the images of lines and angles before his eyes: which kind of fancy
hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into
men's discourse.']
[Footnote 25: Baillarger, 'De l'Influence de l'Etat Intermédiaire à la
veille et au sommeil sur la Production et la Marche des Hallucinations,'
_Annales Médico-Psychologiques_, vol. v., 1845.]
[Footnote 26: Maury, _Le Sommeil et les Rêves_, 1861, pp. 50-77. Good
descriptions of hypnagogic imagery are given by Greenwood, _Imagination
and Dreams_, pp. 16-18, and Ladd, 'The Psychology of Visual Dreams,'
_Mind_, 1892. See also Sante di Sanctis, _I Sogni_, pp. 337 _et seq._]
[Footnote 27: This is the explanation offered by, for example, Delage
(_Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Sciences_, vol. cxxxvi., No. 12, pp.
731 _et seq._). It is accepted by Guyon and others. Delage insists on the
retinal element since he finds that hypnagogic images follow the movements
of the eye.]
[Footnote 28: Similarly, under chloroform, Elmer Jones found that vision
is at first stimulated.]
[Footnote 29: G. H. Savage, 'Dreams: Normal and Morbid,' _St. Thomas's
Hospital Gazette_, February 1908.]
[Footnote 30: _British Medical Journal_, 11th May 1907. The actual
hallucinations of the insane are usually coloured normally. Head, however,
finds (_Brain_, 1901, p. 353) that the waking visual hallucinations
sometimes associated with visceral disease are always white, black, or
grey, and never coloured or even tinted.]
[Footnote 31: The transformation of birds into human beings seems
peculiarly common in dreams. I have referred to this point elsewhere
(_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. i. 3rd ed., p. 193). It is an
interesting and doubtless significant fact that the same transformation
is accepted in the myths of primitive peoples. Thus, according to H. H.
Bancroft (_Native Races of the Pacific_, vol. i. p. 93), a pantomime dance
of the Aleuts represents the transformation of a captive bird into a
lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter.]
[Footnote 32: It is noteworthy that this marked tendency in dreams to
discover analogies, although doubtless a tendency of primitive thought,
is also a progressive tendency. 'The conquests of science,' says Sageret
('L'Analogie Scientifique,' _Revue Philosophique_, January 1909), 'are the
conquests of analogy.']
[Footnote 33: Maury, _Le Sommeil et les Rêves_, p. 115.]
[Footnote 34: Kraepelin, 'Ueber Sprachstörungen im Träume,'
_Psychologische Arbeiten_, Bd. v., 1906, pp. 1-104; cf. Lombard,
'Glossolalie,' _Archives de Psychologie_, July 1907.]
[Footnote 35: This is confirmed by the fact that under chloroform
anaesthesia hearing is the first sense to be lost and vision the
last (Elmer Jones, 'The Waning of Consciousness under Chloroform,'
_Psychological Review_, January 1909).]
[Footnote 36: It may be recalled as not without significance that the
formation of new words is fairly common among young children; see, _e.g._,
an interesting correspondence in _Nature_, 26th March and 9th April 1891.]
[Footnote 37: It can scarcely be derived from the unfamiliar word
_chalizah_, the Hebrew name for the levirate.]
[Footnote 38: Thus I have rarely ever attempted parody when awake, but
once when at Montserrat, with thoughts far from humorous fields, I dreamed
of making a parody (I am not quite clear of what) apparently suggested by
the goose-pond in the cloisters of Barcelona Cathedral.]
[Footnote 39: This point of view has been specially developed by Freud,
_Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten_.]
[Footnote 40: It may be noted that somewhat similar doggerel verse is
sometimes made by the insane; see, _e.g._, _Journal of Mental Science_,
April 1907, p. 284.]
[Footnote 41: There was no known origin for this dream, and the word
_bourdon_ had no conscious associations for my mind; I was not even
definitely aware that it is used in a musical sense.]
CHAPTER III
THE LOGIC OF DREAMS
All Dreaming is a Process of Reasoning--The Fundamental
Character of Reasoning--Reasoning as a Synthesis of
Images--Dream Reasoning Instinctive and Automatic--It is also
Consciously carried on--This a result of the Fundamental Split
in Intelligence--Dissociation--Dreaming as a Disturbance of
Apperception.
In dreams we are always reasoning. That is a general characteristic of
dreams which is worth noting, because its significance is not usually
recognised. It is sometimes imagined that reason is in abeyance during
sleep.[42] So far from this being the case, we may almost be said to
reason much more during sleep than when we are awake. That our reasoning
is bad, often even preposterous, that it constantly ignores the most
elementary facts of waking life, scarcely affects the question. All
dreaming is a process of reasoning. That artful confusion of ideas and
images which, at the outset, I referred to as the most constant feature
of dream mechanism is nothing but a process of reasoning, a perpetual
effort to argue out harmoniously the absurdly limited and incongruous
data present to sleeping consciousness. Binet, grounding his conclusions
on hypnotic experiments, finds that reasoning is the fundamental part of
all thinking, the very texture of thought.[43] It is founded on perception
itself, which already contains all the elements of the ancient syllogism.
For in all perception, as Binet plausibly argues, there is a succession
of three images, of which the first fuses with the second, which, in its
turn, suggests the third. Now this establishment of new associations, this
construction of images, which, as we may easily convince ourselves, is
precisely what takes place in dreaming, is reasoning itself.
Reasoning may thus be regarded as a synthesis of images suggested by
resemblance and contiguity, indeed a sort of logical vision, more intense
even than actual vision, since it is capable of producing hallucinations.
To reasoning all forms of mental activity may finally be reduced; mind, as
Wundt has said, is a thing that reasons. Or, as H. R. Marshall puts it,
'reason is a mode of instinct.'[44] When we apply these general statements
to dreaming, we may see that the whole phenomenon of dreaming is really
the same process of image formation, based on resemblance and contiguity.
Every dream is the outcome of this strenuous, wide-ranging instinct to
reason. The supposed 'imaginative faculty,' regarded as so highly active
during sleep, is the inevitable play of this automatic logic.
The syllogistic arrangement of dream imagery is carried on in an
absolutely automatic manner; it is spontaneous, involuntary, without
effort. Sleeping consciousness, though all the time it is weaving the data
that reach it into some pattern of reason with immense ingenuity, is quite
unaware that it is itself responsible for the arguments thus presented. In
the evening, before going to bed, I glance casually through a newspaper;
I see the usual kind of news, revolutionists in Russia, Irish affairs,
crimes, etc.; I see also a caricature of the Liberal Party as a headless
horseman on a barren plain. During sleep these unconnected impressions
revive, float into dream consciousness, and spontaneously fall into as
reasonable a whole as could be expected. I dream that by some chemical or
mechanical device a man has succeeded in conveying the impression that he
is headless, and is preparing to gallop across some district in Russia,
with the idea of making so mysterious an impression upon the credulous
population that he will be accepted as a great religious prophet. I
distinctly see him careering across sands like those of the seashore,
but I avoid going near him. Then I see figures approaching him in the
far distance, and his progress ceases. I learn subsequently that he has
been arrested and found to be an Irish criminal. A coherent story is thus
formed out of a few random impressions.
All such typical dreams are syllogistic. There is, that is to say, as
Binet expresses it, the establishment of an association between two states
of consciousness by means of an intermediate state which resembles
the first, is associated with the second, and by fusing with the first
associates it with the second. In this dream, for instance, we have the
three terms of (1) headless horseman, (2) revolutionary crime, and (3)
Russia and Ireland. The intermediate term, by the fact that it resembles
the first, and is contiguous in the mind with the third, seems to fuse the
first and the third terms, so that the headless horseman becomes an Irish
criminal in Russia. In dreaming life, as in waking life, our minds are
always moving by the construction of similar syllogisms, marked by more or
less freedom and audacity.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the instinctive and persistent
efforts on the part of the sleeping mind to construct a coherent whole
out of the incongruous elements that come before it; nearly every
dream furnishes some proof of this profoundly rooted impulse.[45] It
is instructive, however, to consider the nature and the limitations of
dreaming reason.
This rationalisation and logical construction of imagery, it is necessary
to realise, occurs at the very threshold of sleeping consciousness. The
dreamer makes no effort to arrange isolated imagery; the arrangement
has already occurred when the imagery comes to the focus of sleeping
consciousness; so that this reasoning and arranging process is so
fundamental and instinctive that it occurs in a region which may be said
to be subconscious to dreaming consciousness. If it were not so our dreams
would never be real to us, for even dreaming consciousness could not
accept as real a hallucination which it had itself arranged. In this sense
it is true that, to some extent, our dreams are often based on an ultimate
personal and emotional foundation.[46]
But this ingeniously guided and rationalised confusion of imagery by no
means covers the whole of the reasoning process in dreams. This is a
double process. It is first manifested subconsciously in the formation
of dream imagery, and then it is manifested consciously in the dreamer's
reaction to the imagery presented to him. Every dream is made up of action
and reaction between a pseudo-universe and a freely responding individual.
On the one side there is the irresistibly imposed imagery--really,
though we know it not, conditioned and instinctively moulded by our own
organism--which stands for what in our waking hours we may term God and
Nature; on the other side is the Soul struggling with all its might,
and very inefficient means, against the awful powers that oppose it.
The problem of the waking world is presented over again in this battle
between the dreaming protagonist and his dreamed fate. Both of these
elements are instinctively reasoned out, consciously or subconsciously;
both are imperfect fragments from the rich reservoir of human personality.
The things that happen to us in dreams, the pseudo-external world that is
presented to sleeping consciousness--the imagery, that is, that floats
before the mental eye of sleep--are a perpetual source of astonishment
and argument to the dreamer. A large part of dreaming activity is
concerned with the attempt to explain and reason out the phenomena we thus
encounter, to construct a theory of them, or to determine the attitude
which we ought to take up with regard to them. Most dreams will furnish
evidence of this reasoning process.
Thus a lady dreamed that an acquaintance wished to send a small sum of
money to a person in Ireland. She rashly offered to take it over to
Ireland. On arriving home she began to repent of her promise, as the
weather was extremely wild and cold. She proceeded, however, to make
preparations for dressing warmly, and went to consult an Irish friend, who
said she would have to be floated over to Ireland tightly jammed in a crab
basket. On returning home she fully discussed the matter with her husband,
who thought it would be folly to undertake such a journey, and she finally
relinquished it, with great relief. In this dream--the elements of which
could all be accounted for--the association between sending money and
the post-office, which would at once occur to waking consciousness, was
closed; consciousness was a prey to such suggestions as reached it,
but on the basis of those suggestions it reasoned and concluded quite
sagaciously.
Again (after looking at photographs of paintings and statuary, and also
reading about the theatre), I dreamed that I was at the theatre, and that
the performers were acting and dancing in a more or less, in some cases
completely, nude state, but with admirable propriety and grace, and very
charming effect. At first I was extremely surprised at so remarkable an
innovation; but then I reflected that the beginnings of such a movement
must have long been in progress on the stage unknown to me; and I
proceeded to rehearse the reasons which made such a movement desirable.
On another occasion, I dreamed that I was in the large _plaza_ of a
Spanish city (Pamplona possibly furnishing the elements of the picture),
and that the governor emerged from his residence facing the square and
began talking in English to the subordinate officials who were waiting
to receive him. The real reason why he talked English was, of course,
the simple one that he spoke the language native to the dreamer. But in
my dream I was extremely puzzled why he should speak English. I looked
carefully into his face to assure myself that he was not really English,
and I finally concluded that he was speaking English in order not to be
understood by the bystanders. Once more, I dreamed that I was looking at
an architectural drawing of a steeple, of quite original design, somewhat
in the shape of a cross, but very elongated. I attempted in my dream
to account for this elongation, and concluded that it was intended to
neutralise the foreshortening caused when the steeple would be looked at
from below.
There is, we here see afresh, a fundamental split in dreaming
intelligence. On the one side there is the subconscious, yet often highly
intelligent, combination of imagery along rational although often bizarre
lines. On the other side is concentrated the conscious intelligence of
the dreamer, struggling to comprehend and explain the problems offered by
the pseudo-external imagery thus presented to it. One might almost say
that in dreams subconscious intelligence is playing a game with conscious
intelligence. In a dream previously narrated (p. 43) subconscious
intelligence offered to my dreaming consciousness the mysterious substance
_selvdrolla_, and bid me guess what it was; I could not guess. And
subconscious intelligence presented the drawing of the elongated steeple,
and I was able to offer an explanation which seems fairly satisfactory.
So that, in the world of dreams, it may be said, we see over again the
process which, James Hinton was accustomed to say, we see in the universe
of our waking life; God or Nature playing with man, compelling him to
join in a game of hide-and-seek, and setting him problems which he must
solve as best he can. It may well be, one may add, that the dream process
furnishes the key to the metaphysical and even, indeed, the physical
problems of our waking thoughts, and that the puzzles of the universe are
questions that we ourselves unconsciously invent for ourselves to solve.
We can never go behind the fantastic universe of our dreams. The validity
of that universe is for dreaming consciousness unassailable. We may try
to understand it and explain it, but we can never deny it, any more than
we can deny the universe of our waking life, however we may attempt to
analyse it. Dreaming consciousness never realises that the universe
that confronts it springs from the same source as itself springs. I
dreamed that a man was looking at his own house from a distance, and
on the balcony he saw his daughter and a man by her side. 'Who is that
man flirting with my daughter?' he asked. He produced a field-glass,
and, on looking through it, he exclaimed: 'Good Heavens, it's myself!'
Dreaming consciousness accepted this situation with perfect equanimity and
solemnity. In the dream world there is, indeed, nothing else to do. We may
puzzle over the facts presented to us; we may try to explain them; but it
would be futile to deny them, even when they involve the possibility of a
man being in two places at the same time.[47]
Only to a few people there comes occasionally in dreams a dim realisation
of the unreality of the experience: 'After all, it does not matter,'
they are able to say to themselves with more or less conviction, 'this is
only a dream.' Thus one lady, dreaming that she is trying to kill three
large snakes by stamping on them, wonders, while still dreaming, what it
signifies to dream of snakes,[48] and another lady, when she dreams that
she is in any unpleasant position--about to be shot, for instance--often
says to herself: 'Never mind, I shall wake before it happens.'
I have never detected in my own dreams any recognition that they are
dreams. I may say, indeed, that I do not consider that such a thing is
really possible, though it has been borne witness to by many philosophers
and others from Aristotle and Synesius and Gassendi onwards. The
phenomenon occurs; the person who says to himself that he is dreaming
believes that he is still dreaming, but one may be permitted to doubt
that he is. It seems far more probable that he has for a moment, without
realising it, emerged at the waking surface of consciousness.[49] The
only approach to a recognition of dreaming as dreaming that I have
experienced, is connected with the reduplication that may sometimes
occur, and the sense of a fatalistic predetermination. Thus I dreamed
(with nothing that could suggest the dream) that I was one of a group of
people who, as I realised, were carrying out a drama in which by force of
circumstance I was destined to be the villain, having, by bad treatment,
been driven to revenge. I knew at the outset how events would turn out,
and yet, though it seemed real life, I felt vaguely that it was all a play
that was merely being rehearsed. I had attained in the world of dreams to
the Shakespearian feeling that it was all a stage, and I merely a player.
So we may become the Prosperos of the life of dreams.[50]
This quality of dreaming consciousness is a manifestation, and the chief
one, of what is called _dissociation_.[51] In dissociation we have a
phenomenon which runs through the whole of the dreaming life, and is
scarcely less fundamental than the process of fusion by which the imagery
is built up. The fact that the reasoning of dreams is usually bad, is due
partly to the absence of memory elements that would be present to waking
consciousness, and partly to the absence of sensory elements to check the
false reasoning which, without them, appears to us conclusive. That is to
say, that there is a process of dissociation by which ordinary channels
of association are temporarily blocked, perhaps by exhaustion of their
conductive elements, and the conditions are prepared for the formation
of the hallucination. It is, as Parish has argued, in sleep and in those
sleep-resembling states called hypnagogic that a condition of dissociation
leading to hallucination is most apt to occur.[52]
Thus it is that though the psychic frontier of the sleeping state is more
extended than that of the normal waking state, the focus of sleeping
consciousness is more contracted than that of waking consciousness. In
other words, while facts are liable to drift from a very wide psychic
distance under our dreaming attention, we cannot direct the searchlight of
that attention at will over so wide a field as when we are awake. We deal
with fewer psychic elements, though those elements are drawn from a wider
field.
The psychology of 'attention' is, indeed, a very disputed matter.[53]
There is no agreement as to whether it is central or peripheral, motor or
sensory. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it seems reasonable to
conclude, according to a convenient distinction established by Ribot, that
spontaneous attention is persistent during sleep, but voluntary attention
is at a minimum. In some such way, it seems, whatever theory of attention
we adopt, we have to recognise that in dreams the attention is limited.
Such a position is fortified by the conclusion of those who look at the
problem, not so much in terms of attention as in terms of apperception.
Apperception, according to Wundt, differs from perception in that while
the latter is the appearance of a content in consciousness, the former
is its reception into the state of attention. Or, as Stout defines it,
apperception is 'the process by which a mental system appropriates a new
element, or otherwise receives a fresh determination.'[54] Apperception
is, therefore, the final stage of attention, and ultimately, as Wundt
remarks, it is one with will. Apperception and will, as most psychologists
consider, like attention, are enfeebled and diminished, if not abolished,
in sleep.
In dreams, it thus comes about, we accept the facts presented to
us--that is the fundamental assumption of dream life--and we argue about
those 'facts' with the help of all the mental resources which are at
our disposal, only those resources are frequently inadequate. Sometimes
they are startlingly inadequate, to such an extent, indeed, that we
are unaware of possibilities which would be the very first to suggest
themselves to waking consciousness. Thus the lady who wished to send a
small sum of money to Ireland is not aware of the existence of postal
orders, and when she decides to convey the money herself, she is not aware
of the existence of boat-trains, or even of boats; she might have been
living in palaeolithic times. She discusses the question in a clear and
logical manner with the resources at her disposal, and reaches a rational
conclusion, but considerations which would be the first to occur to waking
consciousness are at the moment absent from sleeping consciousness; whole
mental tracts have been dissociated, switched off from communication with
consciousness; they are 'asleep,' even to sleeping consciousness.[55]
The result is that we are not only dominated by the suggestion of our
visions, but we are unable adequately to appreciate and criticise the
situations which are presented to us. We instinctively continue to
reason, and to reason clearly and logically with the material at our
disposal, but our reasoning is hopelessly absurd. We perceive in dreams,
but we do not apperceive; we cannot, that is to say, test and sift the
new experience, and co-ordinate it adequately with the whole body of
our acquired mental possessions. The phenomena of dreaming furnish a
delightful illustration of the fact that reasoning, in its rough form, is
only the crudest and most elementary form of intellectual operation, and
that the finer forms of thinking involve much more than logic. 'All the
thinking in the world,' as Goethe puts it, 'will not lead us to thought.'
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: Freud brings together (_Traumdeutung_, pp. 38 _et seq._)
some of the different opinions regarding reasoning in dreams.]
[Footnote 43: 'Reasoning,' says Binet (_La Psychologie du Raisonnement_,
1886, p. 10), speaking without reference to dreaming, but in words that
are exactly applicable to it, 'is an organisation of images determined by
the properties of the images alone; it suffices for the images to be put
in presence and they become organised; reason follows with the certainty
of a reflex.']
[Footnote 44: H. R. Marshall, _Instinct and Reason;_ _ib._ 'Reason a Mode
of Instinct,' _Psychological Review_, March 1899.]
[Footnote 45: Some of the most methodically absurd examples of dreaming
logic cannot be effectively brought forward, as they are so personal that
they require much explanation to make them intelligible.]
[Footnote 46: Delacroix ('Sur la Structure Logique du Rêve,' _Revue de
Metaphysique_, November 1904), in opposition to Leroy and Tobolowska,
goes so far as to say that 'the sense of the dream, the interpretation of
the image, is given in the image, before the image, if one may say so;
we are not concerned with a mere procession of images without internal
connection, but are introduced into a pre-established organisation; wholes
are decomposed and not separate elements united.' We have to remember that
in dream life as in waking life the action is twofold; in either world
when our psychic activity is of low intensity we combine external images
into a fairly objective picture; when psychic activity is intense external
images are subdued and controlled by that activity.]
[Footnote 47: A somewhat similar mistaken self-detachment may even occur
momentarily in the waking condition. Thus Jastrow (_The Subconscious_,
p. 137) refers to the 'lapse of consciousness' of a lady student who,
while absorbed in her work, heard outside the door the shuffling of
rubber heels such as she herself wore, and said 'There goes----,' naming
herself. That delusion was no doubt due to the eruption of a dream-like
state of distraction. As regards the visual phantasm of the self (which
has sometimes been seen by men of very distinguished intellectual power)
it may be noted that it is favoured by the conditions of dream life. Our
dream imagery is all pictural, sometimes even to dream consciousness,
and to see oneself in the picture is, therefore, not so very much more
remarkable than it is in waking life to come upon oneself among a bundle
of photographs.]
[Footnote 48: As regards the significance of snakes in dreams, it may be
remarked that the followers of Freud regard them as being, in the dreams
of women, as they are in the speech and myths of primitive peoples, erotic
symbols (_e.g._ Karl Abraham, _Traum und Mythus_, 1909, p. 19). It must be
remembered, however, that this erotic symbolism is but a small part of the
emotional interest aroused by snakes which are an extremely common source
of fear, especially in the young. See _e.g._ Stanley Hall, 'A Study of
Fears,' _American Journal of Psychology_, 1897, pp. 205 _et seq_.]
[Footnote 49: It may even occur that a person partly wakes up, perceives
what is going on around him, converses about it, falls asleep again, and
imagines in the morning that the whole episode was a dream. Hammond,
who also denies that we can dream we are dreaming, gives a case in
illustration (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 190).]
[Footnote 50: The vision of the dream world we thus attain corresponds
exactly to the philosophy of life set forth by Jules de Gaultier, perhaps
the most subtle and original of living thinkers; according to Gaultier
the psychic improvisation which has created the spectacle of the world
has, as it were, sworn 'never to recognise itself beneath the masks
it has assumed, in order to retain the joy of an unending play of the
unforeseen.']
[Footnote 51: Dissociation may be defined as a condition in which, in
the words of Tannery (_Revue Philosophique_, October 1898), 'the various
organisms of the brain which in the waking state accomplish distinct
functions with satisfactory agreement are, on the contrary, in a state
of semi-independence.' There is, in Greenwood's words (_Imagination in
Dreams_, p. 41), a 'loosening of mental bonds,' corresponding to the
relaxation of muscular tension which also occurs before going to sleep.]
[Footnote 52: Edmund Parish, _Hallucinations and Illusions: A Study of
the Fallacies of Perception_ (Contemporary Science Series), 1897. It
is significant to observe that in hysteria, which may be regarded as
presenting a condition somewhat analogous to sleep, dissociation also
occurs. 'Hysteria,' says Janet (_The Major Symptoms of Hysteria_, 1907,
p. 332), one of the greatest authorities, 'is a form of mental depression
characterised by the retraction of the field of personal consciousness and
a tendency to the dissociation and emancipation of the system of ideas and
functions that constitute personality.']
[Footnote 53: The theories of attention are lucidly and concisely set
forth by Nayrac, 'Le Processus et le Mécanisme de l'Attention,' _Revue
Scientifique_, 7th April 1906.]
[Footnote 54: G. F. Stout, _Analytic Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 112. In
the _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_, again, Stout and Baldwin
define apperception as 'the process of attention in so far as it involves
interaction between the presentation of the object attended to, on the one
hand, and the total preceding conscious content, together with pre-formed
mental dispositions, on the other hand.']
[Footnote 55: A very similar state of things occurs in some forms of
insanity, especially in the less profound states of mental confusion,
when, as Bolton remarks ('Amentia and Dementia,' _Journal of Mental
Science_, July 1906, p. 445), we find 'certain associated remnants of
former experience combined into a sequence according to the normal laws of
mental association.']
CHAPTER IV
THE SENSES IN DREAMS
All Dreams probably contain both Presentative and Representative
Elements--The Influence of Tactile Sensations on Dreams--Dreams
excited by Auditory Stimuli--Dreams aroused by Odours
and Tastes--The Influence of Visual Stimuli--Difficulty
of distinguishing between Actual and Imagined Sensory
Excitations--The Influence of Internal Visceral Stimuli on
Dreaming--Erotic Dreams--Vesical Dreams--Cardiac Dreams and their
Symbolism--Prodromic Dreams--Prophetic Dreams.
At the outset I adopted provisionally the usual classification of dreams
into two classes: the peripheral or presentative group, excited by a
stimulus from without, and the central or representative group, having its
elements in memories. If, however, we look carefully at the matter, in the
light of the experiences which we have encountered, it will be found that
this classification, however superficially convenient it may be, fails
to correspond to any radical duality of dream phenomena. When we closely
question our dream experiences, it ceases to be clear that they really
fall into two groups at all.
On the one hand, it would appear that most, perhaps, indeed, all dreams
that are sufficiently vivid to be clearly remembered on awakening, have
received an initial stimulus from some external, or at all events,
peripheral source.[56] There is something unusual or uncomfortable in
the sleeper's position, or he has been subjected to some slight unusual
strain which has modified his nervous condition, or there has been some
deviation from his usual diet, or a physiological stress of some kind is
making itself felt within him--careful self-questioning constantly reveals
the actual or probable existence of some external or certainly peripheral
stimulus of this kind. So that we seem entitled to say that in all dreams
there is probably a presentative element.
On the other hand, an even more cursory investigation of our dream life
suffices to show that in every dream there is also a representative
element. No dream can be said to be strictly and literally presentative.
If, when I am seemingly asleep, a person speaks to me, and I become
conscious that he is present and speaking, I am not entitled to say
that I 'dream' it. A consciousness which perceives facts in the same
way as they may be perceived by waking consciousness is not a dreaming
consciousness. So that there are, in the literal sense, no presentative
dreams. What happens is that the stimulus, instead of being presented
directly to consciousness, and recognised for what it is to waking
consciousness, serves to arouse old memories and ideas which dream
consciousness accepts as a reasonable explanation of the external or
peripheral stimulus. The stimulus may be said to be, in a sense, the
cause of the dream, but the dream itself remains central, and as truly a
combined picture of mental images as though there were no known peripheral
stimulus at all.
Thus, while it is true that the division of dreams into two classes
corresponds to a recognisable distinction, it is yet a superficial and
unimportant distinction. It is likely that all dreams have a peripheral
or presentative element, and certain that they all have a central or
representative element. This will become clearer if we now proceed to
discuss those dreams which have, demonstrably, their exciting cause in
some external or internal organic stimulus.
The world which we enter through the portal of sleep presents such obvious
and serious limitations that we are apt to under-estimate its real
richness and variety. In some respects, indeed, we can accomplish in sleep
what is beyond our reach awake. Thus it sometimes happens that we reason
better in sleep than when awake, that we may find in dreams the solutions
of difficulties which escape us awake, and that we may remember things
which, when awake, we had forgotten. But even within the ordinary range
of experience, it is interesting to note that our dreams contain the same
elements as our waking life. The sensory activities which stir us during
the day are equally active, though in strange transformations, in the
world of dreams.
It is probable that all the senses may furnish the medium through which
stimuli may reach sleeping consciousness; though touch and hearing are
doubtless the main channels to dream life. The eyes are closed, so that
while the chief parts of our dream life are in terms of vision, direct
visual stimuli can only be a very dim and uncertain influence. But no
sense is absolutely excluded from activity in dreams.[57]
Heat or cold sensations and pressure sensations, as well as their
anaesthetic absence, undoubtedly play an important part in explaining
various kinds of dreams. They do not necessarily result in rememberable
dreams, even although it is possible that they still affect the current of
sleeping consciousness. It is possible to press and massage the body of
a sleeper all over, gently but firmly, without interrupting sleep. When
the pressure reaches a considerable degree of vigour, the sleeper may
move a muscle, perhaps the lips, even an arm, may go so far as to half
wake and move the whole body. All these movements suggest that they have
accompaniments on the psychic side, yet, on finally awakening, the sleeper
may be unable to recall any memory of the occurrence, or any vestige of a
dream.
In a certain proportion of cases, however, a dream results. Thus a lady
dreams that, with a number of other people, she is on board a ship which
is rocking heavily, and on awakening she finds that her large dog is on
the bed, vigorously scratching himself. The ship has clearly been the
theory invented by sleeping consciousness to account for the unfamiliar
sensations of movement.
When living in the south of Spain, I awoke early one morning, and heard a
mosquito buzzing. I fell asleep again and dreamed that a huge insect--as
large as a lobster, but flat like a cockroach, and scarlet in colour--had
alighted on my hand. The creature had two long horns, and from each of
these proceeded numerous very long and delicate filaments which were
inserted into my hand to a considerable depth. I had to cut the creature
in half, and draw away the forepart, which was attached to my hand, with
great care lest I should leave portions of the filaments in the flesh.
This animal seemed all the more unpleasant because it was noiseless,
and its attacks, I thought, imperceptible. I appeared to be attacked by
a succession of them. On awakening, there was irritation of the left
wrist, as though the mosquito had bitten me, although I had long ceased
to be bitten by mosquitoes. This dream, it will be seen, corresponds in
an unusually close way to the idea of a presentative dream; imagination
followed reality in presenting an insect as the cause of the sensation
experienced (possibly because I had actually heard the mosquito when
awake), but still, as in all dreams, the process was mainly central,
and imagination was freely exercised in creating a creature adequate to
explain the doubtless vague and massive cutaneous sensations transmitted
to sleeping consciousness.[58]
Perhaps one of the commonest skin sensations to excite dream formation
is that of cold due to disturbance of the bed coverings. The following
example may serve as an illustration of this class. I dreamed that I was
in an hotel, mounting many flights of stairs, until I entered a room where
the chambermaid was making the bed; the white bedclothes were scattered
over everything, and looked to me like snow; then I became conscious that
I was very cold, and it appeared to me that I really was surrounded by
snow, for the chambermaid remarked that I was very courageous to come up
so high in the hotel, very few people venturing to do so on account of
the great cold at this height. I awoke to find that it was a cold night,
and that I was entangled in the sheets, and partly uncovered. Nothing
else had occurred to suggest this dream which sleeping consciousness had
elaborated out of the two associated ideas of altitude and snow in order
to explain the actual sensations experienced. It is noteworthy that, as in
the dream just before narrated, there was here also a link with reality,
this time furnished by the disarranged bedclothes.[59]
The auditory experiences of dreams, to a greater extent perhaps than those
involving the sense of touch, may be based on spontaneous disturbances
within the sensory mechanism. This is notably also the case with visual
experiences, and in many respects the conditions in the ear are analogous.
Apart from increased resonance of the ear, or hyperaesthesia of the
auditory nerve, producing special sensitiveness to sounds, an increased
flow of blood through the ear, as well as muscular contractions and mucous
plugs in the external ear, furnish the faint rudimentary noises which, in
sleep, may constitute the nucleus around which hallucinations crystallise.
Disease of the ear may obviously act in the same way, but, even apart from
actual disease, various nervous disturbances favour the production of
auditory hallucinations during sleep, and, in marked cases, even awake.
We may dream of listening to music in the absence of all external sounds
having any musical character. In such cases, no doubt, the actual
conditions within the auditory mechanism are suggesting music to the
brain, but the resulting music seems usually to be less definite, less
rememberable, than when it forms around the nucleus of an external series
of sounds. In many of these cases it is probable that we do not hear
music in our dream; we are simply under conditions in which we imagine
that we hear music. Thus, on going to bed soon after supper, but not
perceptibly suffering from indigestion, I dreamed that I was present at
a public meeting combined with an orchestral concert. A speech was to be
made by a man who looked like an old sailor or soldier, and meanwhile
the orchestra was playing. The speaker--unaccustomed, I gathered, to the
etiquette of such a meeting--suddenly interrupted the orchestra by a
remark, and the surprised conductor stopped the performance for a moment
and then continued, subsequent remarks by the speaker failing to affect
the music, which continued to the end, becoming more lively and vigorous
in character. But what the music was, I knew not at the time, nor could
I recall any fragment of it on awakening. It is even possible that such
a dream is mainly visual, and that no hallucinatory music is heard, its
occurrence being merely deduced from the nature of the vision.
If the dreams evoked by sounds within the ear are usually difficult to
trace in normal persons under ordinary circumstances, this is not the
case with dreams suggested by sounds which strike the ear from without.
These constitute one of the most interesting groups of dreams as well as
one of the easiest to explain, and they are very frequent.[60] Their
mechanism may, indeed, be observed under some circumstances even in the
waking state. In some persons, music, a voice, a bird's song, even a
word, a comment, arouse phantoms of colour and form, light and shade,
coloured clouds, streams, waves, etc. The phenomena are especially rich
when produced by an orchestra. Such 'music-phantoms,' as they are termed,
are a special and freer development of the narrow and rigid phenomena
of 'colour-hearing.' They have been studied by Dr. Ruths.[61] We have
to remember that music possesses a fundamental motor basis. As Dauriac
remarks, music may be defined as 'movement clothed with sound.'[62]
It tends to produce movement, or, failing movement, to produce motor
imagery.[63]
Dreams excited by definite external auditory stimuli may be of various
character. A not uncommon source--especially for those who live on
a wind-swept coast--is the occurrence of storms. A lady dreams, for
instance, that her little dog has fallen off a high cliff and that she
hears his shrieks; it was an extremely windy night, and her window was
open. The dream has some resemblance to one which Burdach recorded that he
shared with a companion in an hotel during a storm; they both dreamed they
were wandering at night among high precipices.
On one occasion I awoke in the middle of a windy night imagining I had
been listening to an opera of Gluck's (which in reality I had never
heard), and experiencing all the sense of delicious waves of melody
which one actually experiences in listening to such operas as _Alceste_.
A fragment of a melody I had heard in the dream still persisted in my
memory on awaking, so that I could mentally repeat it, when it seemed as
agreeable as in the dream, though unfamiliar.
The following dream had also a similar origin. I imagined that I was
assisting at a spectacle of somewhat dubious erotic character, in company
with other persons who, out of modesty, covered their faces with their
hands with the decorous gesture which recalled (as dream consciousness
evidently realised) that of people during prayer in church. Thereupon a
beautiful voice was heard in the background loudly chanting a versicle of
the Te Deum. This awoke me, and I seemed to realise when half awake that
the voice I had heard in the dream was a real voice. There had, however,
been no real voice, only the loud howling of the wind and the beating of
the rain on the window panes.
Once, on a very windy night, and when, perhaps, suffering a trifling
disturbance of health--for there was slight pleurodynic pain the next
morning--I dreamed I was quietly at home with friends, when suddenly
the sky became illuminated. We found that this was due to steady and
continuous lightning, a state of things which remained throughout the
dream, the sky presenting the appearance of a cracked and crushed sheet
of melting ice.[64] By and by, fragments of buildings and similar debris
were whirled past in the air, and I caught sight of a woman driven above
me by her skirts. We now realised the imminent approach of a terrific
cyclone which, at any moment, might carry the house and ourselves away. I
remembered no more.
Yet another dream may be mentioned as likewise directly due to a violent
storm and the rattling of a window near my bed. The latter sound evidently
recalled to sleeping consciousness the sound of the rattling window of
a railway train, and I dreamed that I was travelling to Berlin with a
medical friend. There were the accompaniments, not unfamiliar in dreams,
of rushing along interminable platforms, and up and down endless stairs,
finding myself in a carriage of the wrong class, with, in consequence,
more wandering along corridors, and finally finding that my friend had
been left behind. The character of the dream may have been influenced by
slight indigestion. In this dream, unlike those already recorded as due to
external stimuli, the elements of the dream were not the pure invention
of dreaming imagination, but compacted entirely of ideas that had been
recently familiar.
The following dream was due to an auditory stimulus of different
character. I dreamed that I was listening to a performance of Haydn's
_Creation_, the orchestral part of the performance seeming to consist
chiefly of the very realistic representation of the song of birds, though
I could not identify the note of any particular bird. Then followed solos
by male singers, whom I saw, especially one who attracted my attention
by singing at the close in a scarcely audible voice. On awakening, the
source of the dream was not immediately obvious, but I soon realised that
it was the song of a canary in another room. I had never heard Haydn's
_Creation_, except in fragments, nor thought of it at any recent period;
its reputation as regards the realistic representation of natural sounds
had evidently caused it to be put forward by sleeping consciousness as
a plausible explanation of the sounds heard, and the visual centres had
accepted the theory.
However far-fetched and improbable our dreams may seem to the waking mind,
they are, from the point of view of the sleeping mind, serious and careful
attempts to construct an adequate theory of the phenomena. The imagery is
sought from far afield only to fit the facts more accurately. Thus a lady
dreamed that her dog was being crushed out flat in a large old-fashioned
box-mangle. She awoke to find that water from a burst pipe was falling
from the ceiling on to the floor on the landing outside her door, close to
where the dog had his bed. She had never seen a mangle of this kind since
she was a child, or had any occasion to think of it, but the rhythm and
sound of it somewhat resembled that of the falling water.
One more example of an auditory dream may be given. I dreamed that I was
back in a schoolroom of my boyhood, with two or three of the present
masters. The room had been entirely changed, and it contained much new
school apparatus and, notably, on a table, several miniature engines,
of different character, actually working. I said to the masters that I
wished all these apparatus had been there twenty years ago (a considerable
under-estimate of the actual interval since I left that schoolroom), so
that I might have enjoyed the benefit of them. 'All life is made up of
machinery,' I found myself uttering aloud as I awoke, 'and unless you
understand machinery you can't understand life.' It was not till some
moments later that I became conscious of a faint whirring sound which
puzzled me till I realised that it was the sound of distant machinery
entering through the open window. This had, undoubtedly, suggested the
engines of the dream, though I had not been conscious in my dream of
hearing any sounds, and the small size of the dream engines corresponded
to the faintness of the actual sounds.
Dreams aroused by odours do not usually seem to occur except on
the experimental application of them to the sleeper's nostrils,
and experiments in this direction are not usually successful.[65]
Occasionally, however, smell dreams occur without any traceable sensory
source, and Grace Andrews, for instance, records a dream of the sea,
accompanied by the seashore odour, 'a pure and rich sensation of smell.'
In my own case olfactory dreams have been rare and insignificant.
Taste, as we usually understand it, really involves, as is well known, an
element of smell, and taste dreams of this kind seem to occur from time to
time under the influence of any slight disturbance of the mucous membrane
of the mouth or slight indigestion. It is possible that the latter element
was present in the following dream: I imagined that, following the example
of a friend, I gave some cigarettes to a tramp we had casually met, and
that, in return, we felt compelled to drink some raw gin he carried. I
did so with some misgiving as to the possible results of drinking from
a tramp's flask, but although in real life I had not tasted gin for
many years, the hot burning taste of the spirit was very distinct. On
awakening, my lips seemed hot and dry, and it was doubtless this labial
sensation which led dream consciousness to seek a plausible explanation in
cigarettes and spirits. Although the spirit seemed to have the specific
flavour of gin, it is always difficult, if not impossible, in dream
sensations, to distinguish between what one feels and what one merely
concludes that one feels. In such a case, that is to say, it remains
doubtful whether the labial sensation evokes the specific hallucination
of gin, or whether it merely suggests to sleeping consciousness that the
gin has been tasted, much as it is possible to suggest to the hypnotised
person that the substance he is tasting is a quite different substance,
that salt is sugar, or that water is wine.
As with dreams of smell, it is not always possible to detect any external
stimulation as the cause for a taste or pseudo-taste dream.[66] This may
be illustrated by a dream which belongs strictly to the tactile class; I
dreamed that I called upon a medical acquaintance whose assistant I found
in a dark surgery. I absently took up a broken medicine bottle and put
it to my mouth, when my friend came in. I spoke to him on some medical
topic, but he entered his carriage, and was driven off before he had time
to answer me. I then found that my mouth was full of fragments of broken
colourless glass, which I carefully removed. This dream was constructed,
in the manner which has been often illustrated in the previous pages,
of small separate incidents which had occurred during the immediately
preceding days. One of the incidents was the fact that I had myself
smashed a little coloured (not colourless) glass and carefully picked up
the fragments. But the vividest part of the dream was the sensation of
broken glass in the mouth, and on awaking no sensation could be detected
in the mouth. So that though the most plausible explanation of such a
dream would be the theory that the recent experience with broken glass
had suggested to sleeping consciousness the explanation of an unpleasant
sensation actually experienced in the mouth, there was nothing whatever to
support that theory.
The falling of light on the closed eyes, or the half opening of the eyes,
has been found to serve as a visual stimulus to dreams, but I have myself
no decisive evidence on this point.[67] In the case of a lady who dreamed
that a lover was in her room, and that suddenly the door opened, and she
saw her mother standing before her with a bright light, which awoke her,
she could find nothing in the room, no light, to account for the dream. It
is, of course, unnecessary for a dream of a bright light to be actually
produced by an external visual stimulus accompanying the dream, for the
spontaneous retino-cerebral activity itself produces sensations of light.
Thus, on the night after a pleasant walk in a country lane through which
the setting sun shone, I dreamed that I was walking along a lane in which
I saw a bright light and my own vast shadow in front of me. It would seem
that, on the whole, the curtain of the eyelids effectually shuts out
light from the eye during sleep, and that the sense which is more active
during the day than any other is the most carefully guarded of all during
the night. The peculiarly delicate and unstable nature of the chemical
basis of vision makes up for this protection from external stimulation,
and by its spontaneous activity ensures that even in dreams vision is the
predominant sense.
What we find as regards the part played in dreams by excitations arising
from the external specific senses holds good also for excitations arising
from internal organic sensations. The main difference is that the stimuli
which reach sleeping consciousness from the organs within the body--the
stomach, heart, lungs, sexual apparatus, bladder, etc.--are usually more
vague and massive, more difficult to recognise and identify, than are the
more specific sensory stimuli which reach us from without. These visceral
excitations may be transformed within the brain into imagery so unlike
themselves that we may refuse to recognise them, and must frequently
experience some amount of hesitation. Evidence of this fact will come
before us in due course later on. I only wish to refer here to the more
obvious part played in dreams by sensations arising within the body.
We should expect that the visceral processes to be translated most
clearly and directly into dreaming consciousness would be, not those which
are regular and continuous, but those which assert themselves, more or
less imperiously, at intervals. This is actually the case. The heart,
for instance, probably plays a part in dreams only when disturbed in
its action, and even then nearly always a very transformed part. On the
other hand, when the impulses of the generative system arise in sleep to
manifest themselves in erotic dreams, the resulting imagery is usually
very clear, and with very definite and recognisable sexual associations.
Erotic dreams are, indeed, in both men and women, among the most vivid of
all dreams, and the most emotionally potent.[68]
The bladder, again, is an internal organ which makes its functional
needs felt only at intervals, and thus, when those needs occur during
sleep, they become conscious in imagery which easily recalls the source
of the stimulus. It may, indeed, be said that vesical dreams are full of
instruction in the light they throw on the psychology of dreaming. This
has long been well known to writers on dreams. Thus Scherner, many years
ago, insisted on the interest and importance of vesical dreams. In women,
especially, he regarded them as very frequent and developed, most dream
stories of women, he considered, containing symbolic representations of
this organic irritation. Water, in some form or another, is naturally the
commonest symbol. In Scherner's opinion, also, all dreams of fish playing
in the water are vesical dreams.[69]
In its simplest form the vesical dream is what Freud would term a
wish-dream of infantile type, frequently in the magnified form common
in dreams, and sometimes transferred from the dreamer himself to become
objectified in another person, or even an inanimate object.[70] There
is, however, a very important difference according to whether these
dreams take place in an adult or in a young child. In the adult it almost
invariably happens that the dream act remains merely a dream act, and no
corresponding motor impulse is transmitted to the bladder. But when such
dreams occur to very young children, in whose brains the motor inhibitory
mechanism is not yet fully established, it not infrequently happens that
the motor impulse is transmitted and the expulsive action of the bladder
is set up in sympathy with the imagery of the dream; thus is established
the condition known as nocturnal enuresis. As the young brain develops,
and inhibition becomes more perfect, these vesical dreams cease to exert
any actual effect on the bladder, even when, as sometimes happens, they
continue to occur at intervals in adult life.[71] Occasionally, both in
those who have and those who have not suffered from nocturnal enuresis in
childhood (especially women), vesical dreams of this character may occur
without even any real distension of the bladder. In some of these cases
the dream can be shown to be due to a reminiscence or suggestion from the
waking life of the previous day. Dreams stimulated by organic sensations
from within are thus found to resemble those proceeding from sensory
sensations from without in that they are both exactly simulated by dreams
which are mainly of central origin.
When we turn to those internal organs of the body which normally carry
on their functions in a constant and equable manner, seldom or never
obtruding themselves into the sphere of consciousness, any disturbance of
function seems much less likely to be translated into dream consciousness
in a simple and direct form. It is sufficient to take the example of the
heart. When the heart is acting normally any consciousness of its action
is as rare asleep as awake. Even when cardiac action is disturbed, either
by disease or by temporary excitement, dream consciousness seldom realises
the physical cause of the disturbance. Occasionally, indeed, the cardiac
disturbance may reach sleeping consciousness without any very remote
transformation; thus a lady dreams that she is fainting while really
breathing in a slightly laboured and spasmodic way; but at another period
the same lady, at a time when she was suffering from some degree of heart
weakness, dreamed one night, when the trouble was specially marked, that
she was driving sweating horses up a steep hill, urging them on with the
whip in order to avoid an express train which she imagined was behind her.
This dream of sweating and panting horses climbing a hill has been noted
by various observers to occur in connection with heart trouble.[72] The
real difficulty of the panting and struggling heart instinctively finds
its apparent explanation in a familiar spectacle of daily life.
In another case a dreamer awoke from a disturbed sleep associated with
indigestion, having the impression that burglars were tramping upstairs,
but immediately realised that the tramp of the burglars' feet was really
the beating of her own heart. Somewhat similarly, when suffering from
headache, I have dreamed of hammering nails into a floor, a theory
obviously invented to account for the thump of throbbing arteries.
An interesting group of phenomena connected with the sensory influences
discussed in this chapter is furnished by the premonitions of physical
disorders and diseases sometimes experienced in dreams. A physical
disturbance may reach sleeping consciousness many hours, or even days,
before it is perceived by waking consciousness, and become translated
into a more or less fantastic dream. This has been recognised from of
old, and Aristotle, for instance, observed that dreams magnify sensory
excitations, and pointed out that they were thus useful to the physician
in diagnosing symptoms not yet perceptible in the waking state. Thus
Hammond knew a gentleman who, before an attack of hemiplegic paralysis,
repeatedly dreamed that he had been cut in two down the middle line,
and could only move on one side, while a young lady who dreamed she had
swallowed molten lead, though quite well on awaking, was attacked by
severe tonsilitis toward midday. Erythematous conditions of the skin, as
has been pointed out to me by Dr. Kiernan, who has met with numerous cases
in point, play an especial part in generating these dreams. Jewell, again,
mentions a girl who dreamed, three days before being laid up with typhoid
fever, that some one threw oil over her and set light to it. Macario, who
was, perhaps, the first to record and study scientifically the dreams of
this class, termed them prodromic.[73]
'Prophetic' dreams, in which the dreamer foresees, not a physical
condition which is already latent, but an external occurrence, belong to
an entirely different class, and need not be discussed in detail here,
since they are usually fallacious. A fairly common experience of this
kind is the dream of an unknown person who is afterwards met in real
life. These dreams fall into two groups: in the first the 'prophecy' is
based on a failure of memory, the dreamer having really seen the person
before; in the second, the subsequent 'recognition' of the person is
due to the emotional preparation of the dream, and the concentrated
expectation. Sante de Sanctis, who points this out, gives an experience
of the kind which happened to the distinguished novelist, Capuana, who
had a vivid dream of a dark lady, with expressive eyes, and three days
after met the lady of his dream in the street.[74] Women, in a state of
emotional expectation, have often mistaken dead (or even living) persons
for missing husbands or children, and any one who has observed how, when
a noted criminal flies from justice, he is soon 'recognised,' from his
portrait, in the most various parts of the world, will have no difficulty
in believing that it is easily possible to 'recognise' people from dream
portraits, which are much vaguer than photographs. That there are other
prophetic dreams, less easy to account for, I am ready to admit, though
they have not come under my own immediate observation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 56: Although I reached this conclusion independently, as a
result of the analysis of dream experiences, I find that it was set forth
at a much earlier period by Wundt. 'Men are accustomed to regard most of
the phantasms of dreams as hallucinations,' he writes (_Grundzüge der
Physiologischer Psychologie_, vol. iii.), 'but most dream representations
are apparently illusions, initiated by the slight sensory impressions
which are never extinguished in sleep.' Weygandt, in his brief but
excellent book, _Entstehung der Traäme_, fully adopts this view, although
I scarcely think he is always successful in his attempts to demonstrate
it by his own dreams; such demonstration is necessarily often difficult
or impossible because, apart from the dream itself, we seldom know what
sensory impressions are persisting in our sleep. C. M. Giessler (_Die
Physiologische Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge_, 1896, p. 2), who also
proceeds from Wundt, likewise regards dreams as in general the more or
less orderly and successive revival of psychic vestiges of waking life,
conditioned by inner or outer excitations. Tissié (in _Les Rêves_, 1898),
again, declares that 'dreams of purely psychic origin do not exist,'
and Beaunis (_American Journal of Psychology_, July-October 1903) also
believes that all dreams need an internal or external stimulus from the
organism.]
[Footnote 57: Thus W. S. Monroe ('Mental Elements of Dreams,' _Journal
of Philosophy_, 23rd November 1905) found that in nearly three hundred
dreams of fifty-five women students of the Westfield Normal College
(Massachusetts), visual imagery appeared in sixty-seven per cent. dreams,
auditory in twenty-six per cent., tactile in eight per cent., motor in
five per cent., olfactory in a little over one per cent., and gustatory
in rather under one per cent. In the results of observation recorded by
Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam (_American Journal of Psychology_, April
1896) the sensory imagery appears in the same order of frequency and
approximately in the same proportions.]
[Footnote 58: In another case, a sensation of irritation in the palm
led to a dream of being scratched by a cat. Guthrie mentions (_Clinical
Journal_, 7th June 1899) that as a child he used to dream of being
tortured by savages by being slowly tickled under the arms when unable
to move; he sweated much at night, and considers that the tickling thus
caused was the source of the dreams.]
[Footnote 59: The corresponding sensation of heat can also, of course, be
experienced in sleep, alike whether the stimulus comes from the brain or
the skin. Thus I dreamed that, not knowing whether some water was hot or
cold, I put my finger into it and felt it to be distinctly hot.]
[Footnote 60: The ease with which musical sounds can be applied during
sleep and the beneficial results on emotional tone have suggested their
therapeutic use. Leonard Corning ('The Use of Musical Vibrations before
and during Sleep,' _Medical Record_, 21st January 1899) is regarded as the
pioneer in this field.]
[Footnote 61: Ch. Ruths, _Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome_,
1898.]
[Footnote 62: Dauriac, 'Des Images Suggérées par l'Audition Musicale,'
_Revue Philosophique_, November 1902.]
[Footnote 63: De Rochas has described and reproduced the gestures and
dances of his hypnotised subject, Lina, under the influence of music.
Ribot (_L'Imagination Créatrice_, pp. 177 _et seq._, 291 _et seq._) has
discussed the imagery suggested by music and points out that it is most
pronounced in non-musical subjects. Fatigue and over-excitement are
predisposing conditions in the production of this imagery, as is shown by
MacDougall (_Psychological Review_, September 1898) in his own experience.]
[Footnote 64: One is tempted to think that this lightning may have been a
symbolistic transformation of lancinating neuralgic pains, magnified, as
sensations are apt to be, in sleep.]
[Footnote 65: In some experiments by Prof. W. S. Monroe on twenty women
students at Westfield Normal School a crushed clove was placed on the
tongue for ten successive nights on going to bed. Of 254 dreams reported
as following there were seventeen taste dreams and eight smell dreams, and
three of these dreams actually involved cloves. The clove also influenced
dreams of other classes; thus, as a result of the burning sensation
in the mouth, one dreamer imagined that the house was on fire (W. S.
Monroe, 'A Study of Taste Dreams,' _American Journal of Psychology_,
January 1899). It has indeed been found, by Meunier, specially easy to
apply olfactory stimuli during sleep and so improve the emotional tone
(R. Meunier, 'A Propos d'onirothérapie,' _Archives de Neurologie_, March
1910). Meunier found that in his own case tuberose always called out
agreeable dreams full of detail, though in another subject the dreams were
always unpleasant. In hysterical subjects essence of geranium provoked
various agreeable dreams followed by a pleasant emotional tone during the
following day.]
[Footnote 66: Titchener ('Taste Dreams,' _American Journal of Psychology_,
January 1895) records taste dreams by auto-suggestion, and Ribot
(_Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 142) thinks there can be no doubt dreams
of both taste and smell can occur without objective source.]
[Footnote 67: Hammond (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 229) knew a gentleman
who dreamed he was in heaven and surrounded by dazzling brilliance,
awaking to find that the smouldering fire had flared up. Weygandt
dreamed that he was gazing at 'living pictures' illuminated by magnesium
light, and awoke to find that the morning sun had just appeared from
behind clouds and was flooding the room with light. See also Parish,
_Hallucinations and Illusions_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 68: I have discussed erotic dreams in the study of
'Auto-erotism' in the first volume of my _Studies in the Psychology of
Sex_ (third edition, revised and enlarged, 1910).]
[Footnote 69: K. A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traums_, 1861, pp. 187
_et seq._ Volkelt some years later (_Die Traum-Phantasie_, 1875, p.
74) pointed out the occurrence of somewhat similar vesical symbolisms
(including in the case of women a filled knitting-bag) in dream life,
though he regarded visions of water as the most usual indication in
such dreams. Vesical dreams may, of course, contain other elements; see
_e.g._ an example given by C. J. Jung, 'L'Analyse des Rêves,' _L'Année
Psychologique_, 15th year, 1909, p. 165.]
[Footnote 70: A typical dream of this kind, of sufficient importance to be
embodied in history, occurred several thousand years ago to Astyages, King
of the Medes, and has been recorded by Herodotus (Book 1. ch. 107).]
[Footnote 71: In the study of Auto-erotism mentioned in a previous note I
have brought forward dreams illustrating some of the points in the text,
and have also discussed the analogies and contrasts between vesical and
erotic dreams. The fact that nocturnal enuresis is associated with vesical
dreams, though referred to by Buchan in his _Venus sine Concubitu_ more
than a century ago, is still little known, but it is obviously a fact of
clinical importance.]
[Footnote 72: So, for instance, the asthmatic patient of Max Simon (_Le
Monde des Rêves_, p. 40) who, during an attack, dreamed of sweating horses
attempting to draw a heavy waggon uphill.]
[Footnote 73: Forbes Winslow also recorded cases (_Obscure Diseases_,
pp. 611 _et seq._), and many examples were brought together by Hammond
(_Treatise on Insanity_, pp. 234 _et seq._). Vaschide and Piéron discuss
the matter and bring forward thirteen cases (_La Psychologie du Rêve_, pp.
34 _et seq._). Féré recorded two cases in which dreams were the precursory
symptoms of attacks of migraine (_Revue de Médecine_, 10th February 1903).
Various cases, chiefly from the literature of the subject, are brought
together by Paul Meunier and Masselon (_Les Rêves et leur Interpretation_,
1910).]
[Footnote 74: Sante de Sanctis, _I Sogni_, p. 380.]
CHAPTER V
EMOTION IN DREAMS
Emotion and Imagination--How Stimuli are transformed
into Emotion--Somnambulism--The Failure of Movement in
Dreams--Nightmare--Influence of the approach of Awakening on
imagined Dream Movements--The Magnification of Imagery--Peripheral
and Cerebral Conditions combine to produce this Imaginative
Heightening--Emotion in Sleep also Heightened--Dreams formed to
explain Heightened Emotions of unknown origin--The fundamental Place
of Emotion in Dreams--Visceral and especially Gastric disturbance
as a source of Emotion--Symbolism in Dreams--The Dreamer's Moral
Attitude--Why Murder so often takes place in Dreams--Moral Feeling
not Abolished in Dreams though sometimes Impaired.
Whether the influences which stimulate our dreams arise from without or
from within the organism, they are always filtered and diffused through
the obscured channels of perception. They reach the brain at last in a
vague and massive shape which may or may not betray to waking analysis the
source from which they arise, but will certainly have become so changed
in these organic channels that their affective tone will be predominant.
They are, that is to say, largely transformed into _emotion_. And, when so
transformed, they become the origin of what we regard as the imaginative
element in dreams.[75]
Sleep is especially favourable to the production of emotion because while
it allows a considerable amount of activity to sensory activities, and a
very wide freedom to the imagery founded on sensory activities, it largely
and in many directions inhibits motor activity. The actions suggested
by sensory excitation cannot, therefore, be carried out. As soon as the
impulse enters motor channels it is impeded, broken up, and scattered in
a vain struggle. This process is transmitted to the brain as a wave of
emotion.
Sometimes, indeed, as we know, motor co-ordinations, usually inhibited in
sleep, are not so inhibited. The dreamer is able to execute, perfectly
or imperfectly, some action which, really or in imagination, he desires
to execute. He is then said to be in a state of somnambulism. The
somnambulist, in the wide sense of the word, is not necessarily a person
who walks in his sleep, but any person in whom a group of co-ordinated
muscles is sufficiently awake to respond more or less adequately to the
motor impulse from the sleeping brain. To talk in sleep is a form of
somnambulism. When the motor channels are thus unimpeded, there is usually
no memory of a dream on awaking. The impulses that reach consciousness
can be, as it were, quickly and easily drained off to the surface of the
nervous system, and they tend to leave no deep impress on consciousness.
'I worked late last night,' writes a lady, a novelist, 'went to bed, and
dropped into a dead kind of sleep. When I woke this morning about seven
a funny thing had happened. Two candles were burning in my room. When I
went to bed I had only one burning, and I know I put that out. Now, there
were two burning side by side as if I had been writing, and they had
evidently been burning only an hour or so, I must have got up and lighted
them in my sleep.'[76] The actions carried out in the somnambulistic
condition are not usually co-ordinated with the action of higher emotions:
thus, a young woman was impelled by a distended bladder, while still
asleep, to get out of bed and proceeded to carry out the suggested action,
but without further precautions, on to the floor; she was only awakened by
an exclamation from her sister, who had been aroused by the sound. We seem
to see that under a strong stimulus--unfinished work in one case, vesical
tension in the other--the motor centres have awakened to activity in the
early morning while the higher centres are still soundly asleep. If the
second sleeper had not been awakened, in neither case would any memory
of the incidents have remained.[77] There has been no struggle, and no
resultant emotions have, therefore, been aroused to impress consciousness.
It is evident that the lack of adaptation between sensory and motor
activity is an important factor in dreams, and contributes to impart to
them their emotional character.
In somnambulism we have a state which is in some respects the reverse
of that usual in dreams. The higher centres are, indeed, split off from
the lower centres, but it is the former that are asleep and the latter
are awake, whereas in ordinary dreaming the higher centres are acting
in accordance with their means, while the lower centres are quiescent.
Somnambulism is an approximation to a condition found in some diseases
of the brain when, as a result of lesion of the higher nervous levels,
we have a mental state--the ideatory apraxia of Liepmann--in which the
muscular system carries out plans, but the plans are defective because not
supervised by the higher centres. In ordinary dreams, on the other hand,
we have a state comparable to that produced by brain lesions in what Pick
terms motor apraxia, in which the higher centres are acting freely, but
their plans are never carried into action owing to failure of the motor
centres.
This characteristic of dreaming has seemed puzzling to some writers. They
ask why, in our dreams, we should sometimes be so conscious of failure
of movement, and why, when we strive to move in dreams, we do not always
actually move.[78]
There scarcely seems to me to be any serious difficulty here; still, the
question is one of considerable interest and importance. It is necessary
to point out in the first place that, however complete the actual absence
of movement, there is usually no failure of movement in the dream vision.
We dream that we are talking, that we are moving from place to place, that
we are performing various actions. We are conscious of no difficulty,
even sometimes of a peculiar facility, in executing these movements. And
in normal persons, under normal conditions, it would seem that the dream
movements take place without even an incipient degree of corresponding
actual movement perceptible to an observer. The efferent motor channels,
and even to a large extent the afferent sensory channels, are asleep, and
the whole representative circuit is completed within the brain, or, as we
say, imaginatively.[79] Thus a middle-aged friend, whose habits are by no
means athletic, dreams that, desiring to attract some one's attention,
he rests one knee on his wife's small work-table, and holding the foot of
the other leg in one hand, he whirls rapidly and easily round and round
on the pivot of the knee which rests on the table, the dream afterwards
continuing without any awakening. A lady, again, who, when awake, is
unable to swim, and knows no reason why she should think of swimming,
vividly dreams that she jumps from a houseboat into the river, and
proceeds to swim on her side with great ease, this dream also continuing
without awakening. These dreamers were able to execute triumphantly the
muscular feats they planned, because they had not really attempted to
execute them at all, and, moreover, no sufficient sensory messages reached
the brain to give information that the limbs were not actually obeying the
orders of the brain. The dreamers were probably in a somewhat deep state
of sleep.[80]
The dreams in which we seem to ourselves to be suffering from the
difficulty or impossibility of movement thus constitute a special class.
Jewell would apply to them the term 'nightmare,' which he regards as
'characterised by inability to move or speak.' When, in dreams, we become
conscious of difficult movement, it has frequently, and perhaps usually,
happened that the motor channels are not entirely closed, the sensory
channels unusually open, and very frequently, though not necessarily, this
is associated with the approach of awakening. I dreamed that I was walking
with a friend, that we quarrelled, and that thereupon I crossed the road,
and walked on ahead of him. These actions seemed entirely effortless.
Gradually, however, I became conscious of immense and ineffectual effort
in keeping in front, and slowly began to experience, as I awakened, a
feeling of lassitude in my actual and motionless limbs. In the process
of awakening, I take it, the increased, but still defective, efflux of
sensation from the legs, conveying the message of their real position,
entered into conflict with the dream imagery, and produced a struggle in
consciousness. It is by no means necessary to assume that there was a
complete absence of sensory impressions from the legs during the earlier
part of the dream; on the contrary, it is probable that the feeling of
lassitude was itself the cause of the dream, the idea of walking being a
theory to account for the lassitude; this seems more probable than that
the actual lassitude was caused by the mental exertion in the dream.
In a dream which a friend tells me he has often had, and always finds
painful, he imagines he is climbing a mountain, and at last reaches a
point at which, notwithstanding all his efforts, further progress is
impossible. It seems probable that this dream is also an example of the
conflict due to the process of awakening. In this case, however, the
solution is complicated by the fact that in earlier life the dreamer had
really once found himself in the situation he now only experiences in
dreams.
It is sometimes possible to prove, through the evidence of a witness,
that in our dreams of movements executed with difficulty, we are really
sufficiently awake on the motor side to be making actual movements,
though these actual movements may only very roughly correspond to the
movements we imagine we are trying to make. Very frequently, no doubt,
dreams of difficult movement co-exist with, or are caused by, some degree
of actual movement. In some such cases, indeed, the slight and imperfect
actual movement may, in dream consciousness, be a complete and adequate
movement. In these cases the imperfect sensory messages are not, it seems,
sufficiently precise to reveal to sleeping consciousness the imperfection
of the motor impulses.
Exactly the same thing occurs under the allied conditions of anaesthesia
produced by drugs. Thus, on one occasion, when coming to consciousness
after the administration of nitrous oxide gas, I had the sensation of
crying out aloud, but in reality, as I was informed by a friend at my
side, I merely made a slight guttural sound. In the same way we see
sleeping dogs making slight movements of all their paws in succession,
a faint and abortive movement of running, which in the sleeping dog's
consciousness may, doubtless, be accompanied by the notion that he is
dashing across a field after a rabbit.
In these dreams of failure of movement, it seems to me, the dream process,
as the result of an approximation to the waking state, has become mixed
with actual sensori-motor impulses, but the threshold of waking life is
still too far off for actual movements to be completely and successfully
accomplished, and in the case of the limbs the eye cannot be used to
guide movements which the muscular and cutaneous sensations are still too
dead to guide. It is important to remember that in waking life, under
pathological conditions, we may have a precisely similar state of things.
In some states of cerebro-spinal degeneration, resulting in defective
sensibility of muscle and nerve, the subject sways unsteadily when he
closes his eyes, and when there is loss of sensibility in the arm it is
sometimes impossible to hold objects in the hand except with the guiding
aid afforded by the eye.[81]
In a dream, dating from fifteen years back, that I now regard as
conditioned by the approach of the moment of awakening, I imagined that I
was making huge efforts to copy in a copy-book a capital H, engraved in a
rather peculiar fashion, but really offering no difficulties to any waking
schoolchild. By no means could I get the proportions right, if, indeed, I
could make any stroke at all, and at the end of my painful and ineffectual
efforts I seemed to be trying to write on sand, which was merely displaced
by my hand. This final impression seems clearly to be that of a dreamer
who is already sufficiently awake to be conscious of the bedclothes
yielding to the touch.
The foregoing dream suggests that failure of movement in dreaming may tend
to be associated with an accentuation of that shifting of imagery which is
one of the most primary elements in dreaming, both failure of movement and
accentuation of shifting imagery being, perhaps, alike due to the approach
towards the waking state. Thus, if in a dream one is brushing one's coat,
one finds, without any overwhelming surprise, that fresh patches of dust
appear again and again, even when one's efforts in brushing them away are
successful. Even when we feel able to effect movement in our dream, there
may still be a failure of that movement to effect its object.
The question of movement in dreams, of the presence or absence of effort
and inhibition, is thus seen to be explicable by reference to the depth of
sleep and the particular groups of centres involved. In full normal sleep
movements are purely ideatory, and no difficulty arises in executing any
movement, for the reason that there really is no movement at all, or even
any attempt at movement, while, even if slight movement occurs, no message
of its actual defectiveness can reach the brain. Movement or attempt at
movement, with more or less inhibition, tends to occur when the motor and
sensory centres are in a partially aroused state; it is a phenomenon which
belongs to the period immediately before awakening.[82]
It is doubtless mainly due to the diffusion of inhibited nervous impulses
through many channels, and the vague and massive character which they
hence assume in consciousness, that we must attribute the magnification
of dream imagery, and the exaggeration of dream feelings. This is not a
constant tendency of our dreams; sometimes, indeed, perhaps in special
stages of sleep-consciousness, there is diminution, and people look no
larger than dolls, and houses like doll's houses, while, on the emotional
side, events which in real life would overwhelm us, may, in dreams, be
accepted as matters of course. But the heightening of imagery and ideas
and feelings is very common. There is a kind of normal megalomania in our
dreams. We have already incidentally encountered many instances of this: a
tooth appears large enough for a mouse to play in, or like a great jagged
rock; the irritation of a mosquito evokes the image of a huge scarlet
beetle; in vesical dreams endless streams are seen to flow; a canary's
song is heard as Haydn's _Creation_, and the howling of the wind becomes a
chanted Te Deum.
A French author has written an impressive literary description of his own
purely visual dreams, with their magnificent exaggerations and joyous
expansiveness, seeking to show that their chief character is their
excessiveness; 'the flowers are almost women.'[83] I cannot, however,
recognise this as characteristic of normal dreaming. It bears more
resemblance to De Quincey's opium dreams, or to the visions which came to
Heine as he listened to Berlioz's music. In normal dreaming the imagery
may, indeed, be stupendously vast, or fantastically absurd, or poignantly
intense. But normal dreams are not built on a consistently colossal
scale. The megalomania of dreaming is only accidental and occasional, not
systematic.[84]
The heightening of dream experiences may, however, be very complete in,
as it were, every direction: thus a botanical friend joined a large party
for a pleasant country excursion, in the course of which, while sitting
in a waggonette, an acquaintance, a miller, standing in the road, handed
up to him a dog-rose. In the course of a dream of agreeable emotional
tone on the night following, this incident was reproduced, but the miller
had become an angel, who handed down to him, instead of up from below, a
flower which was a moss-rose.
Thus, not only do the actual stimuli taking place during sleep suggest to
dream-consciousness imagery of a magnitude out of all proportion to their
real intensity, but even the repercussion of the day's incidents in dreams
under the influence of a favourable emotional tone may partake of the same
heightening influence.
We may say, therefore, that while the excessiveness of dream imagery is
mainly due to the conditions of the nervous sensory and motor channels,
there is also probably a heightened affectability of the cerebral centres
themselves--perhaps due to their state of dissociation or absence of
apperception[85]--which leads us in our dreams to react extravagantly to
the stimuli that reach the brain. A lady tells me that she often dreams of
being very angry at things which, on awaking, she finds are mere trifles
that would never make her angry when awake.[86] It is a common experience
that the things which, in our dreams, impress us as beautiful, eloquent,
witty, profound, or amusing, no longer seem so, or only seem so in a much
slighter degree, when we are able to recall them awake.
All these various considerations lead us up to a central fact in the
psychology of dreaming: the controlling power of emotion on dream ideas.
From our present point of view we are now able to say that the chief
function of dreams is to supply adequate theories to account for the
magnified emotional impulses which are borne in on sleeping consciousness.
This is the key to imagination in dreams. From the first we have seen that
in dream life the mind is always freely and actively reasoning; we now
see what is usually the real motive and aim of that reasoning. Sleeping
consciousness is assailed by waves of emotion from various parts of the
organism, but is entirely unable to detect their origin, and, therefore,
invents an explanation of them. So that in sleep we have to weave theories
concerning the unknowable origin of our emotions, just as when we are
awake we weave theories concerning the ultimate origin of the totality of
our experiences. The fundamental source of our dream life may thus be said
to be emotion.[87]
There is certainly no profounder emotional excitement during sleep
than that which arises from a disturbed or distended stomach, and is
reflected by the pneumogastric to the accelerated heart and the excited
respiration.[88] We are thereby thrown into a state of emotional
agitation, a state of agony and terror, such as we rarely or never attain
during waking life. Sleeping consciousness, blindfolded and blundering,
a prey to these massive waves from below, and fumbling about desperately
for some explanation, jumps at the idea that only the attempt to escape
some terrible danger or the guilty consciousness of some awful crime can
account for this immense emotional uproar. Thus the dream is suffused by
a conviction which the continued emotion serves to support. We do not--it
seems most simple and reasonable to conclude--experience terror because we
think we have committed a crime, but we think we have committed a crime
because we experience terror. And the fact that in such dreams we are far
more concerned with escape from the results of crime than with any agony
of remorse is not, as some have thought, due to our innate indifference
to crime, but simply to the fact that our emotional state suggests to us
active escape from danger rather than the more passive grief of remorse.
Thus our dreams bear witness to the fact that our intelligence is often
but a tool in the hands of our emotions.[89]
In this tendency, it may be noted, we see the basis of the symbolism which
plays so real a part in dreams. Such symbolism rests on the fact that we
associate two things--even if the one happens to be physical and the other
spiritual--which both happen to imply a similar state of feeling.[90]
Symbolism of this kind is, indeed, characteristic of the human mind
at all times, in all stages of its development. Thus the physical idea
of _height_ seems to express also a moral idea, which we feel to be
correspondent, while wormwood and gall furnish a taste which enabled men
to speak of what seemed to them the corresponding _bitterness_ of death.
In dreams this natural tendency of the mind is able to work unchecked and
extravagantly. It acts with much facility on any impulse arising from the
gastric region, because this region is the seat of various sensations and
emotions, both physical and moral, which may thus act symbolically the one
for the other.[91]
Even when we realise the process of transformation and irradiation,
through which organic sensations can alone reach the brain in sleep, and
the inevitable 'errors of judgment' thus produced, it may still seem
strange and puzzling to observe how a stimulus which has its origin in the
stomach will, by affecting the neighbouring viscera, in its circuitous
course along the nerves and through the brain, be transformed, as it
may be, into a tragic scene which has never been experienced, nor even
deliberately imagined, as for instance--to cite a dream of my own--in
the fiery vision of following a leader, in real life a peaceful and
inoffensive man, who, revolver in hand, dashes among foes, shooting and
shot at, every moment in danger of life, and always miraculously escaping.
I may illustrate this transformation by the following example: A lady
dreamed that her husband called her aside and said, 'Now, do not scream
or make a fuss; I am going to tell you something. I have to kill a man.
It is necessary, to put him out of his agony.' He then took her into his
study, and showed her a young man lying on the floor, with a wound in
his breast, and covered with blood. 'But how will you do it?' she asked.
'Never mind,' he replied; 'leave that to me.' He took something up and
leaned over the man. She turned aside and heard a horrible gurgling sound.
Then all was over. 'Now,' he said, 'we must get rid of the body. I want
you to send for So-and-so's cart, and tell him I wish to drive it.' The
cart came. 'You must help me to make the body into a parcel,' he said to
his wife; 'give me plenty of brown paper.' They made it into a parcel, and
with terrible difficulty and effort the wife assisted her husband to get
the body downstairs, and lift it into the cart. At every stage, however,
she presented to him the difficulties of the situation. But he carelessly
answered all objections, said he would take the body up to the moor, among
the stones, remove the brown paper, and people would think the murdered
man had killed himself. He drove off, and soon returned with the empty
cart. 'What's this blood in my cart?' asked the man to whom it belonged,
looking inside. 'Oh, that's only paint,' replied the husband. But the
dreamer had all along been full of apprehensions lest the deed should be
discovered, and the last thing she could recall, before waking in terror,
was looking out of the window at a large crowd which surrounded the house
with shouts of 'Murder!' and threats.
This tragedy, with its almost Elizabethan air, was built up out of a few
commonplace impressions received during the previous day, none of which
impressions contained any suggestion of murder. The tragic element appears
to have been altogether due to the psychic influences of indigestion
arising from a supper of pheasant.[92] To account for our oppression
during sleep, sleeping consciousness assumes moral causes, which alone
appear to it of sufficient gravity to be adequate to the immense emotions
we are experiencing. Even in our waking and fully conscious states we
are inclined to give the preference to moral over physical causes, quite
irrespective of the justice of our preferences; in our sleeping states
this tendency is exaggerated, and the reign of purely moral causes is not
often disturbed by even a suggestion of physical causation.
In an emotional dream of similar visceral origin, I dreamed that I was to
die--why or how I could not tell on awakening. With the object of putting
an end to my sufferings, I imagined that my wife administered to me some
substance mixed in jam. I found the taste peculiar, not bitter, as I
recalled on awaking, but warm and spicy, and I asked what she had put in
it. She replied that it was strychnine. I remarked that that would be a
very painful mode of death, and refused to take any more. I debated with
myself whether I had probably taken a poisonous dose, and had not better
resort to an antidote; the only antidote that suggested itself to me was
opium pills. Meanwhile the horror of impending death grew more and more
acute until, at length, I awoke. I thereupon found that I had a headache,
a faint taste in my mouth, and some general malaise evidently associated
with a slightly disordered stomach. The definite images brought forward in
the dream had all been fairly familiar during the previous day, but the
idea of impending death which pervaded the whole dream so indefinitely and
incoherently, yet so acutely, was entirely a theory to account for the
massive and widely irradiated messages of discomfort which reached the
sleeping brain.
Many people are unwilling to admit that psychic phenomena so tragical,
poignant, or pathetic as these dreams may be, should receive their
stimulus from a source which they regard as so humble as the stomach.
Thus Frederick Greenwood, whose conception of the function of dreaming
was very exalted, only admitted this association with reluctance, and
was careful to point out that 'if an unwholesome supper produces such
phenomena, it does so only in the sense that a bird singing in the
air produced Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark."'[93] That analogy really
underestimates the distance of the physical stimulus of such dreams from
its psychic concomitants. When we talk of dreams we must place ourselves
at the dreamer's standpoint. The poet was conscious that his inspiration
was stimulated by the bird's song, but the dreamer has no consciousness
that the tragic experiences he passes through imaginatively are stimulated
by the activity of his visceral organs. He is altogether unconscious
of visceral disturbance; if he were conscious of any of these physical
facts which occupy waking consciousness, he would no longer be a dreamer.
He lives in a psychic world which physical facts, from within or from
without, can never reach until they have been transformed. His position
resembles, therefore, not that of the poet who deliberately seeks to
interpret the song of the bird, but rather that of the bird itself, the
poet 'hidden in the light of thought,' sublimely unconscious of the
mechanism revealed in its own structure.
The explanations devised by sleeping consciousness to account for visceral
discomfort of gastric origin are not necessarily tragic. Thus I dreamed,
after a somewhat indigestible meal, that I was slowly and painfully eating
bread mingled with cinders and mouse's excrement, trying in vain to avoid
these impurities, and after the meal was over, finding my mouth full of
cinders. On awaking there was no traceable taste or sensation of any
kind in the mouth, and the dream was apparently a theory to account for
some gastric disturbance. Such a theory seems less far-fetched than that
of murder, and probably indicates much less marked and diffused visceral
disturbance. Occasionally the explanatory theories of actual sensations
accepted by sleeping consciousness are plausible and ingenious, indeed
entirely adequate and probable. Thus a lady dreamed that she was drinking
glass after glass of champagne, saying to herself the while that she
would have to pay for this afterwards. On awaking she found that she was
feeling the slight rheumatic pains and discomfort that she was really
liable to experience after taking a glass or two of champagne. She had not
tasted champagne, or thought of it, for some time previously; the dream
champagne was a theory invented to account for the sensations which were
actually experienced, though those sensations remained outside dreaming
consciousness.
Most of the examples I have presented of the influence of emotion of
visceral origin in suggesting dream theories have had the stomach as their
source. There can be no doubt that the stomach has enormous influence in
this respect; its easily and constantly varying state of repletion, its
central position and liability to press on other organs, its important
nervous associations, together with the fact that sleep sometimes tends
to impede its activity and initiate disturbance, combine to impart to it
a manifold and extensive influence over the emotional state in sleep, and
at the same time render the source of that emotional state peculiarly
difficult for sleeping consciousness to detect.
It is, however, easy to show that any pronounced or massive feeling
continuing or arising during sleep may similarly lead to an emotional
state calling for explanation at the hands of sleeping consciousness.
Thus, falling asleep with toothache during a singularly close night, I
once dreamed that I had committed murder, having apparently killed several
persons, and that I was occupied, after arrest, in considering whether my
act was likely to be regarded as an unpremeditated act of manslaughter.
A headache, again, may be a source of dreams. Thus, falling asleep with
headache, I dream that I am waiting for an express train to London; an
express comes up to the platform, and I cannot ascertain if it is the
train I want. The explanation seems obvious; railway travelling is a
cause of headache, and it is therefore put forward in the dream, with
accompanying imagery, to account for the sensations experienced. The
actual sensation, as is always the case in dreams, that is, the headache,
remains subconscious, and, indeed, totally unconscious; the imagery it
suggests alone occupies the field of consciousness.[94] An entirely
different type of dream may, however, be associated with headache. Thus
I once dreamed that I was in a vast gloomy English cathedral, and on
the wall I observed a notice to the effect that on such a day evensong
would take place without illumination of the cathedral in order to avoid
attracting moths. I awoke with slight headache. Here the cool, silent
gloom of the cathedral is the symbol of what is desired to soothe the
aching head, and the fantastic suggestion read on the notice is merely the
theory of dreaming consciousness which knows nothing of the real reason of
the wish.
Dreams of murder or impending death or the like tragic situations seem
usually to be aroused by visceral stimuli. In some cases, however (as
in Maury's famous dream of the guillotine), they are due to an external
cutaneous sensation. When the stimulus thus comes from the periphery,
the emotional element, even when the dreamed situation is tragic, seems
usually (though this is not quite certain) to be less pronounced than when
the stimulus is visceral. Thus in a dream of my own, which seemed to be
due to a cramped position of the head and neck, I dreamed that I had died
(though, somehow, I was not myself, but had become more or less identified
with an ugly old woman), and was being autopsied. Then very gradually I
became faintly and peacefully conscious of what was going on, though I
remained motionless, and all the time believed that I was dead, and that
my faint consciousness was merely a part of death. Preparations for the
funeral were meanwhile being made, and I was about to be nailed down in
my coffin. At this point I became horribly aware that these proceedings
would cause suffocation, and, with great effort, I succeeded in moving
my arms and speaking incoherently. Thereupon the funeral arrangements
were discontinued, and very slowly I seemed to regain speech and the
power of movement. But I felt that I must be extremely careful in making
any movements, on account of the post-mortem wounds; especially I felt
pain in my neck, and realised that it was necessary not to move my head,
or the result might be instant death. In such a dream, it may be noted,
and in some others I have recorded, we see very instructively the nature
of the changes produced in the dream and in the dreamer's attitude by
the approach of waking consciousness. The dreamer's relationship to
his imagined situation becomes more and more what it would be if the
situation occurred in real life, and as soon as there is painful effort
and imperfect muscular movement, the coming of waking consciousness is
imminent.
The visceral and emotional element in dreaming helps to explain the
dreamer's moral attitude and the real significance of those criminal
actions in dreams which have often been misinterpreted. Many writers
on dreaming have referred, with profound concern, to the facility and
prevalence of murder in dreams, sometimes as a proof of the innate
wickedness of human nature made manifest in the unconstraint of sleep,
sometimes as evidence of an atavistic return to the modes of feeling of
our ancestors, the thin veneer of civilisation being removed during sleep.
Maudsley and Mme. de Manacéïne, for example, find evidence in such dreams
of a return to primitive modes of feeling. Clarke speaks of 'the entire
absence of the moral sense' from dreams.[95] Professor Näcke, who has
given much attention to the phenomena of dreaming, writes in a private
letter: 'What I am amazed at, having perceived it in myself, is the little
known fact that a person's character becomes _worse_ in dreaming. Not
only the most secret thoughts, wishes, and aspirations become clear, but
also qualities which have never been observed before, as, for instance,
that one becomes a murderer, an adulterer, etc.' Freud, especially, has
elaborated this aspect of dreams as representing the fulfilment of the
dreamer's most secret desires.[96]
It may well be that there is an element of truth in the belief that in
dreams we are brought back to mental conditions somewhat more closely
approaching those of primitive times. It is the manifold variety
and complexity of our mental representations which prevent us from
responding immediately to impulse under civilised conditions, and when,
by dissociation, only a few groups are present to consciousness, the
inhibition on violent action tends to be removed. If, therefore, we
are more violent, more immoral, more criminal, in our dreams than
in waking life, this is by no means necessarily to be regarded as a
revelation of our real nature, but is merely an inevitable result of
the mental dissociation which prevents many important groups of mental
representations from finding their way into consciousness, and at the same
time brings all our mental possessions on to the same plane, so that the
things we have merely thought or heard of have the same visual reality as
our own actual experiences. The sleep of the real criminal, as Sante de
Sanctis has shown on the basis of a wide experience, even of criminals
guilty of serious acts of violence, tends to be peaceful and dreamless,
and such dreams as they have are usually of a simple and innocent sort. If
normal people often dream of crime, it is because they are more sensitive
and imaginative, and because sleeping consciousness is strained to the
utmost to invent a phantasmal tragedy adequate to account for the waves of
emotion that beset it.[97]
There is another reason why, in dreams, we may find ourselves engaged in
criminal operations. The purely automatic process by which the imagery of
dreams is perpetually shifting in pursuit of associations of resemblance
or contiguity, leads to confusions which are not rooted in any personal
or primitive impulse, as in the example I have previously referred to,
of a lady who had carved a duck at dinner, and a few hours later woke up
exhausted by the imaginary effort of cutting off her husband's head.
Such a dream is merely a mechanical turn of the visionary kaleidoscope,
bringing together two unrelated images.
The most potent cause of dream criminality, and especially of murders we
have been guilty of before the dream commenced, seems clearly, however,
to be that emotional factor of visceral origin which is well illustrated
by one or two of the dreams already brought forward.[98] In these cases,
again, we are not concerned with any primitive or personal impulse to
crime, but we feel ourselves to be so possessed by all the physical
symptoms of terror, that the only adequate explanation of our state
seems to be the theory that we have committed murder. And if we are more
concerned to flee from justice than to experience remorse, that is clearly
because the really labouring and agitated heart suggests flight from
pursuit far more than any passive emotion.[99] There is, moreover, no more
fundamental and primitive emotion than fear.
While these considerations combine to deprive criminal dreams, when they
occur, of any great significance as an index of the dreamer's latent
morality, I must add that I am by no means prepared to agree that moral
emotions are so absent from sleep as many writers have stated. There is
often a diminished sense of morality, an easier yielding to temptation
than would take place in real life, a diminished remorse--these tendencies
being mainly due to the conditions of dream-life--but there is frequently
a strong sense of morality in dreams, as well as a vivid perception of
social proprieties. Those persons who have an unusually strong moral
sense, when awake, frequently show, I think, a similar tendency when
asleep, but in the dreams of most people moral and decorous considerations
seem, as a rule, to make themselves more or less clearly felt, much as in
waking life. It may be worth while to bring forward a few dreams which
incidentally illustrate the moral attitude of the dreamer.
A lady narrated the following dream immediately on awakening: 'I had
murdered a woman from some moral or political motive--I forget what--and
had come in great agony to my husband with her shoes and watch-chain. He
promised to help me, and while I was wondering what could be done for
the benefit of the woman's family, some one came in and announced that a
lecture was about to be given on the beauty of nakedness. I then went,
with several prim and respectable ladies of my acquaintance [the names
were given], into a crowded hall. The lecturer who--so far as appearance
is concerned--was a well-known Member of Parliament, then entered and
gave a most eloquent address on Whitman, nakedness, ugly figures, etc.
He especially emphasised the fact that the reason people are shocked at
nakedness is that they usually only see unbeautiful bodies which repel
them because they are unlike their ideals. Then he put out his hand, and
a naked woman entered the room. Her loveliness was extreme; her form was
perfectly rounded, but without suggestion of voluptuousness, though she
was not an animated statue, but had all the characters of humanity; she
walked with undulating thighs, head slightly drooping, and hair falling
down and framing a face that expressed wonderful spiritual beauty and
innocence. The lecturer led her round, saying, "This is beauty; now, if
you can look at this and be ashamed----" and he waved his arm. She went
away, and a beautiful Apollo-like youth, slender but athletic, entered the
room, also completely naked. He walked round the room alone, with an air
of majestic virility. I applauded, clapping my hands, but a shiver went
through the ladies present; their skin became like goose-flesh, and their
lips quivered with horror as though they were about to be outraged. The
youth went out, and the lecturer continued. At the climax of his oratory,
the Apollo-like youth entered, dressed as a common soldier, with no
appearance of beauty, and in a rough tone said: "'Ere! I want a shilling
for this job." (And I sighed to myself: "It is always so.") No one had a
shilling, and the lecturer proceeded to explain to the man that what he
had done was for the sake of art and beauty, and for the moral good of
the world. "What do I care for that?" he returned, "I want a drink." Then
a lady among the audience produced a collar, wrote on it a testimonial
expressing the gratitude of those present for the man's services on this
occasion, and handed it to me to present to him. "Damn it," he said, "this
is only worth twopence halfpenny; I want my shilling!" Then I awoke.'
The idea of murder with which this dream began seems to suggest that it
may have had its origin in some slight visceral disturbance of which
the subject was unconscious, but nothing had occurred to suggest the
details of the episode. The interesting feature about it is the presence
throughout of moral notions and sentiments substantially true to the
dreamer's waking ideas.
In another dream of the same dreamer's the sense of responsibility is
clearly present: 'Mrs. F. and Miss R. had called to see me, and I was
sitting in my room talking to them, when a knock came at the door, and
I found there a poor woman belonging to the neighbourhood, but who also
combined in my dream the page-boy at a dear friend's house. From this
friend, whom I had not heard from for some time, the woman bore a large
letter. She tore it open in my presence, saying, "It says here that the
bearer is to open this," and produced from it another letter, a large
document of a legal character in my friend's handwriting. When the woman
began to open the second letter I remonstrated; I was sure that there was
some mistake, that that letter was private, and that no one else ought to
see it. The woman, however, firmly insisted that she must carry out her
instructions; so we had a long discussion. After a time I called Mrs. F.
and appealed to her. She agreed with me that the instructions must only
mean that the bearer was to open the outer envelope, not the inner letter.
At last I took out five shillings and gave it to the woman, telling her
that I would assume all the responsibility for opening the letter myself.
With this she went away well satisfied, saying (as she would in real
life), "All right, Mrs. ----, you're a lady, and you know. All right,
my dear." Then at last I was able to tear open my letter and read these
words: "_Always use Sunlight Soap_." My vexation was extreme.'
On another occasion the same dreamer experienced remorse. She imagined she
was in a restaurant, and the girl behind the counter pointed to a barrel
of beer--a golden barrel, she said, with a magic key--which could only be
opened by the owner. The dreamer declared, however, that she could open
it, and, producing a key, proceeded to do so, handing round beer to the
bystanders. Then she realised that she had been stealing, and was full of
remorse. She asked a friend if she ought to tell the owner, but the friend
replied, 'By no means.' This conclusion of the dream seems to indicate
that the moral sense, though present in dreams, is apt to be impaired.
In yet another dream this dreamer exhibited a curious combination of moral
sensibility and criminal indifference. She imagined that, while walking
with a man, a friend, she revealed to him a secret of a woman friend's.
Then, realising her betrayal of confidence, she decided that the best
thing she could do would be to kill the man. On reflection, however,
she thought that it would, after all, be unkind to do so since he was a
friend, and so told him that if he ever repeated the secret she would have
him torn to pieces. It will be seen that the betrayal of a secret was
felt as a far more serious offence than murder. The facility with which,
in such dreams as this, the suggestion of murder presents itself, even to
dreamers who, when awake, cherish no bloodthirsty or revengeful ideas, is
certainly remarkable.
It is often said that in dreams erotic suggestions present themselves with
extreme facility, and are eagerly accepted by the dreamer. To some extent
there is truth in this statement, but it is by no means always true. This
may be illustrated by the following dream, the sources of which could
be easily traced; two days before I had seen the gambols of East Enders
at Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, and the day before I had visited
a picture gallery, the two sets of impressions becoming ingeniously
combined, according to the usual rule of dream confusion. I thought that
when walking along a country lane a sudden turn brought me to a broader
part of the road covered with grass, into the midst of a crowd of women,
large and well-proportioned persons, mostly in a state of complete
nudity, and engaged in romping together, more especially in tugs-of-war;
some of them were on horseback. My appearance slightly disturbed them, I
heard one cry out my name, and to some extent they drew back, and partly
desisted from their games, but only to a very slight degree, and with
no overpowering embarrassment. I was myself rather embarrassed, and,
glancing at them again, turned back. Afterwards my walk again brought
me in view of them, and it occurred to me that women are somewhat
changing their customs, a very wholesome change, it seemed to me. But I
remonstrated with one or two of them that they ought to keep in constant
movement to avoid catching cold. No erotic suggestions were present,
although the dream might be said to lend itself to such suggestions.
The idea of moral retribution and eternal punishment may also be present
in dreams. This may be illustrated by the dream of a lady who had an ill
and restless girl companion sleeping with her, and was disturbed as well
by a yelping and howling terrier outside. She had also lately heard that
a friend had brought over a python from Africa. 'I dreamed last night I
had a basket of cold squirming snakes beside me; they just touched me all
over, but did not hurt; I felt mad with loathing and hate of them, and
the beasts would not kill me. That, I thought, was my eternal punishment
for my sins.' In her waking moments the dreamer was not apprehensive of
eternal punishment, and it may be in such a case that, as Freud suggests,
an unfamiliar moral idea emerges in sleep in much the same way as an
unfamiliar or 'forgotten' fact may emerge.
On the whole, it may be said that while the moral attitude of the dreaming
state is not usually identical with that of the waking state, there still
nearly always is a moral attitude. It could not well be otherwise. Our
emotional states are intimately bound up with moral relationships; we
could not display such highly emotional states as we experience in dreams,
with all their tragic accompaniments, in the absence of any sense of
morality.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 75: The dependence of sleeping imagination on emotion of organic
origin was long ago clearly seen and set forth by the acute introspective
psychologist, Maine de Biran (_Œuvres Inédites_, 'Fondements de la
Psychologie,' p. 102).]
[Footnote 76: Jastrow (_The Subconscious_, p. 206) relates a similar case
observed in a girl student.]
[Footnote 77: Herbert Wright, who finds that in children night-terrors
are apt to be associated with somnambulism, points out that when the
somnambulism replaces the night-terrors it leaves no memory behind
(_British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899, p. 465). An interesting
study of movement in normal and morbid sleep has been contributed by
Segre ('Contributo alla Conoscenza dei Movimenti del Sonno,' _Archivio di
Psichiatria_, 1907, fasc. 1.).]
[Footnote 78: This question is, for instance, asked by F. H. Bradley ('On
the Failure of Movement in Dreams,' _Mind_, 1894, p. 373). The explanation
he prefers is that the dream vision is out of relation to the very dimly
conscious actual position of the body, so that the information necessary
to complete the idea of the movement is wanting. Only as regards the less
complicated movements of lips, tongue, or finger, when the motor idea is
in harmony with the actual position of the body movements, does movement
take place. We have no means of distinguishing the real world from the
world of our vision; 'our images thus move naturally to realise themselves
in the world of our real limbs. But the world and its arrangement is for
the moment out of connection with our ideas, and hence the attempt at
motion for the most part must fail.' It is quite true that this conflict
is an important factor in dreaming, but it fails to apply to the large
number of movements which we dream of actually doing.]
[Footnote 79: The action of some drugs produces a state in this respect
resembling that which prevails in dreams. 'Under the influence of a large
dose of haschisch,' Professor Stout remarks (_Analytic Psychology_, vol.
i. p. 14), 'I found myself totally unable to distinguish between what
I actually did and saw, and what I merely thought about.' Not only are
the motor and sensory activities relatively dormant, but the central
activity is perfectly able, and content, to dispense with their services.
'Thought,' as Jastrow says (_Fact and Fable in Psychology_, p. 386), 'is
but more or less successfully suppressed action.']
[Footnote 80: This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked
by Freud, (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 227), why we do not always dream of
inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement,
when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the
dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic
wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that
sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups
are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial
and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual
movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement,
presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not
purely ideatory.]
[Footnote 81: This explanation, based on the depth and kind of the sleep,
is entirely distinct from the theory of Aliotta (_Il Pensiero e la
Personalità nei Sogni_, 1905), who believes that dreamers differ according
to their nervous type, the person of visual type assisting passively at
the spectacle of his dreams, while the person of motor type takes actual
part in them. I have no evidence of this, though I believe that dreams
differ in accordance with the dreamer's personal type.]
[Footnote 82: Dugald Stewart argued that there is loss of control over
the muscular system during sleep, and the body, therefore, is not subject
to our command; volition is present but it cannot influence the limbs.
Hammond argued, on the contrary, that Stewart was quite wrong; the reason
why voluntary movements are not performed during sleep is, he said, that
volition is suspended. 'We do not will our actions when we are asleep. We
imagine that we do, and that is all' (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 205).
Dugald Stewart and Hammond, though their phraseology may have been too
metaphysical, were, from the standpoint I have adopted, both maintaining
tenable positions. In one type of dream, we imagine we easily achieve all
sorts of difficult and complicated actions, but in reality we make no
movement; the ease and rapidity with which the mental machine moves is due
to the fact that it is ungeared, and is effecting no work at all. In the
other type of dream we make violent but inadequate efforts at movement
and only partially succeed; the machine is partially geared, in a state
intermediate between deep sleep and the waking condition.]
[Footnote 83: Jacques le Lorrain, _Revue Philosophique_, July 1895.]
[Footnote 84: The systematic megalomania of insanity can, however, have
its rise in dreams; Régis and Lalanne (_International Medical Congress_,
1900; _Proceedings, Section de Psychiatrie_, p. 227) met within a short
period with four cases in which this had taken place.]
[Footnote 85: This indeed seems to have been recognised by Wundt, who
regards a 'functional rest of the sensory centres and of the apperception
centre,' resulting in heightened latent energy which lends unusual
strength to excitations, as a secondary condition of the dream state.
Külpe (_Outline of Psychology_, p. 212) argues that the existence of
vivid dreams shows that fatigue with its diminished associability fails
to affect the central sensations themselves; this increased excitability
resulting from dissociation may itself, however, be regarded as a symptom
of fatigue; hyperaesthesia and anaesthesia are alike signs of exhaustion.]
[Footnote 86: The exhaustion sometimes felt on awaking from a dream
perhaps testifies to its emotional potency. Delboeuf states that a friend
of his experienced a dream so terrible in its emotional strain that on
awaking his black hair was found to have turned completely white.]
[Footnote 87: The fundamental character of emotion in dreams has been
more or less clearly recognised by various investigators. Thus C. L.
Herrick, who studied his own dreams for many months, found that the
essential element is the emotional, and not the ideational, and that,
indeed, when recalled _at once_, with closed eyes and before moving,
they were nearly devoid of intellectual content (_Journal of Comparative
Neurology_, vol. iii. p. 17, 1893). R. MacDougall considers that dreaming
is 'a succession of intense states of feeling supported by a minimum of
ideational content,' or, as he says again, more accurately, 'the feeling
is primary; the idea-content is the inferred thing' (_Psychological
Review_, vol. v. p. 2). Grace Andrews, who kept a record of her dreams
(_American Journal of Psychology_, October 1900), found that dream
emotions are often stronger and more vivid than those of waking life; 'the
dream emotion seems to me the most real element of the dream life.' P.
Meunier, again ('Des Rêves Stéreotypés,' _Journal de Psychologie Normale
et Pathologique_, September-October 1905), states that 'the substratum of
a dream consists of a cœnæsthesia or an emotional state. The intellectual
operation which translates to the sleeper's consciousness, while he is
asleep, this cœnæsthesia or emotional state is what we call a dream.']
[Footnote 88: The night-terrors of children have frequently been found
to have their origin in gastric or intestinal disturbance. Graham Little
brings together the opinions of various authorities on this point,
though he is himself inclined to give chief importance to heart disease
producing slight disturbances of breathing, since he has found that
in nearly two-thirds of his cases (17 out of 30) night-terrors were
associated with early heart disease (Graham Little, 'The Causation of
Night-Terrors,' _British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899). It should
be added that night-terrors are more usually divided into two classes:
(1) idiopathic (purely cerebral in origin), and (2) symptomatic (due to
reflex disturbance caused by various local disorders); see _e.g._ Guthrie,
'On Night-Terrors,' _Clinical Journal_, 7th January 1899. J. A. Symonds
has well described his own night-terrors as a child (Horatio Brown, _J.
A. Symonds_, vol. i.). Lafcadio Hearn (in a paper on 'Nightmare-Touch'
in _Shadowings_) also gives a vivid account of his own childish
night-terrors.]
[Footnote 89: It has not, I believe, been pointed out that such dreams
might be invoked in support of the James-Lange or physiological theory of
emotion, according to which the element of bodily change in emotion is the
cause and not the result of the emotion.]
[Footnote 90: This physiological symbolism was clearly apprehended long
ago by Hobbes: 'As anger causeth heat in some parts of the body when we
are awake; so when we sleep the overheating of the same parts causeth
anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of an enemy. In the
same manner as natural kindness, when we are awake, causeth desire and
desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also, too much
heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination
of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are the reverse of our waking
imaginations; the motion, when we are awake, beginning at one end, and
when we dream at another' (_Leviathan_, Part 1. ch. 2).]
[Footnote 91: 'The pains of disappointment, of anxiety, of unsuccess, of
all displeasing emotions,' remarks Mercier (art. 'Consciousness,' Tuke's
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), 'are attended by a definite
feeling of misery which is referred in every case to the epigastrium.' He
adds that the pleasures of success and good repute, aesthetic enjoyment,
etc., are also attended by a definite feeling in the same region. This
fact indicates the extreme vagueness of organic sensation. There is in
fact much uncertainty and great difference of opinion as to the nature,
and even the existence, of organic sensation; see _e.g._ a careful summary
of the chief views by Dr. Elsie Murray, 'Organic Sensation,' _American
Journal of Psychology_, July 1909.]
[Footnote 92: More than ten years later, the same dreamer, who had
entirely forgotten the circumstances of this dream, again had a vivid
dream of murder after eating pheasant at night; this time it was she
herself who was to be killed, and she awoke imagining that she was
struggling with the would-be murderer.]
[Footnote 93: F. Greenwood, _Imagination in Dreams_, p. 31.]
[Footnote 94: Dreams of railway travelling, and especially of losing
trains, are not always associated with headache or any other recognisable
condition. They constitute a very common type of dream not quite easy to
explain. Dr. Savage mentions, for instance, that in his own case scarcely
a week passes without such a dream, though in real life he scarcely ever
loses a train and never worries about it. Wundt considers that the dreams
in which we seek something we cannot find or have left something behind
are due to indefinite coenaesthesic disturbances involving feelings of
the same emotional tone, such as an uncomfortable position or a slight
irregularity of respiration. I have myself independently observed the same
connection, though it is not invariably traceable.]
[Footnote 95: E. H. Clarke, _Visions_, p. 294.]
[Footnote 96: An amusing, though solemn, interpretation of an ordinary
dream of murder, railway travelling, and impending death, as experienced
by Anna Kingsford, is furnished by her friend and biographer, Edward
Maitland, _Anna Kingsford_, vol. i. p. 117.]
[Footnote 97: Various opinions in regard to morality in dreams are brought
together by Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, pp. 45 _et seq._]
[Footnote 98: Head ('Mental Changes that Accompany Visceral Diseases,'
_Brain_, 1902, p. 802) refers to the association between visceral pain and
the anti-social impulses, and thinks that the viscera, being part of the
oldest and most autonomic system of the body, appear in consciousness as
'an intrusion from without, an inexplicable obsession.']
[Footnote 99: 'In my dreams,' W. D. Howells remarks, 'I am always less
sorry for my misdeeds than for their possible discovery' ('True I talk of
Dreams,' _Harper's Magazine_, May 1895).]
CHAPTER VI
AVIATION IN DREAMS
Dreams of Flying and Falling--Their Peculiar Vividness--Dreams of
Flying an Alleged Survival of Primeval Experiences--Best explained
as based on Respiratory Sensations combined with Cutaneous
Anaesthesia--The Explanation of Dreams of Falling--The Sensation
of Levitation sometimes experienced by Ecstatic Saints--Also
experienced at the Moment of Death.
Dreams of flying, with the dreams of falling they are sometimes associated
with, may fairly be considered the best known and most frequent type of
dream. They were among the earliest dreams to attract attention. Ruths
argues that the Greek conception of the flying Hermes, the god who
possessed special authority over dreams, was based on such experiences.
Lucretius, in his interesting passage on the psychology of dreaming,
speaks of falling from heights in dreams;[100] Cicero appears to refer
to dreams of flying; St. Jerome mentions that he was subject to them;
Synesius remarked that in dreams we fly with wings and view the world
from afar; Cervantes accurately described the dream of falling.[101] From
the inventors of the legend of Icarus onwards, men have firmly cherished
the belief that under some circumstances they could fly, and we may well
suppose that that belief partly owes its conviction, and the resolve to
make it practical, to the experiences that have been gained in dreams.
No dreams, indeed, are so vivid and so convincing as dreams of flying;
none leave behind them so strong a sense of the reality of the experience.
Raffaelli, the eminent French painter, who is subject to the dreaming
experience of floating in the air, confesses that it is so convincing that
he has jumped out of bed on awaking and attempted to repeat it. 'I need
not tell you,' he adds, 'that I have never been able to succeed.'[102]
Herbert Spencer mentions that in a company of a dozen persons, three
testified that in early life they had had such vivid dreams of flying
downstairs, and were so strongly impressed by the reality of the
experience, that they actually made the attempt, one of them suffering in
consequence from an injured ankle.[103] The case is recorded of an old
French lady who always maintained that on one occasion she actually had
succeeded for a few instants in supporting herself on the air.[104] No
one who is familiar with these dreaming experiences will be inclined to
laugh at that old lady. It was during one of these dreams of levitation,
in which one finds oneself leaping into the air and able to stay there,
that it occurred to me that I would write a paper on the subject, for
I thought in my dream that this power I found myself possessed of was
probably much more widespread than was commonly supposed, and that in any
case it ought to be generally known.
People who dabble in the occult have been so impressed by such dreams
that they have sometimes believed that these flights represented a
real excursion of the 'astral body.' This is the belief of Colonel de
Rochas.[105] César de Vesme, the editor of the French edition of the
_Annals of Psychical Research_, has thought it worth while to investigate
the matter; and after summarising the results of a _questionnaire_
concerning dreams of flying, he comes to the conclusion that 'the
sensation of aerial flight in dreams is simply a hallucinatory phenomenon
of an exclusively physiological [he means 'psychological'] kind,' and
not evidence of the existence of the 'astral body.'[106] The fact,
nevertheless, that so many people are found who believe such dreams to
possess some kind of reality, clearly indicates the powerful impression
they make.
All my life, it seems to me, certainly from an early age, until recently,
I have at intervals had dreams in which I imagined myself rhythmically
bounding into the air, and supported on the air, remaining there for
a perceptible interval; at other times I have felt myself gliding
downstairs, but not supported by the stairs. In my case the experience
is nearly always agreeable, involving a certain sense of power, and it
usually evokes no marked surprise, occurring as a familiar and accustomed
pleasure. On awaking I do not usually remember these dreams immediately,
which seems to indicate that they are not due to causes specially
operative at the end of sleep, or liable to bring sleep to a conclusion.
But they leave behind them a vague yet profound sense of belief in their
reality and reasonableness.
Dream-flight, it is necessary to note, is not usually the sustained flight
of a bird or an insect, and the dreamer rarely or never imagines that he
is borne high into the air. Hutchinson states that of all those whom he
has asked about the matter 'hardly one has ever known himself to make any
high flights in his dreams. One almost always flies low, with a skimming
manner, slightly, but only slightly, above the heads of pedestrians.'[107]
Beaunis, from his own experience, describes what I should consider a
typical kind of dream-flight as a series of light bounds, at one or two
yards above the earth, each bound clearing from ten to twenty yards,
the dream being accompanied by a delicious sensation of easy movement,
as well as a lively satisfaction at being able to solve the problem of
aerial locomotion by virtue of superior organisation alone.[108] Lafcadio
Hearn, somewhat similarly, describes, in his _Shadowings_, a typical and
frequent dream of his own as a series of bounds in long parabolic curves,
rising to a height of some twenty-five feet, and always accompanied by the
sense that a new power had been revealed which for the future would be a
permanent possession.
The attempt to explain dreams of flying has led to some bold hypotheses.
Freud characteristically affirms that the dream of flying is the bridge to
a concealed wish.[109] I have already mentioned the notion that dreams of
flight are excursions of the 'astral body.' Professor Stanley Hall, who
has himself, from childhood, had dreams of flying, argues, with scarcely
less boldness, that we have here 'some faint reminiscent atavistic echo
from the primeval sea'; and that such dreams are really survivals--psychic
vestigial remains comparable to the rudimentary gill-slits not uncommonly
found in man and other mammals--taking us back to the far past when man's
ancestors needed no feet to swim or float.[110] Such a theory may accord
with the profound conviction of reality that accompanies these dreams,
though that may be more easily accounted for; but it has the very serious
weakness that it offers an explanation which will not fit the facts. Our
dreams are of flying, not of swimming; but the ancestors of the mammals
probably lived in the water, not in the air. In preference to so hazardous
a theory, it seems infinitely more reasonable to regard these dreams as an
interpretation--a misinterpretation from the standpoint of waking life--of
actual internal sensations. If we can find the adequate explanation of a
psychic state in conditions actually existing within the organism itself
at the time, it is needless to seek an explanation in conditions that
ceased to exist untold millenniums ago.
My own explanation was immediately suggested by the following dream. I
dreamed that I was watching a girl acrobat, in appropriate costume, who
was rhythmically rising to a great height in the air and then falling,
without touching the floor, though each time she approached quite close
to it. At last she ceased, exhausted and perspiring, and I had to lead
her away. Her movements were not controlled by mechanism, and apparently
I did not regard mechanism as necessary. It was a vivid dream, and I
awoke with a distinct sensation of oppression in the chest. In trying
to account for this dream, which was not founded on any memory, it
occurred to me that probably I had here the key to a great group of
dreams. The rhythmic rising and falling of the acrobat was simply the
objectivation of the rhythmic rising and falling of my own respiratory
muscles--in some dreams, perhaps, of the systole and diastole of the
heart's muscles--under the influence of some slight and unknown physical
oppression, and this oppression was further translated into a condition
of perspiring exhaustion in the girl, just as men with heart disease may
dream of sweating and panting horses climbing uphill, in accordance with
that tendency to magnification which marks dreams generally.[111] We may
recall also the curious sensation as of the body being transformed into
a vast bellows or steam engine, which is often the last sensation felt
before the unconsciousness produced by nitrous oxide gas.[112] When we
are lying down there is a real rhythmic rising and falling of the chest
and abdomen, centring in the diaphragm, a series of oscillations which at
both extremes are only limited by the air. Moreover, in this position we
have to recognise that the circulatory, nervous, and other systems of
the whole internal organism, are differently balanced from what they are
in the upright position, and that a disturbance of internal equilibrium
always accompanies falling.
It is also noteworthy (as, indeed, Wundt has briefly remarked) that the
modifications produced by sleep in the respiratory process itself tend
to facilitate its interpretation as a process of flying. Mosso showed
that respiration in sleep is more thoracic than when awake, that it is
lengthened, and that the respiratory pause is less marked.[113] That is to
say that both the aerial element and the actual rhythmic movement of the
ribs become accentuated during sleep.
That the respiratory element is the chief factor in dreams of flying is
clearly indicated by the fact that many persons subject to such dreams
are conscious on awaking from them of a sense of respiratory or cardiac
disturbance. I am acquainted with a psychologist who, though not a
frequent dreamer, is subject to dreams of flying, which do not affect
him disagreeably, but on awaking from them he always perceives a slight
flutter of the heart. Any such sensation is by no means constant with me,
but I have occasionally noted it down in exactly the same words after this
kind of dream.[114] It is worth while to observe, in this connection, how
large a number of people, and especially very young people, associate
their dreams of flying with staircases. The most frequent cause of cardiac
and respiratory stimulation, especially in children, who constantly run up
and down them, is furnished by staircases, and though in health this fact
may not be obvious, it is undoubtedly registered unconsciously, and may
thus be utilised by dreaming intelligence.
There is, however, another element entering into the problem of nocturnal
aviation: the state of the skin sensations. Respiratory activity alone
would scarcely suffice to produce the imagery of flight if sensations of
tactile pressure remained to suggest contact with the earth. In dreams,
however, the sense of movement suggested by respiratory activity is
unaccompanied by the tactile pressure produced by boots or the contact
of the ground with the soles of the feet. In addition, also, there is
probably, as Bergson also has suggested, a numbness due to pressure on
the parts supporting the weight of the body. Sleep is not a constant and
uniform state of consciousness; a heightened consciousness of respiration
may easily co-exist with a diminished consciousness of tactile pressure
due to anaesthesia of the skin.[115] In normal sleep it may, indeed, be
said that the conditions are probably often favourable to the production
of this combination, and any slight thoracic disturbance even in healthy
persons, arising from heart or stomach, and acting on the respiration,
serves to bring these conditions to sleeping consciousness and to
determine the dream of flying.
Dreams of flying are sometimes associated with dreams of falling, the
falling sensation occurring either at the beginning or at the end of
the dream; such a dream may be said to be of the Icarus type.[116]
Jewell considers that the two kinds of dream have the same causation,
the difference being merely a difference of apperception. The frequent
connection between the two dreams indicates that the causation is
allied, but it scarcely seems to be identical. If it were identical,
we should scarcely find that while the emotional tone of the dream of
flying is usually agreeable, that of the dream of falling is usually
disagreeable.[117]
I have no personal experience of the sensation of falling in normal
dreaming, although Jewell and Hutchinson have found that it is more
common than flying, the latter regarding it, indeed, as the most common
kind of dream, the dream of flying coming next in frequency. A friend
who has no dreams of flying, but has experienced dreams of falling
from his earliest years, tells me that they are always associated with
feelings of terror. This suggests an organic cause, and the fact that the
sensation of falling may occur in epileptic fits during sleep,[118] seems
further to suggest the presence of circulatory and nervous disturbance.
It would seem probable that while the same two factors--respiratory and
tactile--are operative in both types of dream, they are not of equal
force in each. In the dream of flying, respiratory activity is excited,
and in response to excitation it works at a high level adequate to the
needs of the organism. In the dream of falling it may be that respiratory
activity is depressed, while concomitantly, perhaps, the anaesthetic state
of the skin is increased. In the first state the abnormal activity of
respiration triumphs in consciousness over the accompanying dulness of
tactile sensation; in the second state the respiratory breathlessness is
less influential than a numbness of the skin unconscious of any external
pressure. This difference is rendered possible by the fact that in dreams
of flying we are not usually far from the earth, and seem able to touch
it lightly at intervals; that is to say that tactile sensitiveness is
impaired, but is not entirely absent as it is in a dream of falling.[119]
In my own experience the sensation of falling only occurs in illness or
under the influence of drugs, sometimes when sleep seems incomplete, and
it is an unpleasant, though not terrifying, sensation. I once experienced
it in the most marked and persistent manner after taking a large dose
of chlorodyne to subdue pain. Under such circumstances the sensation is
probably due to the fact that the morphia in chlorodyne both weakens
respiratory action and produces anaesthesia of the peripheral nerves, so
that the skin becomes abnormally insensitive to the contact and pressure
of the bed, and the sensation of descent is necessarily aroused.[120] It
is possible that persons liable to the dream of falling are predisposed
to a stage of sleep unconsciousness, in which cutaneous insensibility is
marked. It is also possible that there is a contributory element of slight
cardiac or respiratory disturbance.[121]
In a dream belonging to this group, I imagined I was being rhythmically
swung up and down in the air by a young woman, my feet never touching
the ground; and then that I was swinging her similarly. At one time
she seemed to be swinging me in too jerky and hurried a manner, and
I explained to her that it must be done in a slower and more regular
manner, though I was not conscious of the precise words I used. There had
been some dyspepsia on the previous day, and on awaking I felt slight
discomfort in the region of the heart. The symbolism into which slightly
disturbed respiratory or cardiac action is here transformed seems very
clear in this dream, because it shows the actual transition from the
subjective sensation to the objective imagery of flying. By means of this
symbolic imagery we find sleeping consciousness commanding the hurried
heart to beat in a more healthy manner.
Although, in youth, my dreams of flying were of what may be considered
normal type, after the age of about thirty-five they tended, as
illustrated by the example I have given, to take on a somewhat objective
form. A further stage in this direction, the swinging movement being
transformed to an inanimate object, is illustrated by a dream of
comparatively recent date, in which I seemed to see an athlete of the
music-hall, a graceful and muscular man, who was manipulating a large
elastic ball, making it bound up from the floor. On awaking there was a
distinct sensation of cardaic tremor and nervousness.[122]
It may seem strange that dreams of flying, if so often due to organic
disturbances, should usually be agreeable in character. It is not,
however, necessary to assume that they are caused by serious interference
with physiological functions; often, indeed, they may simply be due to
the presence of a stage of consciousness in which respiration has become
unduly prominent, as it is apt to be in the early stage of nitrous oxide
anaesthesia, that is to say, to a relative wakefulness of the respiratory
centres. It would seem that the disturbance is frequently almost, or
quite, imperceptible on waking, and by no means to be compared with the
more acute organic disturbances which result in dreams of murder, although
it may be of nervous origin.[123] In some cases, however, it appears
that dreams of flying are accompanied by circumstances of terror. Thus a
medical correspondent, who describes his health as fairly good, writes
in regard to dreams of flying: 'I have often had such dreams, and have
wondered if others have them. Mine, however, are not so much dreams of
flying, as dreams of being entirely devoid of weight, and of rising and
falling at will. A singular feature of these levitation dreams is that
they are always accompanied by an intense and agonising fear of an evil
presence, a presence that I do not see but seem to feel, and my greatest
terror is that I _shall_ see it. The presence is ill-defined, but very
real, and it seems to suggest the potentiality of all possible moral,
mental, and physical evil. In these dreams it always occurs to me that
if this evil presence shall ever become embodied into a something that I
could _see_, the sight of it would be so ineffably horrible as to drive me
mad. So vivid has this fear been that on several occasions I have awakened
in a cold sweat or a nameless fear that would persist for some minutes
after I realised that I had only been dreaming.' This seems to be an
abnormal type of the dream of flight.
It is somewhat surprising that while dreams of floating in the air are so
common and clearly indicate the respiratory source of the dream, dreams
of floating on water seem to be rare, for as the actual experience of
floating on water is fairly familiar, we might have expected that sleeping
consciousness would have found here rather than in the never experienced
idea of floating in air the explanation of its sensations. The dream of
floating on water is, however, by no means unknown; thus Rachilde (Mme.
Vallette), the French novelist and critic, whose dream life is vivid and
remarkable, states that her most agreeable dream is that of floating on
the surface of warm and transparent lakes or rivers.[124] One of the
correspondents of _L'intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_[125]
also states that he has often dreamed of walking on the water.
It is not only in sleep that the sensation of flying is experienced. In
hysteria a sense of peculiar lightness of the body, and the idea of the
soul's power to fly, may occur incidentally,[126] and may certainly be
connected both with the vigilambulism, as Sollier terms the sleep-like
tendencies of such cases, and the anaesthetic conditions found in the
hysterical. It is noteworthy that Janet found that in an ecstatic person
who experienced the sensation of rising in the air there was anaesthesia
of the soles of the feet. In such hysterical ecstasy, which has always
played so large a part in religious manifestations, it is well known
that the sense of rising and floating in the air has often prominently
appeared. St. Theresa occasionally felt herself lifted above the ground,
and was fearful that this sign of divine favour would attract attention
(though we are not told that that was the case), while St. Joseph of
Cupertino, Christina the Wonderful, St. Ida of Louvain, with many another
saint enshrined in the _Acta Sanctorum_, were permitted to experience this
sensation; and since its reality is as convincing in the ecstatic state as
it is in dreams, the saints have often been able to declare, in perfect
good faith, that their levitation was real.[127] In all great religious
movements among primitive peoples, similar phenomena occur, together
with other nervous and hallucinatory manifestations. They occurred, for
instance, in the great Russian religious movement which took place among
the peasants in the province of Kief during the winter of 1891-2. The
leader of the movement, a devout member of the Stundist sect, a man with
alcoholic heredity, who had received the revelation that he was saviour
of the world, used not only to perceive perfumes so exquisite that they
could only, as he was convinced, emanate from the Holy Ghost, but during
prayer, together with a feeling of joy, he also had a sensation of bodily
lightness and of floating in the air. His followers in many cases had
the same experiences, and they delighted in jumping up into the air and
shouting. In these cases the reality of the sensory obtuseness of the skin
as an element in the manifestations was demonstrated, for Ssikorski, who
had an opportunity of investigating these people, found that many of them,
when in the ecstatic condition, were completely insensible to pain.
The sensation of flying is one of the earliest to appear in the dreams
of childhood.[128] It is sometimes the last sensation at the moment of
death. To rise, to fall, to glide away, has often been the last conscious
sensation recalled by those who seemed to be dying, but have afterwards
been brought back to life. Those rescued from drowning, for instance, have
sometimes found that the last conscious sensation was a beatific feeling
of being borne upwards. Piéron has also noted this sensation at the moment
of death from disease in a number of cases, usually accompanied by a sense
of well-being.[129] The cases he describes were mostly tuberculous, and
included individuals of both sexes, and of atheistic as well as religious
belief. In all, the last sensation to which expression was given was
one of flying, of moving upwards. In some death was peaceful, in others
painful. In one case a girl died clasping the iron bars of the bed, in
horror of being borne upwards. Piéron, no doubt rightly, associates this
sensation with the similar sensation of rising and floating common in
dreams, and with the feeling of moving upwards and resting on the air
experienced by persons in the ecstatic state. In all these cases alike
life is being concentrated in the brain and central organs, while the
outlying districts of the body are becoming numb and dead.
In this way it comes about that out of dreams and of dream-like waking
states, one of the most permanent of human spiritual conceptions has been
evolved. To float, to rise into the air, to fly up to heaven, has always
seemed to man to be the final climax of spiritual activity. The angel is
the most ethereal creature the human imagination can conceive. Browning's
cry to his 'lyric love, half angel and half bird,' pathetically crude as
poetry, is sound as psychology. The prophets and divine heroes of the race
have constantly seemed to their devout followers to disappear at last by
floating up into the sky, like Elijah, who went up 'by a whirlwind into
heaven.' St. Peter once thought he saw his Master walking on the waves,
and the last vision of Jesus in the Gospels reveals him rising into
the air. For it is in the world of dreams that the human soul has its
indestructible home, and in the attempt to realise these dreams lies a
large part of our business in life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 100: Bk. IV. 1014-15:
'de montibus altis
Se quasi præcipitent ad terram corpore toto.'
]
[Footnote 101: 'It has many times happened to me,' says the innkeeper's
daughter in _Don Quixote_ (Part I. ch. xvi.), 'to dream that I was falling
down from a tower and never coming to the ground, and when I awoke from
the dream to find myself as weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.']
[Footnote 102: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]
[Footnote 103: Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed., vol.
i. p. 773.]
[Footnote 104: _L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_, May 31,
1906.]
[Footnote 105: De Rochas describes the phenomenon as 'a property of the
human organism, more or less developed in different individuals, when the
soul, disengaging itself from the bonds of the body, enters the domain,
still so mysterious, of dreams' (_L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des
Curieux_, May 10, 1906). In subsequent numbers of the _Intermédiaire_
various correspondents describe their own experiences of such dreams. In
_Luce e Ombra_ for June 1906, and in the _Echo du Merveilleux_ for the
same date, neither of which I have seen, are given other experiences.]
[Footnote 106: _Annals of Psychical Research_, November 1896.]
[Footnote 107: Horace Hutchinson, _Dreams and their Meanings_, p. 76.]
[Footnote 108: _American Journal of Psychology_, July-October 1903, p. 14.]
[Footnote 109: 'The wish to be able to fly,' he declares (_Eine
Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci_, p. 59), 'signifies in dreaming
nothing else but the desire to be capable of sexual activities. It is a
wish of early childhood.']
[Footnote 110: Stanley Hall, _American Journal of Psychology_, January
1879, p. 158; also F. E. Bolton, 'Hydro-Psychoses,' _ib._, January 1899,
p. 183; as regards rudimentary gill-slits, Bland Sutton, _Evolution and
Disease_, pp. 48 _et seq._ Lafcadio Hearn travels still further along
this road in search for an explanation of dreams of flight, and evokes a
'memory of vanished planets with fainter powers of gravitation,' but he
fails to state when the ancestors of man inhabited these problematical
planets.]
[Footnote 111: I retain this statement of my explanation in almost the
same words as first written down in 1895. I was not then aware that
several psychologists had offered very similar explanations. Scherner
(_Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861) seems to have been the first to connect
the lungs with dreams of flying, though he put forward the explanation
in too fanciful a form and failed to realise that other factors, notably
a change in skin pressure, are also involved. Strümpell at a later date
recognised this explanation, as well as Wundt.]
[Footnote 112: It is the same with chloroform. 'There are marked
sensations in the vicinity of the heart,' says Elmer Jones ('The Waning
of Consciousness under Chloroform,' _Psychological Review_, January
1909). 'The musculature of that organ seems thoroughly stimulated, and
the contractions become violent and accelerated. The palpitations are
as strong as would be experienced at the close of some violent bodily
exertion.' It is significant, also, as bearing on the interpretation of
the dream of flying, that under chloroform 'all movements made appeared to
be much longer than they actually were. A slight movement of the tongue
appeared to be magnified at least ten times. Clinching the fingers and
opening them again produced the feeling of their moving through a space of
several feet.']
[Footnote 113: See _e.g._ Marie de Manacéïne, _Sleep_, p. 7.]
[Footnote 114: Horace Hutchinson, who in his _Dreams and their Meanings_
(1901), has independently suggested that 'this flying dream is caused by
some action of the breathing organs,' mentions the significant fact (p.
128) that the idea of filling the lungs as a help in levitation occurs in
the flying dreams of many persons.]
[Footnote 115: We have an analogous state of tactile anaesthesia in the
early stages of chloroform intoxication. Thus Elmer Jones found that this
sense is, after hearing, the first to disappear. 'With the disappearance
of the tactile sense and hearing,' he remarks, 'the body has completely
lost its orientation. It appears to be nowhere, simply floating in space.
It is a most ecstatic feeling.']
[Footnote 116: Lafcadio Hearn describes the fall as coming at the
beginning of the dream. Dr. Guthrie (_Clinical Journal_, June 7, 1899),
in his own case, describes the flying sensations as coming first and the
falling as coming afterwards, and apparently due to sudden failure of the
power of flight; the first part of the dream is agreeable but after the
fall the dreamer awakes shaken, shocked, and breathless.]
[Footnote 117: The disagreeable nature of falling in dreams may probably
be connected with the absence of rhythm usually present in dreams of
flying. Most of the psychologists who have occupied themselves with rhythm
have insisted on its pleasurable emotional tone, as leading to a state
bordering on ecstasy (see _e.g._ J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied
Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement to _Psychological Review_, June 1903). The
pleasure is especially marked, as MacDougall remarks, when there is 'a
coincidence of subjective and objective change.' In dreams of flying we
have this coincidence, the real subjective rhythm being transformed in
consciousness to an objective rhythm.]
[Footnote 118: Féré, 'Note sur les Rêves Epileptiques,' _Revue de
Médecine_, September 10, 1905.]
[Footnote 119: Sir W. R. Gowers has on several occasions (_e.g._ 'The
Borderland of Epilepsy,' _British Medical Journal_, July 21, 1906) argued
that dreams of falling have an aural origin, and are caused by contraction
of the stapedius muscle, leading to a change in the ampullae which might
suggest descent; he has himself suddenly awakened from such a dream and
caught the sound of the muscular contraction. The opinion of so acute an
investigator deserves consideration.]
[Footnote 120: Such sensations are, indeed, a recognised result of
morphia. Morphinomaniacs, Goron remarks (_Les Parias de l'Amour_, p. 125),
are apt to feel that they are flying or floating over the world.]
[Footnote 121: Jewell states that 'certain observers, peculiarly liable
to dreams of falling or flying, ascribe these distinctly to faulty
circulation, and say their physicians, to regulate the heart's action,
have given them medicines which always relieve them and prevent such
dreams' (_American Journal of Psychology_, January 1905, p. 8).]
[Footnote 122: Interesting evidence in favour of the respiratory origin
of such visions is furnished by Silberer's observations on his own
symbolic hypnagogic visions which are certainly allied to dream visions.
He found (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1., 1909, p.
523) that on drawing a deep breath, and so raising the chest wall, the
representation came to him of attempting with another person to raise a
table in the air.]
[Footnote 123: J. de Goncourt (_Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii. p. 3)
mentions that after drinking port wine, to which he was unaccustomed, he
had a dream in which he observed on his counterpane grotesque images in
relief which rose and fell.]
[Footnote 124: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]
[Footnote 125: May 30, 1906.]
[Footnote 126: L. Binswanger, 'Versuch einer Hysterieanalyse,' _Jahrbuch
für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1. 1909.]
[Footnote 127: Their word has often been accepted. Levitation as
experienced by the saints has been studied by Colonel A. de Rochas,
_Les Frontières de la Science_, 1904; also in _Annales des Sciences
Psychiques_, January-February 1901. 'Levitation is a perfectly real
phenomena,' he concludes, 'and much more common than we might at first be
tempted to believe.']
[Footnote 128: It seems to become less frequent after middle age. Beaunis
states that in his case it ceased at the age of fifty. I found it
disappear, or become rare, at a somewhat earlier age.]
[Footnote 129: H. Piéron, 'Contribution à la Psychologie des Mourants,'
_Revue Philosophique_, December 1902.]
CHAPTER VII
SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS
The Dramatisation of Subjective Feelings Based on
Dissociation--Analogies in Waking Life--The Synaesthesias and
Number-forms--Symbolism in Language--In Music--The Organic Basis
of Dream Symbolism--The Omnipotence of Symbolism--Oneiromancy--The
Scientific Interpretation of Dreams--Why Symbolism prevails
in Dreaming--Freud's Theory of Dreaming--Dreams as Fulfilled
Wishes--Why this Theory cannot be applied to all Dreaming--The
Complete Form of Symbolism in Dreams--Splitting up of
Personality--Self-objectivation in Imaginary Personalities--The
Dramatic Element in Dreams--Hallucinations--Multiple
Personality--Insanity--Self-objectivation a Primitive Tendency--Its
Survival in Civilisation.
In discussing dreams of flying I have referred to a dream in which a
slight disturbance of the heart's action was transformed by sleeping
consciousness into the image of an athlete manipulating an elastic ball.
This objectivation of what are really the dreamer's subjective sensations,
although he is not conscious of them as subjective, is, indeed, a
phenomenon which we have encountered many times. It is, however, so
important a feature of dream psychology, and probably of such significant
weight in its influence on waking life, that it is worth while to deal
with it separately.
The dramatisation of subjective elements of the personality, which
contributes so largely to render our dreams vivid and interesting, rests
on that dissociation, or falling apart of the constituent groups of
psychic centres, which is so fundamental a fact of dream life. That is to
say, that the usually coherent elements of our mental life are split up,
and some of them--often, it is curious to note, precisely those which are
at that very moment the most prominent and poignant--are reconstituted
into what seems to us an outside and objective world, of which we are the
interested or the merely curious spectators, but in neither case realise
that we are ourselves the origin of.
An elementary source of this tendency to objectivation is to be found,
it may be noted, in the automatic impulse towards symbolism by which all
sorts of feelings experienced by the dreamer become transformed into
concrete visible images. When objectivation is thus attained, dissociation
may be said to be secondary. So far indeed as I am able to dissect the
dream-process, the tendency to symbolism seems nearly always to precede
the dissociation in consciousness, though it may well be that the
dissociation of the mental elements is a necessary subconscious condition
for the symbolism.
Sensory symbolism rests on a very fundamental psychic tendency. On the
abnormal side we find it in the synaesthesias which, since Galton first
drew attention to them in 1883, in his _Inquiries into Human Faculty_,
have become well known, and are found among between six to over twelve per
cent. of people. Galton investigated chiefly those kinds of synaesthesias
which he called 'number-forms' and 'colour associations.' The number-form
is characteristic of those people who almost invariably think of
numerals in some more or less constant form of visual imagery, the
number instantaneously calling up the picture. In persons who experience
colour-associations, or coloured-hearing, there is a similar instantaneous
manifestation of particular colours in connection with particular sounds,
the different vowel sounds, for instance, each constantly and persistently
evolving a definite tint, as _a_ white, _e_ vermilion, _i_ yellow,
etc., no two persons, however, having exactly the same colour scheme of
sounds.[130] These phenomena are not so very rare, and, though they must
be regarded as abnormal, they occur in persons who are perfectly healthy
and sane.
It will be seen that a synaesthesia--which may involve taste, smell,
and other senses besides hearing and sight--causes an impression of one
sensory order to be automatically and involuntarily linked on to an
impression of another totally different order. In other words, we may say
that the one impression becomes the _symbol_ of the other impression, for
a symbol--which is literally a throwing together--means that two things
of different orders have become so associated that one of them may be
regarded as the sign and representative of the other.
There is, however, another still more natural and fundamental form of
symbolism which is entirely normal, and almost, indeed, physiological.
This is the tendency by which qualities of one order become symbols of
qualities of a totally different order, because they instinctively seem
to have a similar effect on us. In this way, things in the physical
order become symbols of things in the spiritual order. This symbolism
penetrates indeed the whole of language; we cannot escape from it. The
sea is _deep_, and so also may thoughts be; ice is _cold_, and we say
the same of some hearts; sugar is _sweet_, as the lover finds also the
presence of the beloved; quinine is _bitter_, and so is remorse. Not only
our adjectives, but our substantives and our verbs are equally symbolical.
To the etymological eye every sentence is full of metaphor, of symbol,
of images that, strictly and originally, express sensory impressions of
one order, but, as we use them to-day, express impressions of a totally
different order. Language is largely the utilisation of symbols. This is a
well-recognised fact which it is unnecessary to elaborate.[131]
An interesting example of the natural tendency to symbolism, which may
be compared to the allied tendency in dreaming, is furnished by another
language, the language of music. Music is a representation of the
world--the internal or the external world--which, except in so far as
it may seek to reproduce the actual sounds of the world, can only be
expressive by its symbolism. And the symbolism of music is so pronounced
that it is even expressed in the elementary fact of musical pitch. Our
minds are so constructed that the bass always seems _deep_ to us and the
treble _high_. We feel it incongruous to speak of a _high_ bass voice or
a _deep_ soprano. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this and
the like associations are fundamentally based, that there are, as an acute
French philosophic student of music, Dauriac (in an essay 'Des Images
Suggérées par l'Audition musicale'[132]), has expressed it, 'sensorial
correspondences,' as, indeed, Baudelaire had long since divined[133]; that
the motor image is that which demands from the listener the minimum of
effort; and that music almost constantly evokes motor imagery.[134]
The association between high notes and physical ascent, between low
notes and physical descent, is certainly in any case very fixed.[135]
In Wagner's _Lohengrin_, the ascent and descent of the angelic chorus
is thus indicated. Even if we go back to the early composers, the same
correspondence is found. In Purcell it is very definite. In Bach--pure and
abstract as his music is generally considered--not only this elementary
association, but an immense amount of motor imagery is to be found; Bach
shows, indeed, a curious pre-occupation in translating the definite sense
of the words he is musically illustrating into corresponding musical
terms; the skill and subtlety with which he accomplishes this, can often,
as Pirro and Schweitzer have shown, be appreciated only by musicians.[136]
It is sometimes said that this is 'realism' in music. That is a mistake.
When the impressions derived from one sense are translated into those of
another sense, there can be no question of realism. A composer may attempt
a realistic representation of thunder, but his representation of lightning
can only be symbolical; audible lightning can never be realistic.
Not only is there an instinctive and direct association between sounds
and motor imagery, but there is an indirect but equally instinctive
association between sounds and visual imagery which, though not itself
motor, has motor associations. Thus Bleuler considers it well established
that among colour-hearers there is a tendency for photisms that are light
in colour (and belonging, we may say, to the 'high' part of the spectrum)
to be produced by sounds of high quality, and dark photisms by sounds
of low quality; and, in the same way, sharply-defined pains or tactile
sensations, as well as pointed forms, produce light photisms. Similarly,
bright lights and pointed forms produce high photisms, whole low photisms
are produced by opposite conditions. Urbantschitsch, again, by examining a
large number of people who were not colour-hearers, found that a high note
of a tuning-fork seems higher when looking at red, yellow, green, or blue,
but lower if looking at violet. Thus two sensory qualities that are both
symbolic of a third quality are symbolic to each other.
This symbolism, we are justified in believing, is based on fundamental
organic tendencies. Piderit, nearly half a century ago, forcibly argued
that there is a real relationship of our most spiritual feelings and
ideas to particular bodily movements and facial expressions. In a similar
manner, he pointed out that bitter tastes and bitter thoughts tend to
produce the same physical expression.[137] He also argued that the
character of a man's looks--his _fixed_ or _dreamy_ eyes, his _lively_
or _stiff_ movements--correspond to real psychic characters. If this
is so we have a physiological, almost anatomical, basis for symbolism.
Cleland,[138] again, in an essay, 'On the Element of Symbolic Correlation
in Expression,' argued that the key to a great part of expression is
the correlation of movements and positions with ideas, so that there
are, for instance, a host of associations in the human mind by which
'upward' represents the good, the great, and the living, while 'downward'
represents the evil and the dead. Such associations are so fundamental
that they are found even in animals, whose gestures are, as Féré[139]
remarked, often metaphorical, so that a cat, for instance, will shake its
paw, as if in contact with water, after any disagreeable experiences.
The symbolism that to-day interpenetrates our language, and indeed our
life generally, has mostly been inherited by us, with the traditions of
civilisation, from an antiquity so primitive that we usually fail to
interpret it. The rare additions we make to it in our ordinary normal
life are for the most part deliberately conscious. But so soon as we
fall below, or rise above, that ordinary normal level--to insanity and
hallucination, to childhood, to savagery, to folk-lore and legend, to
poetry and religion--we are at once plunged into a sea of symbolism.[140]
There is even a normal sphere in which symbolism has free scope, and that
is in the world of dreams.
Oneiromancy, the symbolical interpretation of dreams, more especially as
a method of divining the future, is a widespread art in early stages of
culture. The discerning of dreams is represented in the Old Testament as
a very serious and anxious matter (as in regard to Pharaoh's dream of the
fat and lean cattle), and, nearer to our time, the dreams of great heroes,
especially Charlemagne, are represented as highly important events in the
mediæval European epics. Little manuals on the interpretation of dreams
have always been much valued by the uncultured classes, and among our
current popular sayings there are many dicta concerning the significance,
or the good or ill luck, of particular kinds of dreams.
Oneiromancy has thus slowly degenerated to folk-lore and superstition.
But at the outset it possessed something of the combined dignities of
religion and of science. Not only were the old dream interpreters careful
of the significance and results of individual dreams, in order to build
up a body of doctrine, but they held that not every dream contained
in it a divine message; thus they would not condescend to interpret
dreams following on the drinking of wine, for only to the temperate,
they declared, do the gods reveal their secrets.[141] The serious and
elaborate way in which the interpretation of dreams was dealt with is well
seen in the treatise on this subject by Artemidorus of Daldi, a native
of Ephesus, and contemporary of Marcus Aurelius.[142] He divided dreams
into two classes: _theorematic_ dreams, which come literally true, and
_allegorical_ dreams. The first group may be said to correspond to the
modern groups of prophetic and proleptic or prodromic dreams, while the
second group includes the symbolical dreams which have of recent years
again attracted attention. Synesius, who lived in the fourth century,
and eventually became a Christian bishop without altogether ceasing to
be a Greek pagan, wrote a very notable treatise on dreaming, in which,
with a genuinely Greek alertness of mind, he contrived to rationalise and
almost to modernise the ancient doctrine of dream symbolism. He admits
that it is in their obscurity that the truth of dreams resides, and that
we must not expect to find any general rules in regard to dreams; no two
people are alike, so that the same dream cannot have the same significance
for every one, and we have to find out the rules of our own dreams. He
had himself (like Galen) often been aided in his writings by his dreams,
in this way getting his ideas into order, improving his style, and
receiving criticisms of extravagant phrases. Once, too, in the days when
he hunted, he invented a trap as a result of a dream. Synesius declares
that attention to divination by dreams is good on moral grounds alone. For
he who makes his bed a Delphian tripod will be careful to live a pure and
noble life. In that way he will reach an end higher than that he aimed
at.[143]
It seems to-day by no means improbable that, amid the absurdities of
this popular oneiromancy, there are some items of real significance.
Until recent years, however, the absurdities have frightened away the
scientific investigator. Almost the only investigator of the psychology
of dreaming who ventured to admit a real symbolism in the dream world was
Scherner,[144] and his arguments were not usually accepted nor even easy
to accept. When we are faced by the question of definite and constant
symbols it still remains true that scepticism is often called for. But
there can be no manner of doubt that our dreams are full of symbolism.[145]
The conditions of dream life, indeed, lend themselves with a peculiar
facility to the formation of symbolism, that is to say, of images
which, while evoked by a definite stimulus, are themselves of a totally
different order from that stimulus. The very fact that we _sleep_, that
is to say, that the avenues of sense which would normally supply the real
image of corresponding order to the stimulus are more or less closed,
renders symbolism inevitable.[146] The direct channels being thus largely
choked, other allied and parallel associations come into play, and since
the control of attention and apperception is diminished, such play is
often unimpeded. Symbolism is the natural and inevitable result of these
conditions.[147]
It might still be asked why we do not in dreams more often recognise the
actual source of the stimuli applied to us. If a dreamer's feet are in
contact with something hot, it might seem more natural that he should
think of the actual hot-water bottle, rather than of an imaginary Etna,
and that, if he hears a singing in his ears, he should argue the presence
of the real bird he has often heard rather than a performance of Haydn's
_Creation_, which he has never heard. Here, however, we have to remember
the tendency to magnification in dream imagery, a tendency which rests
on the emotionality of dreams. Emotion is normally heightened in dreams.
Every impression reaches sleeping consciousness through this emotional
atmosphere, in an enlarged form, vaguer it may be, but more massive. The
sleeping brain is thus not dealing with actual impressions--if we are
justified in speaking of the impressions of waking life as 'actual'--even
when actual impressions are being made upon it, but with transformed
impressions. The problem before it is to find an adequate cause, not for
the actual impression, but for the transformed and enlarged impression.
Under these circumstances symbolism is quite inevitable. Even when the
nature of an excitation is rightly perceived its quality cannot be
rightly perceived. The dreamer may be able to perceive that he is being
bitten, but the massive and profound impression of a bite which reaches
his dreaming consciousness would not be adequately accounted for by
the supposition of the real mosquito that is the cause of it; the only
adequate explanation of the transformed impression received is to be found
(as in a dream already narrated) in a creature as large as a lobster.
This creature is the symbol of the real mosquito.[148] We have the same
phenomenon under somewhat similar conditions in the intoxication of
chloroform and nitrous oxide.
The obscuration during sleep of the external sensory channels, with
the checks on false conclusions they furnish, is not alone sufficient
to explain the symbolism of dreams. The dissociation of thought during
sleep, with the diminished attention and apperception involved, is also
a factor. The magnification of special isolated sensory impressions in
dreaming consciousness is associated with a general bluntness, even an
absolute quiescence, of the external sensory mechanism. One part of the
organism, and it seems usually a visceral part, is thus apt to magnify its
place in consciousness at the expense of the rest. As Vaschide and Piéron
say, during sleep 'the internal sensations develop at the expense of the
peripheral sensations.' That indeed seems to be the secret of the immense
emotional turmoil of our dreams. Yet it is very rare for these internal
sensations to reach the sleeping brain as what they are. They become
conscious, not as literal messages, but as symbolical transformations.
The excited or labouring heart recalls to the brain no memory of itself,
but some symbolical image of excitement or labour. There is association,
indeed, but it is association not along the matter-of-fact lines of our
ordinary waking civilised life, but along much more fundamental and
primitive channels, which in waking life we have now abandoned or never
knew.
There is another consideration which may be put forward to account for
one group of dream-symbolisms. It has been found that certain hysterical
subjects of old standing when in the hypnotic state are able to receive
mental pictures of their own viscera, even though they may be quite
ignorant of any knowledge of the shape of these viscera. This _autoscopy_,
as it has been called, has been specially studied by Féré, Comar, and
Sollier.[149] Hysteria is a condition which is in many respects closely
allied to sleep, and if it is to be accepted as a real fact that autoscopy
occasionally occurs in the abnormal psychic state of hypnotic sleep in
hysterical persons, it is possible to ask whether it may not sometimes
occur normally in the allied state of sleep. In the hypnotic state it
is known that parts of the organism normally involuntary may become
subject to the will; it is not incredible that similarly parts normally
insensitive may become sufficiently sensitive to reveal their own shape
or condition. We may thus, indeed, the more easily understand those
premonitory dreams in which the dreamer becomes conscious of morbid
conditions which are not perceptible to waking consciousness until they
have attained a greater degree of intensity.[150]
The recognition of the transformation in dream life of internal
sensations into symbolic motor imagery is ancient. Hippocrates said that
to dream, for instance, of springs and wells denoted some disturbance of
the bladder. In such a case a disturbed bladder sends to the brain, not
the naked message of its own needs, but a symbolic message of those needs
in motor imagery, as (in one case known to me) of a large cistern with
a stream of water flowing from it.[151] Sometimes the symbolism aroused
by visceral processes remains physiological; thus indigestion frequently
leads to dreams of eating, as of chewing all sorts of inedible and
repulsive substances, and occasionally--it would seem more abnormally--to
agreeable dreams of food.
It is due to the genius of Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna--to-day
the most daring and original psychologist in the field of morbid psychic
phenomena--that we owe the long-neglected recognition of the large place
of symbolism in dreaming. Scherner had argued in favour of this aspect of
dreams, but he was an undistinguished and unreliable psychologist, and
his arguments failed to be influential. Freud avows himself a partisan of
Scherner's theory of dreaming and opponent of all other theories,[152] but
his treatment of the matter is incomparably more searching and profound.
Freud, however, goes far beyond the fundamental--and, as I believe,
undeniable--proposition that dream-imagery is largely symbolic. He holds
that behind the symbolism of dreams there lies ultimately a _wish;_ he
believes, moreover, that this wish tends to be really of more or less
sexual character, and, further, that it is tinged by elements that go back
to the dreamer's infantile days. As Freud views the mechanism of dreams,
it is far from exhibiting mere disordered mental activity, but is (much
as he has also argued hysteria to be[153]) the outcome of a desire, which
is driven back by a kind of inhibition or censure (_i.e._, that kind
of moral check which is still more alert in the waking state), and is
seeking new forms of expression. There is first in the dream the process
of what Freud calls condensation (_Verdichtung_), a process which is that
fusion of separate elements which must be recognised at the outset of
every discussion of dreaming, but Freud maintains that in this fusion all
the elements have a point in common, and overlie one another like the
pictures in a Galtonian composite photograph. Then there comes the process
of displacement or transference (_Verschiebung_), a process by which the
really central and emotional basis of the dream is concealed beneath
trifles. Then there is the process of dramatisation or transformation
into a concrete situation of which the elements have a symbolic value.
Thus, as Maeder puts it, summarising Freud's views, 'behind the apparently
insignificant events of the day utilised in the dream there is always an
important idea or event hidden. We only dream of things that are worth
while. What at first sight seems to be a trifle is a grey wall which
hides a great palace. The significance of the dream is not so much held
in the dream itself as in that substratum of it which has not passed the
threshold and which analysis alone can bring to light.'
'We only dream of things that are worth while.' That is the point at
which many of us are no longer able to follow Freud. That dreams of the
type studied by Freud do actually occur may be accepted; it may even be
considered proved. But to assert that all dreams must be made to fit
into this one formula is to make far too large a demand. As regards the
presentative element in dreams--the element that is based on actual
sensory stimulation--it is in most cases unreasonable to invoke Freud's
formula at all. If, when I am asleep, the actual song of a bird causes me
to dream that I am at a concert, that picture may be regarded as a natural
symbol of the actual sensation, and it is unreasonable to expect that
psycho-analysis could reveal any hidden personal reason why the symbol
should take the form of a concert. And, if so, then Freud's formula fails
to hold good for phenomena which cover one of the two main divisions of
dreams, even on a superficial classification, and perhaps enter into all
dreams.
But even if we take dreams of the remaining or representative class--the
dreams made up of images not directly dependent on actual sensation--we
still have to maintain a cautious attitude. A very large proportion of the
dreams in this class seem to be, so far as the personal life is concerned,
in no sense 'worth while.' It would, indeed, be surprising if they were.
It seems to be fairly clear that in sleep, as certainly in the hypnagogic
state, attention is diminished, and apperceptive power weakened. That
alone seems to involve a relaxation of the tension by which we will and
desire our personal ends. At the same time, by no longer concentrating our
psychic activities at the focus of desire it enables indifferent images to
enter more easily the field of sleeping consciousness. It might even be
argued that the activity of desire, when it manifests itself in sleep and
follows the course indicated by Freud, corresponds to a special form of
sleep in which attention and apperception, though in modified forms, are
more active than in ordinary sleep.[154] Such dreams seem to occur with
special frequency, or in more definitely marked forms, in the neurotic and
especially the hysterical, and if it is true that the hysterical are to
some extent asleep even when they are awake, it may also be said that they
are to some extent awake even when they are asleep. Freud certainly holds,
probably with truth, that there is no fundamental distinction between
normal people and psychoneurotic people, and that there is, for instance,
as Ferenczi says, emphasising this point, 'a streak of hysterical
disposition in everybody.' Freud has, indeed, made interesting analytic
studies of his own dreams, but the great body of material accumulated
by him and his school is derived from the dreams of the neurotic. Thus
Stekel states that he has analysed many thousand dreams, but his lengthy
study on the interpretation of dreams deals exclusively with the dreams
of the neurotic.[155] Stekel believes, moreover, that from the structure
of the dream life conclusions may be drawn, not only as to the life and
character of the dreamer, but also as to his neurosis, the hysterical
person dreaming differently from the obsessed person, and so on. If that
is the case we are certainly justified in doubting whether conclusions
drawn from the study of the dreams of neurotic people can be safely held
to represent the normal dream life, even though it may be true that there
is no definite frontier between them. Whatever may be the case among the
neurotic, in ordinary normal sleep the images that drift across the field
of consciousness, though they have a logic of their own, seem in a large
proportion of cases to be quite explicable without resort to the theory
that they stand in vital but concealed relationship to our most intimate
self.
Even in waking life, and at normal moments which are not those of
reverie, it seems possible to trace the appearance in the field of
consciousness of images which are evoked neither by any known mental or
physical circumstance of the moment, or any hidden desire, images that
are as disconnected from the immediate claims of desire and even of
association as those of dreams seem so largely to be. It sometimes occurs
to me--as doubtless it occurs to other people--that at some moment when
my thoughts are normally occupied with the work immediately before me,
there suddenly appears on the surface of consciousness a totally unrelated
picture. A scene arises, vague but usually recognisable, of some city
or landscape--Australian, Russian, Spanish, it matters not what--seen
casually long years ago, and possibly never thought of since, and
possessing no kind of known association either with the matter in hand or
with my personal life generally. It comes to the surface of consciousness
as softly, as unexpectedly, as disconnectedly, as a minute bubble might
arise and break on the surface of an actual stream from ancient organic
material silently disintegrating in the depths beneath.[156] Every one who
has travelled much cannot fail to possess, hidden in his psychic depths,
a practically infinite number of such forgotten pictures, devoid of all
personal emotion. It is possible to maintain, as a matter of theory, that
when they come up to consciousness, they are evoked by some real, though
untraceable, resemblance which they possess to the psychic or physical
state existing when they reappear. But that theory cannot be demonstrated.
Nor, it may be added, is it more plausible than the simple but equally
unprovable theory that such scenes do really come to the surface of
consciousness as the result of some slight spontaneous disintegration in
a minute cerebral centre, and have no more immediately preceding psychic
cause than my psychic realisation of the emergence of the sun from behind
a cloud has any psychic preceding cause.
Similarly, in insanity, Liepmann, in his study _Ueber Ideenflucht_, has
forcibly argued that ordinary logorrhœa--the incontinence of ideas linked
together by superficial associations of resemblance or contiguity--is a
linking _without direction_, that is, corresponding to no interest, either
practical or theoretical, of the individual. Or, as Claparède puts it,
logorrhœa is a trouble in the reaction of _interest_ in life. It seems
most reasonable to believe that in ordinary sleep the flow of imagery
follows, for the most part, the same easy course. That course may to
waking consciousness often seem peculiar, but to waking consciousness the
conditions of dreaming life are peculiar. Under these conditions, however,
we may well believe that the tendency to movement in the direction of
least resistance still prevails. And as attention and will are weakened
and loosened during sleep, the tense concentration on personal ends must
also be relaxed. We become more disinterested. Personal desire tends
for the most part rather to fall into the background than to become
more prominent. If it were not a period in which desire were ordinarily
relaxed, sleep would cease to be a period of rest and recuperation.
Sleeping consciousness is a vast world, a world scarcely less vast than
that of waking consciousness. It is futile to imagine that a single
formula can cover all its manifold varieties and all its degrees of depth.
Those who imagine that all dreaming is a symbolism which a single cypher
will serve to interpret must not be surprised if, however unjustly, they
are thought to resemble those persons who claim to find on every page of
Shakespeare a cypher revealing the authorship of Bacon. In the case of
Freud's theory of dream interpretation, I hold the cypher to be real, but
I believe that it is impossible to regard so narrow and exclusive an
interpretation as adequate to explain the whole world of dreams. It would,
_a priori_, be incomprehensible that sleeping consciousness should exert
so extraordinary a selective power among the variegated elements of waking
life, and, experientially, there seems no adequate ground to suppose that
it does exert such selective action. On the contrary, it is, for the
most part, supremely impartial in bringing forward and combining all the
manifestations, the most trivial as well as the most intimate, of our
waking life. There is a symptom of mental disorder called _extrospection_,
in which the patient fastens his attention so minutely on events that
he comes to interpret the most trifling signs and incidents as full of
hidden significance, and may so build up a systematised delusion.[157] The
investigator of dreams must always bear in mind the risk of falling into
morbid extrospection.
Such considerations seem to indicate that it is not true that every
dream, every mental image, is 'worth while,' though at the same time they
by no means diminish the validity of special and purposive methods of
investigating dream consciousness. Freud and those who are following him
have shown, by the expenditure of much patience and skill, that his method
of dream-interpretation may in many cases yield coherent results which it
is not easy to account for by chance. It is quite possible, however, to
recognise Freud's service in vindicating the large place of symbolism in
dreams, and to welcome the application of his psycho-analytic method to
dreams, while yet denying that this is the only method of interpreting
dreams. Freud argues that all dreaming is purposive and significant,
and that we must put aside the belief that dreams are the mere trivial
outcome of the dissociated activity of brain centres. It remains true,
however, that, while reason plays a larger part in dreams than most
people realise, the activity of dissociated brain centres furnishes one
of the best keys to the explanation of psychic phenomena during sleep.
It would be difficult to believe in any case that in the relaxation of
sleep our thoughts are still pursuing a deliberately purposeful direction
under the control of our waking impulses. Many facts indicate--though
Freud's school may certainly claim that such facts have not been
thoroughly interpreted--that, as a matter of fact, this control is often
conspicuously lacking. There is, for instance, the well-known fact that
our most recent and acute emotional experiences--precisely those which
might most ardently formulate themselves in a wish--are rarely mirrored
in our dreams, though recent occurrences of more trivial nature, as well
as older events of more serious import, easily find place there. That
is easily accounted for by the supposition--not quite in a line with a
generalised wish-theory--that the exhausted emotions of the day find rest
at night.
It must also be said that even when we admit that a strong emotion may
symbolically construct an elaborate dream edifice which needs analysis to
be interpreted, we narrow the process unduly if we assert that the emotion
is necessarily a wish. Desire is certainly very fundamental in life and
very primitive. But there is another equally fundamental and primitive
emotion--fear.[158] We may very well expect to find this emotion, as well
as desire, subjacent to dream phenomena.[159]
The infantile form of the wish-dream, alike in adults and children, is
thus, there can be little doubt, extremely common, and, even in its
symbolic forms, it is a real and not rare phenomenon. But it is impossible
to follow Freud when he declares that all dreams fall into the group of
wish-dreams. The world of psychic life during sleep is, like the waking
world, rich and varied; it cannot be covered by a single formula. Freud's
subtle and searching analytic genius has greatly contributed to enlarge
our knowledge of this world of sleep. We may recognise the value of his
contribution to the psychology of dreams while refusing to accept a
premature and narrow generalisation.
The wish-dream of the kind elaborately investigated by Freud may be
accepted as one type of dreaming, and a very interesting type, but it
seems evident that it is only one type. There are even other types which
seem closely related to it, and yet are quite distinct. This is, for
instance, the case with the contrast-dream. The contrast-dream of Näcke's
type represents the emergence of characteristics which are distinctly
opposed to the dreamer's character and habits. Thus, in the course of four
consecutive nights, I have dreamed in much detail that (1) I was the mayor
of a large northern city about to take the chair at a local meeting of the
Bible Society; (2) that I was a soldier in the heat of battle; and (3)
that I was meditating the step of going on the stage as a comedian--the
only rôle of the three which seemed to cause me any nervousness or
misgiving. In contrast-dreams of this type we are not concerned with
the eruption of concealed and repressed wishes. They are merely based
on vestigial possibilities, entirely alien to our temperament as it has
developed in life, and only a part of our complex personalities in the
sense that, as Schopenhauer said, whatever path we take in life there
are latent germs within us which could only have developed in an exactly
opposite path. Even the very same dream may be due to quite different
causes. To take a very simple dream, for we may best argue on the simplest
facts: the dream of eating. We dream of eating when we are hungry, but
sometimes we also dream of eating when the stomach is suffering from
repletion. The dream is the same, but the psychological mechanism is
entirely different, in the one case emotional, in the other intellectual.
In the first case the picture of eating is built up in response to an
organic visceral craving, and we have an elementary wish-dream of what
Freud would call infantile type; in the second case the same dream is a
theory, embodied in a concrete picture, to account for the existence of
the repletion experienced.
There cannot be the slightest doubt that the wish-dream, in its simple or
what Freud calls its infantile form, represents an extremely common type
of dream.[160] A large number of the dreams of children are concerned with
wishes and their fulfilments. Those dreams of adults which are aroused by
actual organic sensations also tend to fall, though not invariably, into
the same form. Again, we chance to want a thing when we are awake; when
we are asleep we dream we have found it. It may also be said, almost with
certainty, that in some cases our dreams are the fulfilment of unexpressed
and unconscious waking wishes. Even the best people, it is probable, may
occasionally dream of events which represent the fulfilment of wishes they
have never consciously formulated. Archbishop Laud was accustomed to note
down his dreams in his Diary. On one occasion we find him setting down
a disturbing dream, in which he saw the Lord Keeper dead, and 'rotten
already.' A little later we find that Laud is 'much concerned at the
envy and undeserved hatred borne to me by the Lord Keeper.'[161] It is
not difficult to see in the Archbishop's relations to the Lord Keeper an
explanation of his dream.
If, however, wishes, conscious or unconscious, are often fulfilled
in dreams, and if, as we have seen reason to conclude, symbolism is
a fundamental tendency of dreaming activity, it is inevitable that
wish-dreams should sometimes take on a symbolic form. It is thus, for
instance, that I interpret my dream of being in an English cathedral and
seeing on the wall a notice to the effect that at evensong on such a day
the edifice will not be illuminated, in order to avoid attracting moths;
I awake with a slight headache, and the unilluminated cathedral was
the symbol of the coolness and absence of glare which one desires when
suffering from headache.
There cannot, also, be any doubt that erotic wishes frequently make
themselves felt as dreams, both in the infantile and the symbolic form.
It is sufficient to bring forward one illustration. It is furnished
by a young lady of somewhat neurotic tendencies and heredity, aged
twenty-three, musical and intelligent, who was in love with her
music-master, the organist at her church. The dream was written down at
the time. 'I was at the school of my childhood, and I was told that I
was St. Agnes Virgin and Martyr, and in five minutes' time I was to be
beheaded with a large knife. The sheen of the blade frightened me so much
that I asked if instead I might be strangled by the man I was in love
with. Permission was given if I could induce him to come in time. I ran
to our church (saying to myself that I knew it was a dream, but that I
_must_ see what he would say) over huge stones that cut my bare feet, and
wondered what age I was living in, longing to meet some women in order to
find out. When I did, they all wore crinolines. I rushed up the central
aisle, which was full of people, thinking that, as I was going to be
killed, nothing could matter. Mr. T. (the organist) was giving a choir
practice in the vestry. I ran up to him and said: "Come at once, I am
going to be killed." He became very angry, and said: "Do go away; you are
always interrupting my choir practice." I said: "Don't you understand? I
am going to be killed at once; there is a knife hanging over my head, but
I would rather be strangled by you, and they said I could if I fetched you
in time." As soon as he understood that he came at once. Then it seemed
in the dream that we were married, and had a son, who was to be a musical
composer. I said I must say goodbye to this son first, and told the nurse
to bring him to me. When he came I said: "Good-bye, I am going to be
killed." He said, "Mother, am I a boy or a girl? When I am with boys I
don't seem like them, and they call me a girl, and yet I don't look like
a girl." I replied: "You are both in one, because you are going to be a
perfect musical genius."' In this dream, which represents the fulfilment
in sleep of an affection unsatisfied in life, we see side by side the
infantile and the symbolic fulfilments of the erotic wish, culminating in
a gifted musical child. The wish to be strangled is an undoubted erotic
symbol,[162] and it is significant that in the course of the dream the
accepted death by strangulation became fused with marriage, although the
idea of death still inconsistently survives, doubtless because dream
consciousness failed to realise that the accepted form of death was a
subconsciously furnished symbol of the consummation of marriage.
The wish-dream of Freud's type has presented itself for consideration
here, because it is a special and elaborate illustration of symbolism
in dreaming. The important place of symbols in dreaming is by no means
dependent on the validity of this particular type of dream, and we may now
proceed to continue the discussion of the significance of the symbolic
tendency during sleep in its most important form.
The symbols we have so far been mainly concerned with have been the
result of a tendency of dreaming consciousness to objectify feelings and
affections within the organism in concrete objects or processes outside
the organism. In its complete form this symbolic tendency becomes the
objectivation of part of the dreamer's feelings or personality in a
distinct imaginary personality. A process of dramatisation occurs, and
the dreamer finds himself in action and reaction, friendly or hostile or
indifferent, with seemingly external personalities which, by the light
of the analysis possible on awakening, are demonstrably created out of
split-off portions of his own personality.[163] A common and simple form
of such objectivation, closely allied to some of the symbolisms already
brought forward, occurs when the dreamer sees the image of a person
suffering from some affection of a part of the body and finds on awakening
that he is himself experiencing pain or discomfort in that part. Thus a
medical man dreams he is examining a tumour in a patient's groin, and on
awakening finds slight irritation in the same region of his own body. And
similarly, just as our bodily needs, when experienced during sleep, may
be symbolised by inanimate natural objects and processes, so they may
also become objective in the image of another person who is occupied in
gratifying the need which we are ourselves unconsciously experiencing.
An interesting and significant group of cases is furnished by those
dreams in which--as the result of some compression or effort--the tactile
and muscular sensations of our own limbs are split off from sleeping
consciousness and built up into an imaginary personality. Thus a medical
friend, shortly after an attack of influenza, dreamed that in conversation
with a lady patient his hand rested on her knee; she requested him to
remove it, but his efforts to do so were fruitless, and he awoke in horror
from this unprofessional situation to find that his hand was firmly
clasped between his own knees. His body had thus been divided in dreaming
consciousness between himself and an imaginary other person; the knee
had become the other person's, while the hand remained his own, the hand
being claimed in preference to the knee no doubt on account of its greater
tactile sensibility and more complexly intimate association with the
brain. In the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) state such dream sensations may
almost reach the intensity of hallucination. Thus, after an indigestible
supper, I awake with the vivid feeling that some one is lying on me
and attempting to drag off the bedclothes, and I find myself violently
attempting, but apparently in vain, to articulate: 'Who is there?' In a
dream of similar type, which occurred when lying on my back (and possibly
with slight indigestion due to an unusually late dinner), I awoke making
a kind of inarticulate exclamation which awakened my wife. I had dreamed
that I was lying in bed, and that some unseen creature--more supernatural
than human, it seemed--was violently dragging the bedclothes off me, while
I shouted to it, very distinctly it seemed to me, 'Avaunt, avaunt!'
It is evident that my own sense of oppression, my own unconscious and
involuntary movements in disturbing the bedclothes, were reconstructed by
sleeping consciousness as the actions of an external person, in the second
case, a supernatural creature, which, it is interesting to note, I duly
accepted as such and addressed in the conventionally appropriate manner
of old romance. The illusion may persist for some moments after waking. A
lady, after breathing rather loudly and convulsively for a few seconds,
wakes up, saying 'There is a rat or a mouse on the bed, shaking it up
and down.' 'You were asleep,' her husband replied, 'as I knew by your
breathing.' 'Oh, I was breathing like that,' she said, 'to make it jump
off.' Here we see that, somewhat as in the previous cases, the dreamer's
own muscular activity is, during sleep, reconstructed into the image of an
external force; but when she is in the semi-waking hypnagogic stage, she
recognises that the activity was her own, though still unable to dismiss
the delusion based on the theory formed during sleep.
At this point we reach the threshold of hallucination, and the next
case to be brought forward may be said to lie on the threshold, for an
impression received in the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) stage is accepted
in its illusional form, even when the dreamer is fully awake. A farmer's
daughter--a bright girl of twenty-one, with quick nervous reactions,
but untrained mind--dreamed that she saw her brother (dead some years
previously) with blood streaming from his fingers. She awoke in a fright,
and was comforting herself with the thought that it was only a dream when
she felt a hand grip her shoulder three times in succession. There was no
one in the room, the door was locked, and no explanation seemed possible
to her. She was very frightened, got up at once, dressed, and spent
the rest of the night downstairs working. She was so convinced that a
real hand had touched her that, although it seemed impossible, she asked
her brothers if they had not been playing a trick on her. The nervous
shock was considerable, and she was unable to sleep well for some weeks
afterwards. She naturally knew nothing about abnormal psychic phenomena,
and was utterly puzzled to explain the experience, except by supposing
that it may have been a ghost. The explanation is really very simple. It
is well recognised that involuntary muscular twitches may occur in the
shoulder, especially after it has been subjected to pressure, and that in
some cases such contractions may simulate a touch.[164] The dream of a
bleeding hand indicates, when we bear in mind the tendency to objectify
sensations symbolically, now familiar to us in dreaming, that the
dreamer's arm was probably pressed beneath her in a cramped position.[165]
This pressure would account, not only for the dream, but for the muscular
twitches occurring on awakening. The nature of the dream, the terrified
emotional state it produced, and the mental obscurity of the hypnagogic
state, naturally combined, in a subject unaccustomed to self-analysis, to
create an illusion which reflection is unable to dispel, though in the
normal waking state she would probably have given no attention at all
to such muscular twitches. Strictly speaking, such an experience is an
illusion--that is to say, a misinterpretation of a real sensation--and
not a hallucination--or perception without known objective causation--but
there is no clear line of demarcation. In any case it may now be taken as
proved that hallucinations tend to occur in the neighbourhood of sleep,
and therefore to partake of the nature of dreams.[166]
So far we have been concerned with the tendency in dreams to objectify
portions of the body by constructing out of them new personalities.
But precisely the same process goes on in sleep with regard to our
thoughts and feelings. We split off portions of these also and construct
other personalities out of them, and sometimes even endow the persons
thus formed with thoughts and feelings more native to our own normal
personality than those which we reserve for ourselves. Thus a lady who
dreamed that when walking with a friend she discovered a species of
animal fruit, a kind of damson containing a snail, expressed her delight
at finding a combination so admirably adapted to culinary purposes; it
was the friend who, retaining the attitude of her own waking moments,
uttered an exclamation of disgust. Most of the dreams in which there is
any dramatic element are due to this splitting up of personality; in
our dreams we may experience shame or confusion from the rebukes or the
arguments of other persons, but the persons who administer the rebuke or
apply the argument are still ourselves.[167]
Some writers on dreaming have marvelled greatly at this tendency of
the sleeping mind to objectify portions of itself, and so to create
imaginary personalities and evolve dramatic situations. It has seemed
to them quite unaccountable except as the outcome of a special gift of
imagination appertaining to sleep. Yet, remarkable as it is, this process
is simply the inevitable outcome of the conditions under which psychic
life exists during sleep. If we realise that a more or less pronounced
degree of dissociation of the contents of the mind occurs during sleep,
and if we also realise that, sleeping fully as much as waking, mind is
a thing that instinctively reasons, and cannot refrain from building up
hypotheses, then we may easily see how the personages and situations of
dreams develop. Much the same process might, under some circumstances,
occur in waking life. If, for instance, we heard an unknown voice speaking
behind a curtain, we could not fail to build up an imaginary person in
connection with that voice, the characteristics of the imaginary person
being largely determined by the nature of the voice and of the things it
uttered: it would, further, be quite easy to enter into conversation with
the person we had thus constructed. That is what seems to occur in dreams.
We hear a voice behind the curtain of darkness, and to fit that voice and
the things it utters we instinctively form a picture which, in virtue of
the hallucinatory aptitude of sleep, is thrown against the curtain; it is
then quite easy to enter into conversation with the person we have thus
constructed. It no more occurs to us during sleep to suppose that the
voice we hear is only a voice and nothing more, than it would occur to us
awake to suppose that the voice behind the curtain is only a voice and
nothing more. The process is the same; the difference is that in dreams we
are, without knowing it, living among what from the waking point of view
are called hallucinations.
This process by which dreams are formed in sleeping consciousness
through the splitting of the dreamer's personality for the construction
of other personalities has been recognised ever since dreams began to
be seriously studied. Maury referred to the scission of personality in
dreams.[168] Delboeuf dealt with what he termed the altruising by the
dreamer of part of his representations.[169] Foucault terms the same
process personalisation.[170] Giessler attempts elaborately to explain
the enigma of self-diremption--the formation of a secondary self--in
dreams; if, he argues, a touch or other sensation exceeds the dream-body's
capacity of adaptation--_i.e._, if the state of stimulus is above the
apperceptive threshold--only one part of the perception is referred to the
dream-body and the other is transferred to a secondary self.[171] This
explanation, while it very fairly covers the presentative class of dreams,
directly connected with sensory stimuli, cannot so easily be applied to
the dramatisation of our representative dreams, which are not obviously
traceable to direct bodily stimulation.
The splitting up of personality is indeed a very pronounced and widely
extended tendency of the mind, and has, during recent years, been
elaborately studied. We thus have the basis of that psychic phenomenon
which is variously termed secondary personality, double personality,
duplex personality, multiple personality, alternation of personality,
etc.,[172] and in earlier ages was regarded as due to possession by
demons. Such conditions seem to be usually associated with hysteria.
The essential fact about hysteria is, according to Janet, its lack of
synthetising power, which is at the same time a lack of attention and
of apperception, and has as its result a disintegration of the field of
consciousness into mutually exclusive parts; that is to say, there is a
process of dissociation. Now that is a condition resembling, as we have
seen, the condition found in dreaming. It is not, therefore, difficult to
accept the view of Sollier and others, that hysteria is a condition allied
to sleep, a condition of vigilambulism in which the patients are often
unable to obtain normal sleep, simply because they are all the time in a
state of abnormal sleep; as one said to Sollier: 'I cannot sleep because I
am asleep all the time.' It may thus be the case that hysterical multiple
personalities[173] furnish a pathological analogue of that tendency to the
dramatic objectivation of portions of our personality which is normal and
healthy in dreams.
Similarly in insanity we have an even more constant and pronounced
tendency for the subject to attribute his own sensations to imaginary
individuals, and to create personalities out of portions of the real
personality. All the illusions, delusions, and hallucinations of the
insane are merely the manifold manifestations of this tendency. Without it
the insanity would not exist. It is not because he is subjected to unusual
sensations--visionary, auditory, tactile, olfactory, visceral, etc.--that
a man is insane. It is because he creates imaginary personalities to
account for these sensations; if his food tastes strange some one has
given him poison if he hears a strange voice it is some one communicating
with him by telephones or microphones or hypnotism; if he feels a strange
internal sensation it is perhaps because he has another person inside
him. The case has even been recorded of a man who attributed any feeling
he experienced, even the most normal sensations of hunger and thirst, to
the people around him. It is exactly the same process as goes on in our
dreams. The sane man, the normal waking man, may experience all these
strange sensations, but he recognises that they are the spontaneous
outcome of his own organisation.
We may, however, advance a step beyond this position. This
self-objectivation, this dramatisation of our experiences, is not
confined to sleep and to pathological conditions which resemble sleep.
It is natural and primitive in a far wider sense. The infant will gaze
inquisitively at its own feet, watch their movements, play with them,
'punish' them; consciousness has not absorbed them as part of the
self.[174] The infant really acts and feels towards the remote parts of
his own body as the adult acts and feels in dreaming. We are reminded of
the generalisation of Giessler that dream consciousness corresponds to
the normal psychic state in childhood, while sleeping subconsciousness
corresponds to the embryonic psychic state; so that the dream state
represents the renascence of the ego disentangling itself from the
impersonal sensations and indistinct images of the embryonic stage of
life. That sleeping consciousness is the primitive embryonic consciousness
is, indeed, indicated, it has often seemed to me, by the fact that in
many animals the embryonic position is the position of rest and sleep.
Ducklings and chicks in the shell have their heads beneath their wing. The
dog lies with his feet together, head flexed, and hind-quarters drawn up.
Man, alike in the womb and asleep, tends to be curled up, with the flexors
predominating over the extensors.
The savage has gone beyond the infant in ability to assimilate the
impressions of his own limbs, but on the psychic side he still
constantly tends to objectify his own feelings and ideas, re-creating
them as external beings. Primitive man has done so from the first, and
this impulse has struck its roots into all our most fundamental human
traditions even as they survive in civilisation to-day. The man of
the early world moves, like the dreamer, among a sea of emotions and
ideas which he cannot recognise the origin of, and, like the dreamer,
he instinctively dramatises them. But, unlike the dreamer, he gives
stability to the images he has thus created and in good faith mistaken
for independent beings. Thus we have the animistic stages of culture, and
early man peoples his world with gods and spirits and demons and fairies
and ghosts which enter into the traditions of his race, and are more or
less accepted even by a later race which no longer creates them for itself.
In our more advanced civilisations we are still struggling with later
forms of that Protean tendency to objectify the self and to animate the
things and even the people around us with our own spirit. The impatient
and imperfectly bred child, or even man, kicks viciously the object he
stumbles against, animate or inanimate, in order to revenge a wrong which
exists only in himself. On a slightly higher plane, the men of mediæval
times brought actions in the law courts against offending animals and
solemnly pronounced sentence against them as 'criminals,'[175] while
even to-day society still 'punishes' the human criminal because it has
imaginatively re-created him in the image of an ordinary normal person,
and lacks the intelligence to perceive that he has been moulded by the
laws of his nature and environment into a creature which we do well to
protect ourselves against, but have no right to 'punish.'[176] Everywhere
we still see around us the surviving relics of this primitive tendency
of men to project their own personalities into external objects. A fine
civilisation lies largely in the due subordination of this tendency, in
the realisation and control of our own emotional possibilities, and in the
resultant growth of personal responsibility.
It is thus impossible to over-estimate the immense importance of the
primitive symbolic tendency to objectify the subjective. Men have taken
out of their own hearts their best feelings and their worst feelings,
and have personalised and dramatised them, bowed down to them or stamped
on them, unable to hear the voice with which each of their images spoke:
'I am thyself.' Our conceptions of religion, of morals, of many of the
mightiest phenomena of life, especially the more exceptional phenomena,
have grown up under this influence, which still serves to support many
movements of to-day by some people imagined to be modern.
Dreaming, as we have seen, is not the sole source of such conceptions.
But they could scarcely have been found convincing, and possibly could
not even have arisen, among races which were wholly devoid of dream
experiences. A large part of all progress in psychological knowledge,
and, indeed, a large part of civilisation itself, lies in realising that
the apparently objective is really subjective, that the angels and demons
and geniuses of all sorts that once seemed to be external forces taking
possession of feeble and vacant individualities are themselves but modes
of action of marvellously rich and varied personalities. In our dreams we
are brought back into the magic circle of early culture, and we shrink and
shudder in the presence of imaginative phantoms that are built up of our
own thoughts and emotions, and are really our own flesh.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 130: See _e.g._ Galton, _Inquiries_ (Everyman's Library
edition), pp. 79-112. Among more recent writings on this subject may
be mentioned Bleuler, art. 'Secondary Sensations,' Tuke's _Dictionary
of Psychological Medicine;_ Suarez de Mendoza, _L'Audition Colorée;_
Jules Millet, _Audition Colorée;_ and especially a useful summary by
Clavière, 'L'Audition Colorée,' _L'Année Psychologique_, fifth year,
1899. A case of auditory gustation is recorded by A. M. Pierce, _American
Journal of Psychology_, 1907. It may be noted that Boris Sidis has argued
(_Psychological Review_, January 1904) that all hallucinations are of the
nature of secondary sensations.]
[Footnote 131: Ferrero, in his _Lois Psychologiques du Symbolisme_ (1895),
deals broadly with symbolism in human thought and life.]
[Footnote 132: _Revue Philosophique_, November 1902.]
[Footnote 133: 'Richard Wagner et Tannhauser' in _L'Art Romantique_.]
[Footnote 134: The motor imagery suggested by music is in some persons
profuse and apparently capricious, and may be regarded as an anomaly
comparable to a synaesthesia. Heine was an example of this, and he has
described in _Florentine Nights_ the visions aroused by the playing of
Paganini, and elsewhere the visions evoked in him by the music of Berlioz.
Though I do not myself experience this phenomenon, I have found that there
is sometimes a tendency for music to arouse ideas of motor imagery; thus
some melodies of Handel suggest a giant painting frescoes on a vast wall
space. The most elementary motor relationship of music is seen in the
tendency of many people to sway portions of their body--to 'beat time'--in
sympathy with the music. (This phenomenon has been experimentally studied
by J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement
to the _Psychological Review_, vol. v., No. 4, June 1903). Music is
fundamentally an audible dance, and the most primitive music is dance
music.]
[Footnote 135: The instinctive nature of this tendency is shown by the
fact that it persists even in sleep. Thus Weygandt relates that he once
fell asleep in the theatre during one of the last scenes of _Cavalleria
Rusticana_, when the tenor was singing in ever higher and higher tones,
and dreamed that in order to reach the notes the performer was climbing up
ladders and stairs on the stage.]
[Footnote 136: See, especially the attractive book of André Pirro,
_L'Esthétique de J. S. Bach_ (1907), and also Albert Schweitzer, _J. S.
Bach_ (1908), especially chapters xix.-xxiii. 'Concrete things,' says
Ernest Newman, summarising some of these results (_Nation_, December 25,
1909), 'incessantly suggested abstract ideas or inward moods to Bach, and
_vice versâ_. He would time after time use the same musical formula for
the same word or idea. He first suggests the external concepts of "high"
and "low," as other composers have done, by high or low notes, and motion
up or down by ascending or descending themes. But Bach correlates with
the outward, objective thing a whole series of things that are purely
subjective. Thus moods of elation or of depression are to him the mental
equivalents of the physical acts of going up or down. So he gives us a
whole series of ascending themes to words that express "mounting" states
of mind, as it were--such as pride, courage, strength, resolution--and
descending themes to words that express "declining" states of mind--such
as prostration, adoration, depression, discouragement, grief at sin,
humility, poverty, fatigue, and illness. For the two sets of concepts,
internal and external, he will use the same musical symbols. To represent
the physical concept of "surrounding," again, he adopts the device of
a circling or undulating theme. A crown or a garland suggests the same
idea to him, so for this, too, he uses the same kind of theme. But
the correspondence goes still further; for when he comes to the word
"considering," he uses the same curving musical symbol once more--his
notion of "considering" being that of looking round on all sides. Again, a
word of purely external signification that suggests something twisted will
have an appropriately twisted theme. Then come the subjective applications
of the theme--the same disordered melodic outline is used to express a
frame of mind like anxiety or confusion, or to depict the wiles of Satan.
Careful study of the vocal works of Bach, and especially of the cantatas,
has revealed a host of these curious symbols.' The whole subject, it may
be added, has been briefly and suggestively discussed by Goblot, 'La
Musique Descriptive,' _Revue Philosophique_, July 1901.]
[Footnote 137: T. Piderit, _Mimik und Physiognomik_, 1867, p. 73.]
[Footnote 138: J. Cleland, _Evolution, Expression and Sensation_, 1881.]
[Footnote 139: Féré, 'La Physiologie dans les Métaphores,' _Revue
Philosophique_, October 1895.]
[Footnote 140: Maeder discusses symbolism in some of these fields in
his 'Die Symbolik in den Legenden, Märchen, Gebräuchen und Träumen,'
_Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 6 and 7, May 1908.]
[Footnote 141: So Philostratus, and Pliny (_Natural History_, Bk. X. ch.
CCXI.) puts the same point on somewhat more natural grounds.]
[Footnote 142: It has been translated by F. S. Krauss, _Symbolik der
Träume_, 1881.]
[Footnote 143: A translation of Synesius's 'Treatise on Dreams' is
included in Druon's _Œuvres de Synésius_, pp. 347 _et seq._ Synesius is
probably best known to modern English readers through Charles Kingsley's
novel, _Hypatia_. His treatise on dreams has been unduly neglected, though
it commended itself mightily to the pioneering mind of Lord Monboddo, who
even says (_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. ii., 1782, p. 217) in reference
to this treatise: 'Indeed it appears to me that since the days of Plato
and Aristotle there has not been a philosopher of greater depth than
Synesius.']
[Footnote 144: K. A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861. In France
Hervey de Saint-Denis, in a remarkable anonymous work which I have
not seen (_Les Rêves et les Moyens de les Diriger_, p. 356, quoted by
Vaschide and Piéron, _Psychologie du Rêve_, p. 26), tentatively put
forward a symbolic theory of dreams, as a possible rival to the theory
that permanent associations are set up as the result of a first chance
coincidence. 'Do there exist,' he asked, 'bizarre analogies of internal
sensations in virtue of which certain vibrations of the nerves, certain
instinctive movements of our viscera, correspond to sensations apparently
quite different? According to this hypothesis experience would bring
to light mysterious affinities, the knowledge of which might become a
genuine science;... and a real key to dreams would not be an unrealisable
achievement if we could bring together and compare a sufficient number of
observations.']
[Footnote 145: It is interesting to note that hallucinations may
also be symbolic. Thus the Psychical Research Society's Committee on
Hallucinations recognised a symbolic group, and recorded, for instance,
the case of a man who, when his child lies dying, sees a blue flame in the
air and hears a voice say, 'That's his soul' (_Proceedings Society for
Psychical Research_, August 1894, p. 125).]
[Footnote 146: Maeder states that the tendency to symbolism in dreams and
similar modes of psychic activity is due to 'vague thinking in a condition
of diminished attention.' This is, however, an inadequate statement and
misses the central point.]
[Footnote 147: In the other spheres in which symbolism most tends to
appear, the same or allied conditions exist. In hallucinations, which (as
Parish and others have shown) tend to occur in hypnagogic or sleep-like
states, the conditions are clearly the same. The symbolism of an art, and
notably music, is due to the very conditions of the art, which exclude
any appeal to other senses. The primitive mind reaches symbolism through
a similar condition of things, coming as the result of ignorance and
undeveloped powers of apperception. In insanity these powers are morbidly
disturbed or destroyed, with the same result.]
[Footnote 148: The magnification we experience in dreams is manifested
in their emotional aspects and in the emotional transformation of
actual sensory stimuli, from without or from within the organism. The
size of objects recalled by dreaming memory usually remains unchanged,
and if changed it seems to be more usually diminished. 'Lilliputian
hallucinations,' as they are termed by Leroy, who has studied them (_Revue
de Psychiatrie_, 1909, No. 8), in which diminutive, and frequently
coloured, people are observed, may also occasionally occur in alcoholic
and chloral intoxication, in circular insanity, and in various other
morbid mental conditions. They are usually agreeable in character.]
[Footnote 149: Sollier, 'L'Autoscopie Interne,' _Revue Philosophique_,
January 1903. Sollier deals with the objections made to the reality of the
phenomenon.]
[Footnote 150: 'Many people,' writes Dr. Marie de Manacéïne (_Sleep_,
1897, p. 294), 'when threatened by a gastric or intestinal attack dream
of seeing fish. The late Professor Sergius Botkine told me that he had
found this coincidence in his own case, and I have myself several times
found it in the case of a young girl who is well known to me. Some have
supposed that the sleeping consciousness receives an impression of the
elongated shape of the stomach or intestine; but such a supposition is
easier to make than to prove.' Scherner associated dreams of fish with
sensations arising from the bladder, and here also it may be said that we
are concerned with a fish-like viscus. Greenwood (_Imagination in Dreams_,
p. 195) stated that he had always been subject, at intervals of months
or years, to a recurrent dream in which he would see a river swarming
with fish that were finally piled in a horrible sweltering mass; this
dream always left a feeling of 'squalid horror,' but he was never able to
ascertain its cause and significance.]
[Footnote 151: Freud states (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 233) that he knows a
case in which (as in the _Song of Songs_) columns and pillars appear in
dreams as symbols of the legs, and doors as symbols of the openings of the
body.]
[Footnote 152: Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, p. 66. This work, published
in 1900, is the chief and most extensive statement of Freud's views. A
shorter statement is embodied in a little volume of the 'Grenzfrägen'
Series, _Ueber den Traum_, 1901. A brief exposition of Freud's position
is given by Dr. A. Maeder of Zurich in 'Essai d'Interpretation de
Quelques Rêves,' _Archives de Psychologie_, April 1907; as also by
Ernest Jones ('Freud's Theory of Dreams,' _Review of Neurology and
Psychiatry_, March 1910, and _American Journal of Psychology_, April
1910). For Freud's general psychological doctrine, see Brill's translation
of 'Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria,' 1909. There have been many
serious criticisms of Freud's methods. As an example of such criticism,
accompanying an exposition of the methods, reference may be made to Max
Isserlin's 'Die Psychoanalytische Methode Freuds,' _Zeitschrift für die
Gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie_, Bd. 1. Heft i. 1910. A judicious
and qualified criticism of Freud's psychotherapeutic methods is given by
Löwenfeld ('Zum gegenwärtigen Stande der Psychotherapeutie,' _Münchener
medizinische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 3 and 4, 1910).]
[Footnote 153: I have set forth Freud's views of hysteria, now regarded as
almost epoch-making in character, in _Studies of the Psychology of Sex_,
vol. i. 3rd ed. pp. 219 _et seq._]
[Footnote 154: This is supported by the fact that in waking reverie, or
day-dreams, wishes are obviously the motor force in building up visionary
structures. Freud attaches great importance to reverie, for he considers
that it furnishes the key to the comprehension of dreams (_e.g._ _Sammlung
Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 2nd series, pp. 138 _et seq._,
197 _et seq._). But it must be remembered that day-dreaming is not real
dreaming, which takes place under altogether different physiological
conditions, although it may quite fairly be claimed that day-dreaming
represents a state intermediate between ordinary waking consciousness and
consciousness during sleep.]
[Footnote 155: The special characteristics of dreaming in the hysterical
were studied, before Freud turned his attention to the question, by
Sante de Sanctis (_I Sogni e il Sonno nell' Isterismo_, 1896). See also
Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. i. 3rd ed., 1910,
'Auto-erotism.']
[Footnote 156: Gissing, the novelist, an acute observer of psychic states,
in the most of his books, _The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_, has
described this phenomenon: 'Every one, I suppose, is subject to a trick of
mind which often puzzles me. I am reading or thinking, and at a moment,
without any association or suggestion that I can discover, there rises
before me the vision of a place I know. Impossible to explain why that
particular spot should show itself to my mind's eye; the cerebral impulse
is so subtle that no search may trace its origin.' Gissing proceeds to say
that a thought, a phrase, an odour, a touch, a posture of the body, may
possibly have furnished the link of association, but he knows no evidence
for this theory.]
[Footnote 157: Extrospection has been specially studied by Vaschide and
Vurpas in _La Logique Morbide_.]
[Footnote 158: On the psychic importance of fears, see G. Stanley Hall,
'A Study of Fears,' _American Journal of Psychology_, 1897, p. 183.
Metchnikoff (_Essais Optimistes_, pp. 247 _et seq._) insists on the
mingled fear and strength of the anthropoid apes.]
[Footnote 159: Foucault has pointed this out, and Morton Prince, and
Giessler (who admits that the wish-dream is common in children), and
Flournoy (who remarks that not only a fear but any emotion can be equally
effective), as well as Claparède. The last remarks that Freud might regard
a fear as a suppressed desire, but it may equally be said that a desire
involves, on its reverse side, a fear. Freud has indeed himself pointed
out (_e.g._ _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1., 1909, p.
362) that fears may be instinctively combined with wishes; he regards the
association with a wish of an opposing fear as one of the components of
some morbid psychic states. But he holds that the wish is the positive and
fundamental element: 'The unconscious can only wish' ('Das Unbewusste kann
nichts als wünschen'), a statement that seems somewhat too metaphysical
for the psychologist.]
[Footnote 160: Thus A. Wiggam ('A Contribution to the Data of Dream
Psychology,' _Pedagogical Seminary_, June 1909) records a great many
wish-dreams, mostly in the young.]
[Footnote 161: Laud, _Works_, vol. iii. p. 144.]
[Footnote 162: Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol.
iii., 'Love and Pain.']
[Footnote 163: The dramatic element in dreaming was dealt with at length
by Carl du Prel (_Philosophy of Mysticism_, vol. i. ch. iii.), but he
threw little light on it.]
[Footnote 164: Thus in the Psychical Research Society's 'Report on the
_Census of Hallucinations_,' the case is given of an over-worked and
worried man who, a few moments after leaving a tram car, had the vivid
feeling that some one touched him on the shoulder, though on turning round
he found no one near. He then remembered that on the car he had been
leaning against an iron bolt, and that, therefore, what he had experienced
was doubtless a spontaneous muscular contraction excited by the pressure
(_Proceedings, Society for Psychical Research_, August 1894, p. 3).
Touches felt on awakening, in correspondence with a dream, are not so
very uncommon. Thus Wagner, when in love with Mathilde Wesendonk, wrote,
in the private diary he kept for her, how, after a dream, 'as I awoke I
distinctly felt a kiss on my brow.']
[Footnote 165: Various pressures lead to dreams of blood. Thus a friend
with a weak heart tells me that when he sleeps on his left side he dreams
of blood. In some of these cases it is possible that there are retinal
sensations of red.]
[Footnote 166: In the _Census of Hallucinations_ (chapter ix.) it
was pointed out by the Psychical Research Society's Committee that
hallucinations are specially apt to occur on awakening, or in the state
between sleeping and waking; and Parish in his very searching study,
_Hallucinations and Illusions_ (Contemporary Science Series), has further
developed this fact and insisted on its significance.]
[Footnote 167: Dr. Johnson's remark on this point has often been quoted.
He dreamed that he had been worsted in a verbal argument, and was thereby
much mortified. 'Had not my judgment failed me,' he said, 'I should have
seen that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt
myself depressed, was as much furnished by me as that which I thought I
had been uttering in my own character' (Boswell's _Johnson_, ed. by Hill,
vol. iv. p. 5).]
[Footnote 168: Maury, _Le Sommeil et les Rêves_, 1861, p. 118.]
[Footnote 169: Delbœuf, _Le Sommeil et les Rêves_, pp. 24, _et seq_.]
[Footnote 170: Foucault, _Le Rêve_, p. 137.]
[Footnote 171: Giessler, 'Das Ich im Träume,' _Zeitschrift für Psychologie
und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1905, Heft 4 and 5, pp. 300 _et seq._]
[Footnote 172: See especially Pierre Janet's works, and also those of
Morton Prince, Albert Wilson, etc. Flournoy's very elaborate study of
Mlle. Helène Smith (_Des Indes à la Planète Mars_, 1900) is noteworthy. A
summary of some important cases of multiple personality will be found in
Marie de Manacéïne's _Sleep_, pp. 127 _et seq._, and some bibliographical
references, _ib._ p. 151.]
[Footnote 173: J. Milne Bramwell argues ('Secondary and Multiple
Personalities,' _Brain_, 1900) that such cases are not invariably
hysterical.]
[Footnote 174: See G. Stanley Hall, 'The Early Sense of Self,' _American
Journal of Psychology_, April 1898. Cooley ('The Early Use of Self-Words
by a Child,' _Psychological Review_, 1909, p. 94) finds that the child
distinguishes between itself as (1) body and as (2) self-assertion united
with action; it refers to the former as 'Baby,' and to the latter as 'I.']
[Footnote 175: See, _e.g._, Havelock Ellis, _The Criminal_, 4th ed., 1910,
p. 367.]
[Footnote 176: In the existing traditions of law and police, it is
still possible to find many survivals of this tendency to objectify
subjective impressions. Thus Mr. Theodore Schroeder has shown (_Free Press
Anthology_, 1909, pp. 171 _et seq._) that the prosecutions which have in
various so-called civilised countries pursued many estimable and even
noble works of literature, science, and art are based on the primitive
notion that 'indecency' resides in the object and not in the person who
experiences the feeling, and who ought, therefore, alone to be suppressed,
if suppression is called for. This psychological fallacy continues to
subsist, though it was unmasked in the clearest manner even by St.
Paul (_e.g._ Romans xiv. 14). It is somewhat analogous to the mediæval
conception of the criminality of animals.]
CHAPTER VIII
DREAMS OF THE DEAD
Mental Dissociation during Sleep--Illustrated by the Dream
of Returning to School Life--The Typical Dream of a Dead
Friend--Examples--Early Records of this Type of Dream--Analysis of
such Dreams--Atypical Forms--The Consolation sometimes afforded
by Dreams of the Dead--Ancient Legends of this Dream Type--The
Influence of Dreams on the Belief of Primitive Man in the Survival
of the Dead.
Our memories tend to fall into groups or systems. We all possess a great
number of such systematised groups of impressions. Every period of life,
every subject we have occupied ourselves with, every intimate friend
we have had, each represents a more or less separate mass of ideas and
feelings. Within each system one idea or feeling easily calls up another
belonging to the same system. Moreover, in full and alert waking life,
each system is in touch with the systems related to it. If there crowd
into the field of consciousness the memories belonging to one period of
life, or one country we have lived in, we can control and criticise those
memories by reference to others belonging to another period or another
country. If we are overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions associated
with the memory of one friend we can restore our mental balance by evoking
the thoughts and emotions associated with another friend. The various
systems are in this way co-ordinated in apperception.[177]
In sleep, however, these groups are not usually so firmly held together
by the cords along which we can move in our waking moments from one to
the other. They are, as it were, loosened from their moorings, and on
the sea of sleeping consciousness they drift apart or jostle together
in new and what seem to be random associations. This is that process of
dissociation which we find so marked in dreaming, and in all those psychic
phenomena--hallucinations, hysteria, multiple personality, insanity--which
are allied to dreaming.
A simple illustration of the clash and confusion of two opposing systems
of memories in dreams, when due apperceptive control is lacking, is
supplied by a common and well-recognised type of dream, the dream of
returning to the school of youth.[178] Many people are occasionally
liable to this dream, which is often vivid and disturbing. We may have
left the schoolroom thirty years or more ago, and never seen it since;
it may have vanished from our waking thoughts. Yet from time to time we
find ourselves there in our dreams, and called upon to take our old
place, always with a sense of conflict, a vague discomfort, a feeling of
something incongruous and humiliating, for we realise that we are now too
old. Here is a dream in illustration: I find myself back at my old school,
but my old schoolmaster is not there; he is away ill, as I am told by his
substitute, whose face somehow seems familiar, though I cannot recall
where I have seen it. I do not know any of the boys; I am returning after
an absence of some months. I realise that I am to take my old place again,
and yet I feel a profound repulsion to do so, a sense that it is somehow
incongruous. This latter feeling seems to prevail, for I finally assume
the part of a visitor, and remark, insincerely, to the master that it is
pleasant to see the old place again.
In such a case as this it seems that a picture from an ancient system
of memories floats across the field of sleeping consciousness, and the
dreamer is naturally drawn into that system and begins to adapt himself
to its demands. But, as he does so, the influence of other later and
incompatible systems of memories begins unconsciously to affect the
dreamer.[179] The cords of connection, however, which when awake would
enable him to adjust critically the opposing systems, are not acting;
apperception is defective. Yet the opposing systems are there, outside
the immediate field of consciousness, and jostling the ancient system
which has come into the central focus. Finally this jostling of the
ancient system by more recent systems causes a harmonising modification
in consciousness. The dreamer ceases to be a boy in his old school, and
assumes the part of a visitor.
Dreams of our recently dead friends furnish a type of dream which is
formed in exactly the same way as these dreams of a return to school
life. The only difference is that they often present it in a more vivid,
pronounced, and poignantly emotional shape. This is so, partly from
the very subject of such dreams, and partly because the fact of death
definitely divides our impressions of our dead friends into two groups,
which are intimately allied to each other by their subject, and yet
absolutely opposed by the fact that in the one group the friend is alive,
and in the other dead.
I proceed to present two series of dreams--one in a man, the other in a
woman--illustrating this type of dream.[180]
_Observation I._--Mr. C., age about twenty-eight, a man of scientific
training and aptitudes. Shortly after his mother's death he repeatedly
dreamed that she had come to life again. She had been buried, but it was
somehow found out that she was not really dead. Mr. C. describes the
painful intellectual struggles that went on in these dreams, the arguments
in favour of death from the impossibility of prolonged life in the grave,
and how these doubts were finally swallowed up in a sense of wonder and
joy because his mother was actually there, alive, in his dream.
These dreams became less frequent as time went on, but some years later
occurred an isolated dream which clearly shows a further stage in the
same process. Mr. C. dreamed that his father had just returned home, and
that he (the dreamer) was puzzled to make out where his mother was. After
puzzling a long time he asked his sister, but at the very moment he asked
it flashed upon him--more, he thinks, with a feeling of relief at the
solution of a painful difficulty than with grief--that his mother was dead.
_Observation II._--Mrs. F., age about thirty, highly intelligent but of
somewhat emotional temperament. A week after the death of a lifelong
friend to whom she was greatly attached, Mrs. F. dreamed for the first
time of her friend, finding that she was alive, and then in the course of
the dream discovering that she had been buried alive.
A second dream occurred on the following night. Mrs. F. imagined that she
went to see her friend, whom she found in bed, and to whom she told the
strange things that she had heard (_i.e._, that the friend was dead). Her
friend then gave Mrs. F. a few things as souvenirs. But on leaving the
room Mrs. F. was told that her friend was really dead, and had spoken to
her after death.
In a fourth dream, at a subsequent date, Mrs. F. imagined that her friend
came to her, saying that she had returned to earth for a few minutes to
give her messages and to assure her that she was happy in another world
and in the enjoyment of the fullest life.
Another dream occurred more than a year later. Some one brought to Mrs.
F., in her dream, the news that her friend was still alive; she was taken
to her and found her as in life. The friend said she had been away, but
did not explain where or why she had been supposed dead. Mrs. F. asked no
questions and felt no curiosity, being absorbed in the joy of finding her
friend still alive, and they proceeded to talk over the things that had
happened since they last met. It was a very vivid, natural, and detailed
dream, and on awaking Mrs. F. felt somewhat exhausted. Although not
superstitious, the dream gave her a feeling of consolation.
The next series has been observed more recently. I include all the dreams
and the intervals at which they occurred. The somewhat unexpected news
reached me of the death of a near and lifelong friend when I was myself
recovering from an attack of influenza. No dream which could be connected
with this event occurred until about a fortnight later[181] (16th
January). I then dreamed that I was with my friend and asking him (he had
been a clergyman and Biblical scholar) whether, in his opinion, Jesus had
been able to speak Greek. I awoke before I received his answer, but no
sort of doubt, hesitation, or surprise was aroused by his appearance alive.
Nineteen days later (4th February) occurred the next dream. This time I
dreamed that my friend was just dead, and that I was gazing at a postcard
of good wishes, written partly in Latin, which he had sent me a few days
before (on the actual date of my birthday), and regretting that I had not
answered it. There was no doubt in my mind as to the fact of his death.
(I may remark that the last letter I had written to my friend was on his
birthday, and he had been unable to reply, so that there was here one
of those reversals which Freud and others have noted as not uncommon in
dreams.)
The next dream occurred thirty-four days later (10th March). I thought
that I met my friend, and at once realised that it was not he but his wife
who had died, and I clasped his hand sympathetically.
Some months later (27th July) I again dreamed that I was walking with my
friend and talking, as we might have talked, on topics of common interest.
But at the same time I knew, and he knew that I knew, that he was to die
on the morrow.
Once more, a fortnight later (10th August), I dreamed that I had an
appointment to meet my friend in a certain road, but he failed to appear.
I began to wonder whether he had forgotten the appointment, or I had made
a mistake, and I was seeking for the letter making the appointment when I
awoke.
It would appear that the dreams of this type are less pronounced in the
ratio of the less pronounced affectional intensity of the relationship
which unites the friends. The next dream concerned a man for whom I had
the highest esteem and regard, but had not been intimately associated
with. I dreamed that I saw this friend, who was the editor of a
psychological journal, alive and well in his room, together with two
foreign psychologists also known to me, who had apparently succeeded him
in the editorship of the journal, for I saw their names on the title-page
of a number of it which was put in my hands. It surprised me that, though
alive and well, he should have ceased to edit the journal; the theory
by which I satisfactorily accounted to myself for his appearance was
that, though he had been so near death that his life was despaired of,
he had not actually died; his death had been prematurely reported. It
flashed across my dream consciousness, indeed, that I had read obituaries
of my friend in the papers, but this reminiscence merely suggested the
reflection that some one had been guilty of a grave indiscretion.[182]
Although no attempt had been made to analyse this type of dream before
1895, the dream itself had often been noted down, as from its poignant
and affecting character it could not fail to be. An early example is
furnished by the philosopher Gassendi, who states that he dreamed he met a
friend, that he greeted him as one returned from the dead, and that then,
saying to himself in his dream that this was impossible, he concluded
that he must be dreaming.[183] Pepys, again, in his _Diary_, on the 29th
June 1667, a few months after his mother's death, dreamed that 'my mother
told me she lacked a pair of gloves, and I remembered a pair of my wife's
in my chamber, and resolved she should have them, but then recollected
[reflected] how my mother came to be here when I was in mourning for
her, and so thinking it to be a mistake in our thinking her all this
while dead, I did contrive that it should be said to any that inquired
that it was my mother-in-law, my wife's mother, that was dead, and we in
mourning for.' This dream, Pepys adds, 'did trouble me mightily.' Edmond
de Goncourt, in his _Journal_ (27th July 1870), well describes how in
the first dream of the dead brother to whom he was so tenderly attached,
the two streams of memories appeared. He dreamed he was walking with
his brother, but at the same time he knew he was in mourning for him,
and friends were coming up to offer condolences; the emotions caused by
the conflict of these two certainties--his brother's life affirmed by
his presence and his death affirmed by all the other circumstances of
the dream--was profoundly distressing. A few years earlier Renan, when
his dearly loved sister Henrietta died by his side in the Lebanon, also
had dreams of this type, which deeply affected even his cautious and
sceptical nature. She had died of Syrian fever, from which he also was
suffering, and shortly afterwards he wrote in a letter that 'in feverish
dreams a terrible doubt has risen up before me; I have fancied I heard
her voice calling to me from the vault where she was laid.' He comforted
himself, however, with the thought that this horrible supposition was
unjustified, since French doctors had been present at her death. Maury[184]
also mentions that he had often had dreams of this type in which the dead
appeared as living, though the sight of them always produced astonishment
and doubt which the sleeping brain endeavoured to allay by some kind of
explanation. Beaunis also describes how he has dreamed with surprise
of meeting a friend whom even in his dream he knew to be dead.[185]
It is not difficult, in the light of all that we have been able to learn
regarding the psychology of the world of dreams, to account for the
process here described, for its frequency, and for its poignant emotional
effects. This dream type is only a special variety of the commonest
species of dream, in which two or more groups of reminiscences flow
together and form a single bizarre congruity, a _confusion_ in the strict
sense of the word. The death of a friend sets up a barrier which cuts into
two the stream of impressions concerning that friend. Thus, two streams
of images flow into sleeping consciousness, one representing the friend
as alive, the other as dead. The first stream comes from older and richer
sources; the second is more poignant, but also more recent and more easily
exhausted. The two streams break against each other in restless conflict,
both, from the inevitable conditions of dream life, being accepted as
true, and they eventually mix to form an absurd harmony, in which the
older and stronger images (in accordance with that recognised tendency
for old psychic impressions generally to be most stable) predominate over
those that are more recent. Thus, in the first observation the dreamer
seems to have begun his dream by imagining that his mother was alive as
of old; then his more recent experiences interfered with the assertion
of her death. This resulted in a struggle between the old-established
images representing her as alive and the later ones representing her as
dead. The idea that she had come to life again was evidently a theory
that had arisen in his brain to harmonise these two opposing currents.
The theory was not accepted easily; all sorts of scientific objections
arose to oppose it, but there could be no doubt, for his mother was
there. The dreamer is in the same position as a paranoiac who constantly
seems to hear threatening voices; henceforth he is absorbed in inventing
a theory (electricity, hypnotism, or whatever it may be) to account for
his hallucinations, and his whole view of life is modified accordingly.
The dreamer, in the cases I am here concerned with, sees an image of the
dead person as alive, and is therefore compelled to invent a theory to
account for this image; the theories that most easily suggest themselves
are either that the dead person has never really died, or else that he
has come back from the dead for a brief space. The mental and emotional
conflict which such dreams involve renders them very vivid. They make a
profound impression even after awakening, and for some sensitive persons
are almost too sacred to speak of.
When a series of these dreams occurs concerning the same dead friend
the tendency seems to be, on the whole--though there are certainly many
exceptions--for the living reality of the vision of the dead friend to be
more and more positively affirmed. Whether awake or asleep, it is very
difficult for us to resist the evidence of our senses. It is even more
difficult asleep than awake, for, as we have seen reason to believe,
apperception, with the critical control it involves, is weakened. Just
as the savage or the child accepts as a reality the illusion of the sun
traversing the sky, just as the paranoiac accepts the reality of the
hallucinations he is subjected to, and gradually weaves them into a more
or less plausible theory, so the dreamer seems to employ all the acutest
powers of sleeping reason available to construct a theory in support of
the reality of the visions of his dead friend.
Sometimes atypical dreams of the dead occur in which even from the first
there appears little clash or doubt. When the vision can thus easily be
accepted, it is sometimes a source of consolation, joy, and even religious
faith which may still persist in the waking state. Chabaneix has, for
instance, recorded the dream experiences of a poet and philosopher who
had been deeply attached to a woman with whom his relations were both
passionate and intellectual. From the night after her death onwards, at
intervals, he had dreams of the beloved woman, at first appearing as
a floating vision, later as a vividly seen and tangible person; these
dreams caused refreshment and mental invigoration, and seemed to bring the
dreamer into renewed communication with his dead friend.[186]
I am indebted to a clergyman for the record of a somewhat similar
experience. 'A close friendship,' he writes, 'once existed between myself
and a lady, somewhat older, and of a religious temperament. We often
discussed the life beyond the grave, and agreed that if she died first,
and this appeared more than probable, as she was the victim of a mortal
disease, she would appear to me. I may add that she was of a highly-strung
and nervous nature, and though purely English had many of the psychic
characteristics of the Celt. After her death, I looked for some appearance
or manifestation, and about three days after dreamed that she had come
back to me, and was discussing with me a matter which I much wished to
speak about before her death, but was unable to, owing to her weakness and
the presence of strangers. In the dream it was perfectly clear to me that
she was a dead woman back from another sphere of existence. For some weeks
after this I had similar experiences. They were never dreams of the old
life and friendship before death, but always reappearances from the other
world. Of course it may be said of this experience of mine, that it was
merely the result of expectation. But I have found that the things most on
my mind are rarely the subject of my dreams. Moreover, these dreams formed
a series, lasting for weeks, and all of the same character, though the
conversations differed.'
When a dreamer awakes in an emotional state which corresponds to a dream
he has just experienced, it is usually a safe assumption that the dream
was the result, and not the cause, of the emotional state. That is by
no means always the case, however, and in the type of dream we are here
concerned with it is rarely the case. Even though it may be quite true
that an emotional state evoked the dream, it is equally true that in
its turn the dream itself may arouse an emotional state. The dream of
encountering a celestial visitant, especially if the visitant is a beloved
friend, cannot fail to produce an especial effect of this kind. It is
noteworthy that the emotional influence may be present even when the fact
of dreaming has not been recalled. Thus a lady who, on waking in the
morning could not remember having dreamed, realised during the day that
she was feeling as she was accustomed to feel after dreaming of a beloved
friend, and was ultimately able to recall fragments of the dream.[187] A
man of so great an intellect as Goethe has borne witness to the consoling
influence of dreams. 'I have had times in my life,' he said, in old age,
to Eckermann, 'when I have fallen asleep in tears, but in my dreams the
loveliest figures come to give me comfort and happiness, and I awake next
morning once more fresh and cheerful.'[188]
If we take a wide sweep we shall find in many parts of the world stories
and legends concerning the relationship of the living with the dead which
have a singular resemblance with the typical dream of the dead here
investigated. Thus, in Japan, it appears that stories of the returning
of the dead are very common. Lafcadio Hearn reproduces one, as told by a
Japanese, which closely resembles some of the dreams we have met with.
'A lover resolved to commit suicide on the grave of his sweetheart. He
found her tomb and knelt before it, and prayed and wept, and whispered
to her that which he was about to do. And suddenly he heard her voice
cry to him "Anata!" and felt her hand upon his hand: and he turned and
saw her kneeling beside him, smiling and beautiful as he remembered her,
only a little pale. Then his heart leaped so that he could not speak for
the wonder and the doubt and the joy of that moment. But she said, "Do
not doubt; it is really I. I am not dead. It was all a mistake. I was
buried because my parents thought me dead--buried too soon. Yet you see
I am not dead, not a ghost. It is I; do not doubt it!"' It is perhaps
worth mentioning that the incident told in the Fourth Gospel (xx. 11-18)
as occurring to Mary Magdalene when at the tomb of Jesus, recalls the
dream process of fusion of images. She turns and sees, as she thinks, the
gardener, but in the course of conversation it flashes on her that he is
Jesus, risen from the tomb. In quite another part of the world the Salish
Indians of British Columbia have a story of a man who goes back to the
spirit-world to reclaim his lost wife; this can only be done under special
conditions, and for some time refraining to touch her; if he breaks these
conditions she vanishes in his arms, and he is left alone.[189] That
story, again, cannot fail to remind us of the almost identical Greek
legend of the return of Orpheus to the under-world to reclaim his dead
wife Eurydice. If these myths and legends were not directly based on the
dream-process, it can only be on the ground, alleged with some force by
Freud's school, that myths and legends themselves develop by means of the
same mechanism as dreams.
The probable influence of dreams in originating or confirming the
primitive belief of men in a spirit world has often been set forth.
Herbert Spencer attached great importance to this factor in the
constitution of the belief in another world, in spirits and in gods.[190]
Wundt even considers that such dreams furnish the whole origin of animism.
Other writers, less closely associated with anthropological psychology,
have argued in the same sense.[191]
But while these thinkers have in some cases specifically referred to
dreams of the dead, and not merely to the widespread belief of savages
that in sleep the soul leaves the body to wander over the earth, they have
never realised that there is a special mechanism in the typical dream of
a dead friend, due to mental dissociation during sleep, which powerfully
suggests to us that death sets up no fatal barrier to the return of the
dead. In dreams the dead are thus rendered indestructible; they cannot be
finally killed, but rather tend to reappear in ever more clearly affirmed
vitality. Dreams of this sort must certainly have come to men ever since
men began to be. If their emotional effects are great to-day, we can well
believe that they were much greater in the early days when dream life and
what we call real life were less easily distinguished. The repercussion
of this kind of dream through unmeasured ages cannot fail to have told at
last on the traditions of the race.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 177: I may refer to the very interesting discussion by Professor
G. F. Stout (_Analytic Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 145) of the conflict of
systems in apperception, and of the suspense and deadlock which occur when
two or more systems come into conflict in such a way that the success of
one is the defeat of the other. The discussion is full of interest from
its undesigned bearing on the phenomena of dreaming.]
[Footnote 178: Foucault, for instance (_Le Rêve_, p. 25), discusses
and illustrates dreams of this type. I am not here concerned with the
causation of this type of dream. Perhaps, as Wundt believes, it is due
to some physical discomfort of the sleeper, such as a cramped position,
expressing itself symbolically.]
[Footnote 179: It may be added that dreams of returning to the school
scenes of early life are not necessarily always of the type here
described, as may be illustrated by the dream already brought forward on
p. 83, which, it is worth while noticing, occurred after a day on which I
had been thinking over the dreams of this class.]
[Footnote 180: I reproduce these two series in the same form as first
published (Havelock Ellis, 'On Dreaming of the Dead,' _Psychological
Review_, September 1895) since they have formed the starting point of my
own and others' investigation into this type of dream.]
[Footnote 181: It is well known, and has often been pointed out (by
Weygandt, Sante de Sanctis, Jewell, etc., and perhaps first by T. Beddoes
in his _Hygeia_, 1803, vol. iii. p. 88), that while in childhood all the
emotions of the past day are at once echoed in dreams, after adolescence,
this is not so in the case of intense emotions, which do not emerge
in dreams until after a more or less considerable interval. Marie de
Manacéïne and Sante de Sanctis attribute this to exhaustion of the emotion
which needs a period of repair and organic synthesis before it can repeat
itself. Vaschide believed that we dream of recent events in shallow sleep
and of remote events in deep sleep; this sounds plausible, but will
scarcely account for all the phenomena.]
[Footnote 182: Since the publication of my paper 'On Dreaming of the
Dead,' several psychologists have returned to the subject. Thus Binet
(_L'Année Psychologique_, 2nd year, issued in 1896, p. 848) gave a dream
of his own, very similar to mine of the editor, in which a doctor, dead
a month previously, is talking to him in his room. On Binet expressing
surprise at seeing him, the doctor explains that he had only sent news of
his death in order to see how many people would come to his funeral. Binet
has also had two dreams, similar to that described on p. 200, in which he
is walking in the country with a dead friend, who seems in good health,
though the dreamer knows he will soon die. Foucault (_Le Rêve_, p. 128),
who, in accordance with his own theory, regards my dream of the editor as
belonging to the period of awakening, brings forward a dream of his own
in which he saw his father, dead six months before, sitting in a chair;
at first this seems to him a hallucination, but he finally accepts the
vision as real. I have had a number of letters from people who have had
dreams of this type. One correspondent, an anthropologist and folk-lorist
of note, says that his dreams of dead friends are of the type of Mrs.
F.'s. Professor Näcke writes that he has had such dreams (and see also
his articles in the _Archiv für Kriminalanthropologie_, 1903, p. 307, and
the _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1910, No. 13). One young lady states
that, thirteen years after her mother's death, she still dreams of her as
coming to life again or never having really died. I may add that this type
of dream is admirably illustrated in a series of dreams concerning a dead
friend, published in a letter from a lady to _Borderland_, January 1896,
p. 51.]
[Footnote 183: Gassendi, _Syntagma Philosophicum_, 1658, pars. 71, lib.
viii. (_Opéra Omnia_, vol. i.).]
[Footnote 184: Maury, _Le Sommeil et les Rêves_, p. 145.]
[Footnote 185: _American Journal of Psychology_, July-October, 1903, p.
18.]
[Footnote 186: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient chez les Artistes, les
Savants et les Ecrivains_, 1897, pp. 45-8. Chabaneix was in touch with
various persons of distinction, and one is inclined to identify the
poet-philosopher with Sully-Prudhomme, at that time still living. Du
Maurier's remarkable novel, _Peter Ibbetson_--which records similar serial
dreams of union with a beloved woman after death, and seems to be based on
real experience--may also be mentioned in this connection.]
[Footnote 187: Unconscious dream suggestions of this kind resemble, as
R. MacDougall has remarked (_Psychological Review_, March 1898, p. 167),
post-hypnotic suggestions.]
[Footnote 188: This type of dream--in which the emotion of the day
is inverted in sleep, depressing emotions giving place to exalting
emotions, and so on--is by some (Griesinger, Lombroso, Sante de Sanctis,
etc.), termed the contrast-dream. The dream is in such a case, Sante
de Sanctis remarks, complementary, having the same significance as a
complementary after-image and indicating a phase of anabolic repair.
Thus A. Wiggam (_Pedagogical Seminary_, June 1909), gives the case of
a girl of twenty, who when tired and restless always has good dreams,
while her dreams are bad when she is well and free from care. It should
be added that, as understood by Näcke ('Ueber Kontrast-Träume' _Archiv
für Kriminalanthropologie_, 1907), a contrast-dream is one that is in
striking contrast to the dreamer's ordinary character. In this type of
contrast-dream it is not quite clear that the mechanism is the same, and
the contrast may sometimes be accidental. Thus a dream of being a soldier
on a battlefield, with shells bursting around me, was merely suggested by
a passage of Nietzsche, read in the evening, which contained the words
'the thunders of the battle of Wörth,' and the question of contrast or
resemblance to my character and habits was irrelevant.]
[Footnote 189: _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-December
1904, p. 339.]
[Footnote 190: See Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed.,
1885, vol. i. ch. x., especially pp. 140, 182, 201, 772. Spencer believed
that Lubbock was the first to point out this factor in primitive beliefs,
which has been chiefly developed by Tylor. It is, of course, by no means
the only factor. See _post_, p. 266.]
[Footnote 191: Thus Professor Beaunis (_loc. cit._) considers that dreams
furnish the only rational explanation of the belief in survival after
death. Jewell, again (_American Journal of Psychology_, January 1905),
also considers that dreams are responsible for primitive man's inability
to conceive of death as ending our association with our friends; he
brings forward evidence, highly significant in this connection, to show
that children, on dreaming of the dead as alive, are influenced in waking
life to doubt the reality of their death. Ruths, also writing since
the publication of my first paper (_Experimental-Untersuchungen über
Musikphantome_, 1898, pp. 438 _et seq._), considers that the conception of
an under-world is founded on dreams of the dead coming to life.]
CHAPTER IX
MEMORY IN DREAMS
The Apparent Rapidity of Thought in Dreams--This Phenomenon largely
due to the Dream being a Description of a Picture--The Experience
of Drowning Persons--The Sense of Time in Dreams--The Crumpling
of Consciousness in Dreams--The Recovery of Lost Memories through
the Relaxation of Attention--The Emergence in Dreams of Memories
not known to Waking Life--The Recollection of Forgotten Languages
in Sleep--The Perversions of Memory in Dreams--Paramnesic False
Recollections--Hypnagogic Paramnesia--Dreams mistaken for Actual
Events--The Phenomenon of Pseudo-Reminiscence--Its Relationship
to Epilepsy--Its Prevalence especially among Imaginative and
Nervously Exhausted Persons--The Theories put forward to Explain
it--A Fatigue Product--Conditioned by Defective Attention and
Apperception--Pseudo-Reminiscence a reversed Hallucination.
The peculiarities of memory in dreams--its defects, its aberrations, its
excesses--have attracted attention ever since dreams began to be studied
at all. It is not enough to assure ourselves that on awakening from a
dream our memory of that dream may fairly be regarded as trustworthy so
far as it extends. The characteristics of memory revealed within the
reproduced dream have sometimes seemed so extraordinary as to be only
explicable by the theory of supernatural intervention.
A problem which at one time greatly puzzled the scientific students of
dreaming is furnished at the outset by the apparent abnormal rapidity
of the dream process, the piling together in a brief space of time of
a great number of combined memories. Stories were told of people who,
when awakened by sounds or contacts which must have aroused them almost
immediately, had yet experienced elaborate visions which could only have
been excited by the stimulus which caused the awakening. The dream of
Maury--who, when awakened by a portion of the bed cornice falling on his
neck, imagined that he was living in the days of the Reign of Terror, and,
after many adventures, was being guillotined--has become famous.[192]
It is unquestionably true that dreams are sometimes evoked by sensory
stimuli which almost immediately awake the dreamer. But the supposition
that this fairly common fact involves an extraordinary acceleration of
the rapidity with which mental images are formed is due to a failure to
comprehend the conditions under which psychic activity in sleep takes
place. If the sleeper were wide awake, and were suddenly startled by a
mysterious voice at the window or the door, he would arrive at a theory of
the sound, and even form a plan of action, with at least as much rapidity
as when the stimulus occurs during sleep. The difference is that in sleep
the ordinary mental associations are more or less in abeyance, and the way
is therefore easily open to new associations. These new associations, when
we look back at them from the standpoint of waking life, seem to us so
bizarre, so far-fetched, that we think it must have required a long time
to imagine them. We fail to realise that, under the conditions of dream
thought, they have come about as automatically and as instantaneously as
the ordinary psychic concomitants of external stimulation in waking life.
It must also be remembered that in all the cases in which the rapidity
of the dream process has seemed so extraordinary, it has merely been a
question of visual imagery, and it is obviously quite easy to see in an
instant an elaborate picture or series of pictures which would take a long
time to describe.[193] At the most the dreamer has merely seen a kind of
cinematographic drama which has been condensed and run together in very
much the way practised by the cinematographic artist, so that although the
whole story seems to be shown in constant movement, in reality the action
of hours is condensed into moments. Further, it has always to be borne in
mind that, asleep as well as awake, intense emotion involves a loss of
the sense of time. We say in a terrible crisis that moments seemed years,
and when sleeping consciousness magnifies a trivial stimulation into the
occasion of a great crisis the same effect is necessarily produced.
Exactly the same illusion is experienced by persons who are rescued from
drowning, or other dangerous situations. It sometimes seems to them
that their whole life has passed before them in vision during those
brief moments. But careful investigation of some of these cases, notably
by Piéron, has shown that what really happened was that a scene from
childhood, perhaps of some rather similar accident, came before the
drowning man's mind and was followed by five, six, perhaps even ten or
twelve momentary scenes from later life. When the time during which these
scenes flashed through the mind was taken into account it was found that
there had by no means been any remarkable mental rapidity.
Such considerations have now led most scientific investigators of
dreaming to regard these problems of dream memory as settled. Woodworth's
observations on the hypnagogic or half-waking state revealed no remarkable
rapidity of mental processes. Clavière showed by experiments with an
alarm clock which struck twice with an interval of twenty-two seconds
that speech dreams at all events take place merely with normal rapidity,
or are even slightly slower than under waking conditions. The imagery of
sleep, Clavière concluded, is not more rapid than the imagery of waking
life, though to the dreamer it may seem to last for hours or days. It is
often slackened rather than accelerated, says Piéron, who refers to the
corresponding illusion under the influence of drugs like hashish, though
in some cases he finds that there is really a slight acceleration. The
illusion is simply due, Foucault thinks, to the dreamer's belief that the
events of his dream occupy the same time as real events. This illusion
of time, concludes Dr. Justine Tobolowska, in her Paris thesis on this
subject, is simply the necessary and constant result of the form assumed
by psychic life during sleep.[194]
If this peculiarity of memory in dreaming is not difficult to explain as
a natural illusion, there are other and rarer characteristics of dream
memory which are much more puzzling.
In attempting to unravel these, it is probable that, as in explaining
the illusion of rapidity, we must always bear in mind the tendency
of memory-groups in dreams to fall apart from their waking links of
association, so well as the complementary tendency to form associations
which in waking life would only be attained by a strained effort.
Apperception, with the power it involves of combining and bringing to a
focus all the various groups of memories bearing on the point in hand,
is defective. The focus of conscious attention is contracted, and there
is the curious and significant phenomenon that sleeping consciousness is
occasionally unconscious of psychic elements which yet are present just
outside it and thrusting imagery into its focus. The imagery becomes
conscious, but its relation to the existing focus of consciousness is
not consciously perceived. Such a psychic mechanism, as Freud and his
disciples have shown, quite commonly appears in hysteria and obsessional
neuroses when healthy normal consciousness is degraded to a pathological
level resembling that which is normal in dreams.[195] In such a case the
surface of sleeping consciousness is, as it were, crumpled up, and the
concealed portion appears only at the end of the dream or not at all. A
simple example may make this clear. In a dream I ask a lady if she knows
the work of the poet Bau; she replies that she does not; then I see before
me a paper having on it the name Baudelaire, clearly the name which should
have been contained in my query.[196] In such a dream the crumpling
and breaking of consciousness, at its very focus, is shown in the most
unmistakable manner.[197] But many of the most remarkable dreams of
dramatic dreamers are due to the same phenomenon, which in an intellectual
form is exactly the phenomenon which always makes a dramatic situation
effective. Robert Louis Stevenson was an abnormally vivid dreamer, and
found the germ of some of the plots of his stories in his dreams; he
has described one of his dreams in which the dreamer imagines he has
committed a murder; the crime becomes known to a woman who, however, never
denounces it; the murderer lives in terror, and cannot conceive why the
woman prolongs his torture by this delay in giving him up to justice; only
at the end of the dream comes the clue to the mystery, and the explanation
of the woman's attitude, as she falls on her knees and cries: 'Do you not
understand? I love you.'[198]
There is another and very interesting class of dreams in which we find
not merely that some memory-groups disappear from consciousness or become
merely latent, but also that other memory-groups, latent or even lost to
waking consciousness, float into the focus of sleeping consciousness. In
other words, we can remember in sleep what we have forgotten awake. We
then have what is called the _hypermnesia_, the excessive or abnormal
memory, of sleep.
There can be little doubt that the two processes--the sinking of some
memory-groups and the emergence on the surface of other memory-groups
which, so far as waking life is concerned, had apparently fallen to the
depths and been drowned--are complementarily related to one another. We
remember what we have forgotten because we forget what we remembered.
The order of our waking impressions involves a certain tension, that is
to say a certain attention, which holds them in our consciousness, and
excludes any other order which might serve to bring lost memory-groups to
sight. Sometimes we are conscious of a lost memory which is just outside
consciousness, but which, with the existing order of our memory-groups,
we cannot bring into consciousness. We have the missing name, the missing
memory, at the tip of our tongue, we say, but we cannot quite catch
it.[199] In dreams apperception is defective, the strain of conscious
attention is relaxed, and the conditions are furnished under which
new clues and strains may come into action and the missing name glide
spontaneously into consciousness. Even the mere approach of sleep, with
its accompanying relaxation of attention, may effect this end. Thus I
was trying one day to recall the name of the unpleasant Chinese scent,
patchouli. The name, though not usually unfamiliar, escaped me. At night,
however, just before falling asleep, it spontaneously occurred to me. In
the morning, when fully awake, I was again unable to recall it.
In such a case we see how waking consciousness is tense in a certain
direction, which happens not to be that in which the desired thing is to
be found. Attention under such circumstances impedes rather than aids
recollection. In this particular case, I felt convinced that the name I
wanted began with _h_, and thus my mind was intently directed towards a
wrong quarter. But on the approach of sleep attention is automatically
relaxed, and it is then possible for the forgotten word to slip in from
its unexpected quarter. On these occasions it is by indirection that
direction is found.[200]
It is interesting to observe that this same process of discovery due to
the wider outlook of relaxed attention can take place, not only in sleep
and the hypnagogic state, but also, subconsciously, in the fully waking
state when the mind is occupied with some other subject. Thus in reading
a MS., I came upon an illegible word which I was unable to identify,
notwithstanding several guesses and careful scrutiny through a magnifying
glass. I passed on, dismissing the subject from my mind. A quarter of an
hour afterwards, when walking, and thinking of quite a different subject,
I became conscious that the word 'ceremonial' had floated into the field
of mental vision, and I at once realised that this was the unidentified
word. The instance may be trivial, but no example could better show how
the mind may continue to work subconsciously in one direction while
consciously working in an entirely different direction.
In dreams, however, we can effect more than a mere recovery of memories
which have temporarily escaped us, or the discovery of relationships
which have eluded us. The dissociation of familiar memory-groups becomes
so complete, the appearance of unfamiliar groups so eruptive, that we
can remember things that have entirely and permanently sunk below the
surface of waking consciousness, or even things which are so insignificant
that they have never made any mark on waking consciousness at all. In
this way, we may be said, in a certain sense, to remember things we
never knew. The first dream which enabled me, some twenty years ago, to
realise this hypermnesia of the mind in dreams[201] was the following
unimportant but instructive case. I woke up recalling the chief items
of a rather vivid dream: I had imagined myself in a large old house,
where the furniture, though of good quality, was ancient, and the chairs
threatened to give way as one sat on them. The place belonged to one Sir
Peter Bryan, a hale old gentleman, who was accompanied by his son and
grandson. There was a question of my buying the place from him, and I was
very complimentary to the old gentleman's appearance of youthfulness,
absurdly affecting not to know which was the grandfather and which the
grandson. On awaking I said to myself that here was a purely imaginative
dream, quite unsuggested by any definite experiences. But when I began
to recall the trifling incidents of the previous day, and the things I
had seen and read, I realised that that was far from being the case. So
far from the dream having been a pure effort of imagination, I found that
every minute item could be traced to some separate source, though none
of them had the slightest resemblance to the dream as a whole. The name
of Sir Peter Bryan alone completely baffled me; I could not even recall
that I had at that time ever heard of any one called Bryan. I abandoned
the search and made my notes of the dream and its sources. I had scarcely
done so when I chanced to take up a volume of biographies of eccentric
personages, which I had glanced through carelessly the day before. I found
that it contained, among others, the lives of Lord _Peter_borough and
George _Bryan_ Brummel. I had certainly seen those names the day before;
yet before I took up the book once again it would have been impossible
for me to recall the exact name of Beau Brummel. It so happened that the
forgotten memory which in this case re-emerged to sleeping consciousness,
was a fact of no consequence to myself or any one else. But it furnishes
the key to many dreams which have been of more serious import to the
dreamers.
Since then I have been able to observe among my friends several instances
of dreams containing veracious though often trivial circumstances unknown
to the dreamer when awake, though on consideration it was found to be in
the highest degree probable that they had come under his notice, and been
forgotten, or not consciously observed. Thus a musical correspondent tells
me he once dreamed of playing a piece of Rubinstein's in the presence of
a friend who told him he had made a mistake in re-striking a tied note.
In the morning he found the dream friend was correct. But up to then he
had always repeated the note. Usually when the forgotten or unnoticed
circumstance is trivial, it is of quite recent date. That it is not
always very recent may be illustrated by a dream of my own. I dreamed
that I was in Spain and about to rejoin some friends at a place which was
called, I thought, Daraus, but on reaching the booking-office I could not
remember whether the place I wanted to go to was called Daraus, Varaus,
or Zaraus, all which places, it seemed to me, really existed. On awaking,
I made a note of the dream, exactly as reproduced here, but was unable to
recall any place, in Spain or elsewhere, corresponding to any of these
names. The dream seemed merely to illustrate the familiar way in which a
dream image perpetually shifts in a meaningless fashion at the focus of
sleeping consciousness. The note was put away, and a few months later
taken out again.[202] It was still equally impossible to me to recall
any real name corresponding to the dream names. But on consulting the
Spanish guide-books and railway time-tables, I found that, on the line
between San Sebastian and Bilbao, there really is a little seaside resort,
in a beautiful situation, called Zarauz, and I realised, moreover, that
I had actually passed that station in the train two hundred and fifty
days before the date of my dream.[203] I had no associations with this
place, though I may have admired it at the time; in any case it vanished
permanently from conscious memory, perhaps aided by the fatigue of a long
night journey before entering Spain. Even sleeping memory, I may remark,
only recovered it with an effort, for it is notable that the name was
gradually approached by three successive attempts.[204]
A special form of lost or unconscious memories recurring in sleep
is constituted by the cases in which people when asleep, or in a
somnambulistic state, can speak languages which they have forgotten, or
never consciously known, when awake. A simple instance, known to me,
is furnished by a servant who had been taken to Paris for a few weeks
six months before, but had never learned to speak a word of French, and
whose mistress overheard her talking in her sleep, and repeating various
French phrases, like 'Je ne sais pas, Monsieur'; she had certainly heard
these phrases, though she maintained, when awake, that she was ignorant
of them. Speaking in a language not consciously known, or xenoglossia,
as it is now termed, occurs under various abnormal conditions, as well
as in sleep, and is sometimes classed with the tendency which is found,
especially under great religious excitement, to 'speak with tongues,' or
to utter gibberish.[205] But in various sleep-like states it occurs as a
true revival of forgotten memories, sometimes of memories which belong to
childhood and in normal consciousness have been long overlaid and lost.
On one occasion, by the bedside of a lady who was kept for a considerable
period in a light condition of chloroform anaesthesia, the patient began
to talk in an unfamiliar language which one of us recognised as Welsh; as
a child, she afterwards owned, she had known Welsh, but had long since
forgotten it.[206] A similar reproduction of lost memories occurs in the
hypnotic state.
This psychic process, by which unconscious memories become conscious
in dreams, is of considerable interest and importance because it lends
itself to many delusions. Not only the ignorant and uncultured, but
even well-trained and acute minds, are often so unskilled in mental
analysis that they are quite unable to pierce beneath the phenomenon of
conscious ignorance to the deeper fact of unconscious memory; they are
completely baffled, or else they resort to the wildest hypotheses. This
is illustrated by the following narrative received twelve years ago from
a medical correspondent in Baltimore. 'Several years ago,' he writes, 'a
friend made a social call at my house and in the course of conversation
spoke very enthusiastically of Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_, the
first performance of which in the United States he had attended a few
nights previously. I had never even heard of the opera before, but that
night I dreamed that I heard it performed. The dream was a very vivid one,
so vivid that several times during the next day I found myself humming
airs from the dream opera. Several evenings later I went to the theatre to
see a comedy, and before the curtain rose the orchestra played a selection
which I instantly recognised as part of my dream opera. I exclaimed to a
lady who was with me: "That selection is from _Cavalleria Rusticana_."
On inquiring of the leader of the orchestra such proved to be the case.'
Now, at that period, shortly after the first appearance of _Cavalleria
Rusticana_, portions of it had become extremely popular and were heard
everywhere, by no means merely on the operatic stage. It was difficult not
to have heard something of it. There cannot be the slightest doubt that my
correspondent had heard not only the name but the music, though, writing
at an interval of some years, he probably exaggerated the extent of his
unconscious recollections. This seems the simple explanation of what to
my correspondent was an inexplicable mystery. Other people, like the late
Frederick Greenwood, not content to remain baffled, go further and regard
such dreams as 'dreams of revelation,' as they also consider that class of
dreams in which the dreamer works out the solution of a difficulty which
he had vainly grappled with when awake.
This is a kind of dream which has occurred in all ages, and has at times
been put down to divine interposition. Sixteen centuries ago Bishop
Synesius of Ptolemais wrote that in his hunting days a dream revealed
to him an idea for a trap which he successfully employed in snaring
animals, and at the present time inventions made in dreams have been
successfully patented. The Rev. Nehemiah Curnock, who lately succeeded in
deciphering Wesley's _Journal_, has stated that an important missing clue
to the cypher came to him in a dream. A friend of my own, an expert in
chemistry, was not long since in frequent communication with a practical
manufacturer, assisting him in his inventions by scientific advice.
One day the manufacturer wrote to my friend asking if the latter had
been thinking of him during the night, for he had been much puzzled by
a difficulty, and during the night had seen a vision of my friend who
explained the solution of the difficulty; in the morning the proposed
solution proved successful. There was, however, no telepathic element in
the case; the dreamer's solution was his own.
An interesting group of cases in this class is furnished by the dreams
in which the dreamer, in opposition to his waking judgment, sees an
acquaintance in whom he reposes trust acting in a manner unworthy of that
trust, subsequent events proving that the estimate formed during sleep was
sounder than that of waking life. Hawthorne (in his _American Notebooks_),
Greenwood, Jewell, and others have recorded cases of this kind.
Various as these phenomena are, they fall into the same scheme. They all
help to illustrate the fact that though on one side mental life in sleep
is feeble and defective, on the other side it shows a tendency to vigorous
excess. Sleep, as we know, involves a relaxation of tension, both physical
and psychic; attention is no longer focused at a deliberately selected
spot.[207] The voluntary field becomes narrower, but the involuntary field
becomes extended. Thus it happens that the contents of our minds fall into
a new order, an order which is often fantastic but, on the other hand,
is sometimes a more natural and even a more rational order than that we
attain in waking life. Our eyes close, our muscles grow slack, the reins
fall from our hands. But it sometimes happens that the horse knows the
road home even better than we know it ourselves.
Hypermnesia, or abnormally wide range of recollection, is not the only
or the most common modification of memory during sleep. We find much
more commonly, and indeed as one of the chief characteristics of sleep,
an abnormally narrow range of recollection. We find, also, and perhaps
as a result of that narrow range, paramnesia or perversion of memory.
The best known form of paramnesia is that in which we have the illusion
that the event which is at the moment happening to us has happened to us
before.[208]
This form of paramnesia is common in dreams, though it is often so
slightly pronounced that we either fail to recall it on awakening or
attach no significance to it.[209] I dream, for instance, that I am
walking along a path, along which, it seems to me, I have often walked
before, and that the path skirts the lawn of a house by which stands a
policeman whom, also, it seems to me, I have often seen there before; the
policeman approaches me and says, 'You have come to see Mr. So-and-so,
sir?' and thereupon I suddenly recollect, with some confusion, that I
have come to see Mr. So-and-so, and I walk up to the door. Again, an
author dreams that he sees a list of his own books with, at the head of
them, one entitled 'The Book of Glory.' He could not recall writing it
(and to waking consciousness the name was entirely unknown), but the only
reflection he made in his dream was 'How stupid to have forgotten!' In
this case there was evidently some resistance to the suggestion, which
yet was quickly accepted. In all such dreams it seems that we are in a
state of mental weakness associated with defective apperceptual control
and undue suggestibility, very similar to the state found in some forms of
confusional insanity or of precocious dementia.[210] Consciousness feebly
slides down the path of least resistance; it accepts every suggestion; the
objects presented to it seem things that it knew before, the things that
are suggested to it to do seem things that it already wanted to do before.
Paramnesia, thus regarded, seems simply a natural outcome of a state of
consciousness temporarily depressed below its normal standard of vigour.
It must be remembered that the suggestibility of sleeping consciousness
varies in degree, and in the face of serious improbabilities there is
often a considerable amount of resistance, just as the hypnotised person
seriously resists the suggestions that fundamentally outrage his nature.
But some degree of suggestibility, some tendency to regard the things
that come before us in dreams as familiar--in other words, as things that
have happened to us before--is not merely a natural result of defective
apperception, but one of the very conditions of dreaming. It enables us to
carry on our dreams; without it their progress would be fatally inhibited
by doubt, uncertainty, and struggle. So it is, perhaps, that in all
dreaming, or at all events in certain stages of sleeping consciousness, we
are liable to fall into a state of pseudo-reminiscence.
It is an interesting and highly significant fact that this paramnesic
delusion of our dreams--the feeling that the thing that is happening
to us is the thing that has happened to us before or that might happen
to us again--tends to persist in the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) stage
immediately following sleep. When we have half awakened from a dream and
are just able to realise that it was a dream, that dream constantly tends
to appear in a more plausible or probable light than is possible a few
moments later when we are fully awake.[211]
The first experience which enabled me clearly to realise this phenomenon,
and its probable explanation, occurred many years ago. About the middle
of the night I had a very vivid dream, in which I imagined that two
friends--a gentleman and his daughter--with a certain Lord Chesterfield (I
had lately been reading the _Letters_ of the famous Lord Chesterfield),
were together at a hotel, that they were playing with weapons, that the
lady accidentally killed or wounded Lord Chesterfield, and that she
then changed clothes with him with the object of escaping, and avoiding
discovery which would somehow be dangerous. I was informed of the matter,
and was much concerned. I awoke, and my first thought was that I had just
had a curious dream which I must not forget in the morning. But then I
seemed to remember that it was a real and familiar event. This second
thought lulled my mental activity, and I went to sleep again. In the
morning I was able to recall the main points in my dream, and my thoughts
on awaking from it.
Since then I have given attention to the point, and I have found on
recalling my half-waking consciousness after dreams that, while it is
doubtless rare to catch the assertion 'That really occurred,' it is less
rare to catch the vague assertion, 'That is the kind of thing that does
occur.' I find that this latter impression appears, like the former,
after vivid dreams which contain no physical impossibility, but which
the full waking consciousness refuses to recognise as among the things
that are probable. As an example quite unlike that just recorded, I may
mention a dream in which I imagined that I was proving the frequency
of local intermarriage by noting in directories the frequency of the
presence of people of the same name in neighbouring towns and villages.
On half-awaking I still believed that I had actually been engaged in such
a task--that is, either that the dream was real or that it referred to a
real event--and it was not until I was sufficiently awake to recognise
the fallacy of such a method of investigation that I realised that it was
purely a dream.
This phenomenon has long been known, although its significance has not
been perceived. Brierre de Boismont pointed out that certain vivid dreams
are not recognised as dreams, but are mistaken for reality after waking,
though he scarcely recognised the normal limitation of this mistake to the
hypnagogic state. Moll compared such dreams, thus continued into waking
life, to continuative post-hypnotic suggestions. Sully mentioned awaking
from dreams which 'still wear the aspect of old acquaintances, so that
for the moment I think they are waking realities.'[212] Colegrove, in his
study of memory, recorded many cases in which young people mistook their
dreams for actual events.[213]
This persistence of the memory illusion of sleep into the subsequent
hypnagogic state is obviously related to the allied persistence,
more occasionally found, of the visual, auditory, and other sensory
hallucinations of sleep into the hypnagogic state.[214] Visions thus seen
persisting from dreams for a few moments into waking life are often very
baffling and disturbing, as has already been pointed out, to ignorant
and untrained people. Such visions may occur in the hypnagogic state,
even when there has been no conscious precedent dream, and it is indeed
probable, as Parish has argued, that it is precisely in the hypnagogic
state, the narthex of the church of dreams, as I may term it, that
hallucinations are most liable to occur. That illusions may momentarily
occur in this state is obvious; thus falling asleep for a few minutes
when seated before a black hollow smouldering fire, with red ashes at the
bottom, I awake with the illusion that I see a curtain on fire, and have
already leaned forward to snatch it away before I realise my mistake.
Under normal conditions, the liability of a dream memory to be mistaken
for an actual event seems to be greater when an interval has elapsed
before the dream is remembered, such an interval making it difficult to
distinguish one class of memories from the other, provided the dream has
been of a plausible character. Thus Professor Näcke has recorded that his
wife dreamed that an acquaintance, an old lady, had called at the house;
this dream was apparently forgotten until forty or fifty hours afterwards
when, on passing the old lady's house, it was recalled, and the dreamer
was only with much difficulty convinced that the dream was not an actual
occurrence. When we are concerned with memories of childhood, it not
infrequently happens that we cannot distinguish with absolute certainty
between real occurrences and what may possibly have been dreams.
In normal physical and mental health, however, it seems rare for the
hallucinatory influence of dreams to extend beyond the hypnagogic state,
but any impairment of the bodily health generally, and of the brain in
particular, may extend this confusion. Thus in a case of heart disease
terminating fatally, the patient, though in health he was by no means
visionary or impressionable, became liable during sleep in the day-time to
dreams of an entirely reasonable character which he had great difficulty
in distinguishing from the real facts of life, never feeling sure what had
actually happened, and what had been only a dream. In disordered cerebral
and nervous conditions the same illusion becomes still more marked. This
is notably the case in hysteria. In some forms of insanity, as many
alienists have shown, this mistake is sometimes permanent and the dream
may become an integral and persistent part of waking life. At this point,
however, we leave the normal world of dreams and enter the sphere of
pathology.
In the normal persistence of the dream illusion into the hypnagogic
state with which we are here concerned, the dream usually presents a
possible, though, it may be, highly improbable event. The half-waking or
hypnagogic intelligence seems to be deceived by this element of life-like
possibility. Consequently a fallacy of perception takes place strictly
comparable to the fallacious perception which, in the case of an external
sensation, we call an illusion. In the ordinary illusion an externally
excited sensation of one kind is mistaken for an externally excited
sensation of another kind. In this case a centrally excited sensation of
one order (dream image) is mistaken for a centrally excited sensation of
another order (memory). The phenomenon is, therefore, a mental illusion
belonging to the group of false memories, and it may be termed hypnagogic
paramnesia.
The process seems to have a certain interest, and it may throw light on
some rather obscure phenomena. When we are able to recall a vivid dream,
usually a fairly probable dream, with no idea as to when it was dreamed,
and thus find ourselves in possession of experiences of which we cannot
certainly say that they happened in waking life or in dream life, it
seems probable that this hypnagogic paramnesia has come into action; the
half-waking consciousness dismisses the vivid and life-like dream as an
old and familiar experience, shunting it off into temporary forgetfulness,
unless some accident again brings it into consciousness with, as it were,
a fragment of that wrong label still sticking to it. Such a paramnesic
process may thus also help to account for the mighty part which, as so
many thinkers from Lucretius onwards have seen, dreams have played in
moulding human action and human belief. It is a means whereby waking life
and dream life are brought to an apparently common level.
By hypnagogic paramnesia I mean a false memory occurring in the
ante-chamber of sleep, but not necessarily before sleep. Myers's invention
of the word 'hypnopompic' seems scarcely necessary even for pedantic
reasons. I take the condition of consciousness to be almost the same
whether the sleep is coming on or passing away. In the Chesterfield dream
it is indeed impossible to say whether the phenomenon is 'hypnagogic'
or 'hypnopompic'; in such a case the twilight consciousness is as much
conditioned by the sleep that is passing away as by the sleep that is
coming on.
If this memory illusion of the half-waking state may be regarded as a
variety of paramnesia, a new horizon is opened out to us. May not the
hypnagogic variety throw light on the general phenomenon of paramnesia
which has led to so many strange and complicated theories? I think it may.
Paramnesia, as we have seen, is the psychologist's name for a
hallucination of memory which is sometimes called 'pseudo-reminiscence,'
and by medical writers (who especially associate it with epilepsy)
regarded as a symptom of 'dreamy state,'[215] while by French authors it
is often termed 'false recognition' or 'sensation du déjà vu.' Dickens,
who seems himself to have experienced it, thus describes it in _David
Copperfield:_ 'We have all some experience of a feeling that comes over
us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said or done
before, in a remote time, of having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the
same faces, objects, and circumstances, of our knowing perfectly what
will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it.' Sometimes it seems
that this previous occurrence can only have taken place in a previous
existence,[216] whence we probably have, as St. Augustine seems first
to have suggested, the origin of the idea of metempsychosis, of the
transmigration of souls; sometimes it seems to have happened before in a
dream; sometimes the subject of the experience is totally baffled in the
attempt to account for the feeling of familiarity which has overtaken
him. In any case he is liable to an emotion of distress which would
scarcely be caused by the coincidence of resemblance with a real previous
experience.[217]
Paramnesia of this kind is known, according to the observations of
Lalande,[218] to thirty people in a hundred, and Heymans found it in a
considerable proportion of students of both sexes. Such estimates are
probably too high if we take into consideration the general population.
This experience seems, as Dugas and others have noted,[219] to affect
educated people, and notably people of more than average intellect,
who use their brains much, especially in artistic and emotional work,
to a very much greater degree than the ignorant and phlegmatic manual
worker.[220] Dickens has already been mentioned; many other notable
writers have referred to this or some allied feeling, stating that they
had experienced it, and Sir James Crichton-Browne brings forward a number
of passages from the poets in evidence of their familiarity with such
phenomena.[221] Shelley (who appears on at least two occasions to have
experienced hallucinations also) underwent what may be regarded as an
experience of paramnesia (described in his _Speculations on Metaphysics_)
which is of interest in the present connection because it brings this
phenomenon into relation with dreams. He was walking with a friend in the
neighbourhood of Oxford, when he suddenly turned the corner of a country
lane and saw 'a common scene' of a windmill, etc., which, it immediately
seemed to him, he recollected having seen before in a dream of long ago.
Five years afterwards he was so agitated in writing this down that he
could not finish the account. The real resemblance of 'a common scene'
with a similar dream scene, even supposing it could be recollected when
the two experiences were separated by a long interval, would scarcely be a
coincidence likely to cause agitation. The emotion aroused seems to mark
the experience as belonging to the class of paramnesic illusions which so
often make a peculiarly vivid impression on those to whom they occur.
A great many theories have been put forward by psychologists and others to
account for this paramnesic phenomenon. The most ancient explanation, long
anterior to the beginnings of scientific psychology, was the theory that
the occurrence which, as it now happens, strikes us as so overwhelmingly
familiar had actually occurred to us in a previous existence long ages
before; thus Pythagoras, according to the ancient story, when he visited
the temple of Juno at Argos recognised the shield he had worn ages before
when he was Euphorbus and fought with Menelaus in the Trojan war. A much
more recent theory runs to the opposite extreme and claims that all
or nearly all these cases of recognition indicate a real but confused
reminiscence of past events in our present life, dim recollections which
the subject is unable definitely to locate. This is the explanation
largely relied on by Ribot, Jessen, Sander, Sully, Burnham, and many
others. It was perhaps largely due to ignorance of the phenomenon;
Ribot, when he wrote his book on the diseases of memory, considered that
only three or four cases had been recorded, for an abnormal phenomenon
always seems rare until it is recognised and definitely searched for.
Undoubtedly, this theory will explain a considerable proportion of cases,
but not really typical cases in which the subject has an overwhelming
conviction that even the minute details of the present experience have
been experienced before. We may read a new poem with a vague sense of
familiarity, but such an experience never puts on a really paramnesic
character, for we quickly realise that it is explainable by the fact
that the writer of the poem has fallen under the influence of some
greater master. The only experience I can personally speak of as at all
approaching true paramnesia occurred on visiting the ruins of Pevensey
Castle many years ago. On going up the slope towards the ivy-covered
ruins, bathed in bright sunlight, I experienced a strange and abiding
sense of familiarity with the scene. Three theories might account for
this experience (for I refrain from including the Pythagorean theory that
I experienced a reminiscence of the experience of a possible ancestor
coming from across the Thames to the assistance of Harold against William
the Conqueror at this spot): (1) that it was a case of true paramnesia;
(2) that I had been taken to the spot as a child; (3) that the view was
included among a series of coloured stereoscopic pictures with which I
was familiar as a child, and which certainly contained similar scenes. I
incline to this last explanation. Here, as elsewhere, there are no keys
which will unlock all doors.
A modification of the theory that the pseudo-reminiscence is an
unrecognised real reminiscence is furnished by Grasset, who considers that
the phenomenon is due to a subconscious impression previously received,
but only reaching consciousness under the influence of the new similar
impression. This theory would include the revival of dream images, and
is therefore related to the theory of Lapie and Méré, according to which
the feeling of many of these subjects that what they now experience
had happened before in a dream is the correct explanation of the
phenomenon.[222]
We enter on a different class of explanations with the early theory
of Wigan that such cases are due to the duality of the brain, the two
hemispheres not acting quite simultaneously. This is a somewhat crude
conception, though it may seem approximately on the lines of more recent
theories. The theory of the duplex brain, each hemisphere being supposed
capable of acting independently, was at one time invoked to explain many
phenomena, but it is no longer regarded as tenable.[223]
We may dismiss these theories, which have been effectively criticised by
others, and revert to our clue in the sleeping and hypnagogic state. The
hypnagogic state is a transition between waking and sleeping. It is thus
a condition of mental feebleness and suggestibility doubtless correlated
with a condition of irregular brain anaemia. A plausible suggestion
under such conditions is too readily accepted. Does ordinary paramnesia
occur under similar conditions of mental feebleness and suggestibility?
It is rare to find descriptions of paramnesic experiences by scientific
observers who are alive to the importance of accurately recording all
the conditions, but there is some reason to think that paramnesia does
occur in states produced by excitement, exhaustion, and allied causes.
The earliest case of paramnesia recorded in detail by a trained observer
is that described by Wigan as occurring to himself at the funeral of
the Princess Charlotte. He had passed several disturbed nights previous
to the ceremony, with almost complete deprivation of rest on the night
immediately preceding; he was suffering from grief as well as from
exhaustion from want of food; he had been standing for four hours, and
would have fainted on taking his place by the coffin if it had not been
for the excitement of the occasion. When the music ceased the coffin
slowly sank in absolute silence, broken by an outburst of grief from the
bereaved husband. 'In an instant,' Wigan proceeds, 'I felt not merely an
_impression_, but a _conviction_, that I had seen the whole scene before
on some former occasion.' Such a condition may fairly be regarded as an
artificial reproduction, by means of emotion, excitement, and exhaustion,
of the condition which occurs simply and naturally in sleep or on its
hypnagogic borderland.
The frequency--if it may be taken to be a fact--of the occurrence of
pseudo-reminiscence in epileptics, noted by various medical observers,
whether at the onset of the fit or independently of any obvious muscular
convulsion, may be significant in this connection. There is no good reason
to suppose that pseudo-reminiscence has a true relation to epilepsy, and
still less that it necessarily constitutes a minor epileptic paroxysm.
But the special sleep-like condition of contracted cerebral circulation in
epilepsy renders it favourable to paramnesia as well as to hallucinatory
phenomena.[224]
Independently of epilepsy, any condition of temporary and perhaps chronic
nervous exhaustion may produce, or at all events predispose to, the
paramnesic delusion of recognising present experiences as familiar. Thus
Rosenbach has recorded the case of a sane and healthy man, who, after
severe mental labour, followed by sleeplessness, seemed to know all the
people he met in the street, though on close examination he found he was
mistaken.[225] Such a condition may even be almost congenital. Thus of
Anna Kingsford, who was of highly strung and neurotic disposition, we are
told that, as a child, 'all that she read struck her as already familiar
to her, so that she seemed to herself to be recovering old recollections
rather than acquiring fresh knowledge.'[226]
It is noteworthy that artificial anaesthesia by drugs which produce an
abnormal sleep also favours paramnesia. Thus Sir William Ramsay[227] has
stated that when, under an anaesthetic, he heard a slight noise in the
street, 'I not merely knew that it had happened before, but I could have
predicted that it would happen at that very moment.'
In all these conditions we appear to be in the presence of an enfeebled,
excited, and impaired state of consciousness approximating to the true
confusion of dream consciousness. It seems as if externally aroused
sensations in such cases are received by the exhausted cerebral centres in
so blurred a form that an illusion takes place, and they are mistaken for
internally excited sensations, for memories.
That paramnesia is a fatigue product--even though often a product of
nervous hyperaesthesia--is indicated by the statements of many who have
described it. Anjel long ago emphasised this fatigue, and Bonatelli,
also at an early period, found that illusions of memory were specially
liable to occur in states of unusual nervous irritability. During recent
years this characteristic of paramnesia has been more and more frequently
recognised. Bernard Leroy, who devoted a lengthy and important Paris
thesis to pseudo-reminiscence,[228] showed that a certain proportion of
cases indicated the presence of fatigue or distraction. Heymans found that
it was in the evening, when his subjects were in a passive condition,
tired, exhausted, or engaged in uncongenial work, that they were most
liable to the experience.[229] Féré brought forward a case in which, as
he pointed out, pseudo-reminiscence in a healthy man, convalescent from
influenza, was associated with fatigue and disappeared with it.[230]
Dromard and Albès declare that pseudo-reminiscence is 'a phenomenon of
exhaustion,' and one of them makes the significant statement: 'I become
more easily the prey of this illusion when, by chance and without thinking
of it, I simultaneously apply my attention to an external object and an
internal thought.'[231] Dugas, again, considers that all the various forms
of paramnesia have 'one common character, which is that they occur as the
result of prolonged or intense fatigue';[232] he adds that most of the
cases of paramnesia he has noted in young people during fifteen years
coincided with periods of anaemia and nervous weakness.
It is not, however, necessary to believe that fatigue, in the ordinary
sense of the word, whether physical or mental, is the invariable
accompaniment of paramnesia. If it is the presence of a condition
resembling that of sleep or the hypnagogic state which predisposes to
the experience, that condition may be produced by other circumstances.
Distraction, excited hyperaesthesia simulating increased power, and
various chronic psychic states due to a highly-strung or over-strained
nervous system may all tend in the same direction, even though no sense of
exhaustion is felt.[233] This is doubtless why it is that so many poets,
novelists, and other men of strenuous intellectual aptitude are liable to
this experience.
It has been argued by some who admit that there is often an element of
fatigue in paramnesia,[234] that the real cause of the false memory is an
abnormal celerity of perception, perhaps due to hyperaesthesia. The scene
would thus be perceived so quickly that the subject concludes that he
must have had this experience before. That the subject often has a feeling
of unusual rapidity of perception may very well be admitted. But there is
no reason whatever to suppose that the perception actually is received
with any such unusual rapidity. The probabilities are in the other
direction. We know that many influences (such as drugs like alcohol) which
produce a feeling of heightened and quickened perceptions really have a
slowing and dulling effect, in the same way as the wise and beautiful
things we utter in dreams are usually found on awaking to be commonplace,
if not meaningless. There is no evidence to show that paramnesia is
accompanied by a real heightening of perception, while, as we have seen,
a broad survey of the facts makes it more reasonable to suppose that we
have, on the contrary, a sudden fall towards the dream state, a state in
which, as Tissié and others have pointed out, there are many stages.
It must be remembered in this connection that in the hypnagogic and other
states related to sleep we are not able to estimate time conditions
consciously, though, as the frequent ability to wake at fixed moments
indicates, we may do so subconsciously. Time is long, short, or
non-existent in dream-like states. This is always true of the onset of
the hypnagogic state. When I am suddenly awakened at night by a voice or
a bell or other stimulus, I often find it very difficult to say whether
I was or was not already awake, and have frequently replied, when so
awakened, that I was already awake. That is an illusion, as is shown by
the frequency with which elderly people who fall asleep in the day time,
will declare, though they may have been snoring a moment before, that
they have never been asleep. By a somewhat similar paramnesic illusion we
can never fix the exact moment when we awake. When we become conscious
that we are awake it always seems to us that we are already awake, awake
for an indefinite time, and not that we have just awakened. If I had to
register the exact moment I awake in the morning I should usually feel
that I was considerably late in making the observation. It seems that the
imperfect hypnagogic consciousness projects itself behind. At the first
onset, consciousness is not sufficiently developed to be able to realise
that it is beginning, and when it becomes sufficiently developed to make
such a statement the moment when it can be correctly made is already past.
Consciousness is only able to assert that it has been continuing for an
indefinite time. And that assertion involves a paramnesic illusion of
putting back a present experience into the past, analogous to the illusion
of pseudo-reminiscence.[235]
If we realise these characteristics of paramnesia we can scarcely fail
to conclude that we are concerned here with illusions which, while
they fall within the sphere of memory, are largely conditioned by the
whole psychic condition. As in dreams, it is inattention, failure of
apperception, defective association of the mental contents, which make
the paramnesia possible. Paramnesia is, as Fouillée has said, a kind of
diplopia or seeing double in the mental field. 'I have the impression,'
says one of the writers on this subject who himself experiences the
sensation, 'that the present reality has a _double_.' Actual double
vision is due to the failure of that muscular co-ordination which, as
Ribot and others have insisted, is of the very essence of attention.
This wider psychic basis on which paramnesia rests has of late been
recognised by several psychologists. Thus Léon-Kindberg states that in
paramnesia there is an absence of mental attention, of the effort of
synthesis necessary to grasp an actual occurrence, which is, therefore,
perceived with the same facility as a memory not requiring synthesis,
with the resulting illusion that it is a memory.[236] Ballet, again,
regards paramnesia as a transitory or permanent psychasthenic state, due
to dissociation.[237] Dugas, also, who has repeatedly returned to this
subject during many years, in his latest contributions attaches primary
importance to this broader factor of paramnesia. In analysing memory, he
says, there is an element which, though often overlooked, is capital:
the recognition of a state of consciousness not merely as passed, but as
bound up with our own personal past; when that synthetic function ceases
to be accomplished, or is only accomplished defectively, then memory is
lacking or perverted. Nervous weakness, he proceeds, produces failure of
attention, the inhibitory power of attention being no longer exerted, and
the psychic elements fall back to anarchy. Now many psychic states, such
as sensations, recollections, and images, differ from each other less
by their substance than by the way in which the mind takes hold of and
apprehends them. The mind seizes a sensation with a stronger grasp than
a recollection, and a recollection with a stronger grasp than an image.
When attention is relaxed the line of demarcation between these psychic
states tends to be effaced; the sensation becomes vague and floating
like the recollection and the image, while the recollection and the
image, on the contrary, become objective and acquire something of the
brilliance and relief of the sensation. The very same cause--enfeeblement
of attention--thus produces opposite effects, on the one side raising
the tone, on the other lowering it, so that states of mind which are
ordinarily distinct tend to be approximated and confused, as we may
observe in the hypnagogic condition.[238]
Although Dugas makes no reference to Janet, it is not difficult to
see that he has assimilated some of the views of that distinguished
investigator of psychic mysteries. Janet, as we know, in various morbid
psychic conditions, attaches great explanatory force to the individual's
loss of hold, through psychic weakness, of his own personality, and
to the diminished sense of reality and even depersonalisation thence
ensuing. It so happens that Janet himself has set forth a theory of
pseudo-reminiscence which is characteristic of his own attitude, and also
harmonises with the wider outlook which now marks the attempts to explain
these perversions of memory. Janet declares that pseudo-reminiscence is a
negative phenomenon and belongs to a group in which various other feelings
of diminished sense of reality belong. These people all say in effect:
'It seems to me that these things are not real; it seems to me that these
events are not actual or present.' The essence of this form of paramnesia
is thus more a negation of the present than an affirmation of the past.
'The function of adaptation to the present moment,' Janet remarks, 'is
the most complicated and the most recent of all. The function of the real
is the most elevated and the most difficult of all cerebral functions.'
Under various influences there is a diminution of nervous and psychic
tension, and such suppression of the high tension of the mind leaves only
the lower functions subsisting. When that fall of tension is rapid, there
may be a crisis of which pseudo-reminiscence is one of the symptoms.[239]
Janet would thus place pseudo-reminiscence among the manifestations of
psychasthenia, though he leaves untouched the difficult question of its
precise mechanism.
The most comprehensive attempt to explain the mystery of paramnesia in
recent years is certainly that made in an elaborately eclectic study
by one of the most distinguished of living French thinkers, Professor
Bergson.[240] He first casts a glance over what he considers the two
main groups of explanations of this puzzling phenomenon: (1) those,
advocated by Ribot, Fouillée, Lalande, Arnaud, Piéron, Myers, etc.,
which involve the more or less simultaneous existence in consciousness
of two images, of which one is the reproduction of the other; (2) those
advocated by Janet, Heymans, Léon-Kindberg, Dromard and Albès, etc.,
which insist on the lower mental tone, the diminished attention, the
lack of synthetising power, which mark the condition in which paramnesia
occurs. Bergson is quite ready to accept the principles of both these
groups of explanations, and to combine them. But, he argues, to understand
the phenomenon adequately, we must go deeper; we must analyse the normal
mechanism of memory. And he finds, if we do this, that not merely the
moment of a paramnesic illusion, but every moment of our life, offers two
aspects, actual and virtual, perception on one side, and memory on the
other. The moment itself, indeed, consists of such a scission, for it
is always moving, always a fleeting boundary between the immediate past
and the immediate future, and would be a mere abstraction if it were not
'precisely the mobile mirror which ceaselessly reflects perception in
recollection.' When the matter is thus regarded a recollection is seen
to be, in reality, not something which has been, but something which
is, proceeding _pari passu_ with the perception it reproduces. It is a
recollection of the moment taking place at that moment. Belonging to the
past as regards its form, it belongs to the present as regards its matter.
It is recollection of the present. Now this is exactly the state in which
the paramnesic person consciously finds himself, and the only problem
before us, therefore, is to ascertain why every one at every moment is not
conscious of the same experience. Bergson replies that nothing is more
useless for present action than the recollection of the present. It has
nothing to tell us; we hold the real object, and to give up that for its
recollection would be to sacrifice the substance to the shadow. Therefore
we obstinately and persistently turn away from the recollection of the
present. It emerges consciously only under the influence of some abnormal
or pathological disturbance of attention. Paramnesia is an anomaly of this
kind, and it is due to a temporary enfeeblement of the general attention
to life, a momentary arrest of the forward movement of consciousness.
'False recognition,' Bergson concludes, 'may thus be regarded as the most
inoffensive form of inattention to life. It seems to result from the
combined play of perception and memory given up to their own energy. It
would take place at every moment if it were not that will, ceaselessly
directed towards action, prevents the present from folding in on itself by
pushing it indefinitely into the future.'
So far as my own explanation is concerned, it will be seen that I still
place weight on the general condition of temporary or chronic nervous
fatigue as the soil on which paramnesia arises--a belief now accepted by
most psychologists[241]--and that I think we must search for the clue to
the mechanism of the illusion in those dreaming and hypnagogic states
in which it most often occurs. As regards a definite explanation of the
mechanism we must, in the face of so many ingenious and complicated
theories, perhaps still await more general agreement.[242] What I have
suggested, and am still inclined to maintain, is that the psychic
enfeeblement, temporary or chronic, which is the general preliminary
condition of paramnesia, whether or not there is any subjective sensation
of increased power, may account for the paramnesia by bringing an
externally aroused perception down to a lower and fainter stage on which
it is on a level with an internally aroused perception--a memory. Just
as in hypnagogic paramnesia the vivid and life-like dream, or internal
impression, is raised to the class of memories, and becomes the shadow
of a real experience, so in waking paramnesia the external impression
is lowered to the same class. Perception is alike dulled in each case,
and the immediate experience follows the line of least resistance--this
time too carelessly or too prematurely--to join the great bulk of our
experiences.
We thus realise how it is that that doubling of experience occurs. The
mind has for the moment become flaccid and enfeebled; its loosened texture
has, as it were, abnormally enlarged the meshes in which sensations are
caught and sifted, so that they run through too easily. In other words,
they are not properly _apperceived_. To use a crude simile, it is as
though we poured water into a sieve. The impressions of the world which
are actual sensations as they strike the relaxed psychic meshwork are
instantaneously passed through to become memories, and we see them in both
forms at the same moment, and are unable to distinguish one from the other.
In sleep, and in the hypnagogic state, as in hypnosis, we accept a
suggestion, with or without a struggle. In the waking paramnesic state
we seem to find, in a slighter stage of a like condition, _the same
process in a reversed form_. Instead of accepting a representation as
an actual present fact, we accept the actual present fact as merely
a representation. The centres of perception are in such a state of
exhaustion and disorder that they receive an actual external sensation
in the feebler shape of a representation. The actual fact becomes merely
a suggestion of far distant things. It reaches consciousness in the
enfeebled shape of an old memory--
'... like to something I remember
A great while since, a long, long time ago.'
Paramnesia is thus an internal hallucination, a reversed hallucination,
it is true, but while so reversed, the stream of consciousness is still
following the line of least resistance.
It is along some such lines as these, it seems to me, that we may best
attempt to explain the phenomena of paramnesia, phenomena which are of no
little interest since, in earlier stages of culture, they may well have
had a real influence on belief, suggesting to primitive man that he had
somehow had wider experiences than he knew of, and that, as Wordsworth put
it, he trailed clouds of glory behind him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 192: It is as well to bear in mind that this dream occurred when
Maury was a student, long before he began to study dreaming, and (as Egger
has pointed out) was probably not written down until thirteen years later.
On these grounds alone it is not entitled to serious consideration.]
[Footnote 193: As Sir Samuel Wilks once remarked ('On the Nature of
Dreams,' _Medical Magazine_, Feb. 1894), 'The dreamer merely forms a
mental picture, and the _description_ of it he calls his dream.']
[Footnote 194: Egger, 'La Durée apparente des Rêves,' _Revue
Philosophique_, Jan. 1895, pp. 41-59; Clavière, 'La Rapidité de la Pensée
dans le Rêve,' _ib._ May 1897, p. 509; Piéron, 'La Rapidité des Processes
Psychiques,' _ib._ Jan. 1903, pp. 89-95; Foucault, _Le Rêve_, pp. 158 _et
seq.;_ Tobolowska, _Etude sur les Illusions du Temps dans les Rêves du
Sommeil Normal:_ Thèse de Paris, 1900.]
[Footnote 195: Thus Freud tells (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische
Forschungen_, vol. i. part ii. p. 387) of a man who was obsessed by the
idea that he should never pass money until he had carefully cleaned it,
for fear he might be infecting other people, but was quite unaware that
this obsession sprang from remorse due to his own sins of sexual impurity.
In such a case there is, of course, not only a crumpling of consciousness,
but a definite dislocation and transference of the parts.]
[Footnote 196: We also see here an interesting dissociation of the motor
(speech) centre from the visual centre; it is the latter which is in this
instance most closely in touch with facts.]
[Footnote 197: The 'selvdrolla' dream, recorded in a previous chapter (p.
43), illustrates the same point with the difference that the crumpled up
portion of consciousness never became visible in the dream.]
[Footnote 198: R. L. Stevenson, 'A Chapter on Dreams,' in _Across the
Plains_, 1892.]
[Footnote 199: In most cases the missing memory, after making itself felt
outside the conscious area, seems to reach that area, not so much by its
own spontaneous unconscious movement as by a tentative search for clues.
Thus I read one day the words 'the breaking of a goblet by a little black
imp,' and immediately became conscious that I was reminded of something
similar in recent experience, but could not tell what. I asked myself
if it could have been in a dream. In a few moments, however, the memory
recurred to me that two hours previously I had noticed a broken vase, and
casually wondered how it had become broken. Under such circumstances we
are for a time thinking of something, and yet have no conscious knowledge
as to what we are thinking of.]
[Footnote 200: Jastrow remarks, somewhat in the same way (_The
Subconscious_, p. 93), that 'a letting down of the effort, a focusing of
the mind upon a point a little or a good deal to one side of the fixation
point, distinctly aids the mental vision.' The process seems, however,
to be most effective when it is automatic, for attention cannot easily
relax its own tension. A large number of the discoveries and solutions of
difficulties effected in dreams are due to this dispersal of attention
over a wider field, so enabling the missing relationship to be detected.
See, for instance, some cases recorded by Newbold (_Psychological
Review_, March 1896, p. 132), as of Dr. Hilprecht, the Assyriologist, who
discovered in a dream that two fragments of tablets he had vainly been
endeavouring to decipher, were really parts of the same tablet.]
[Footnote 201: Hypermnesia, or excessive memory, is found in waking
life in various abnormal conditions. It is not uncommon in men of
genius; Macaulay is a well-known example. It scarcely seems, however,
an especially favourable condition for keen intellectual power; the
mental machine that is clogged with unnecessary and unimportant facts can
scarcely fail to work under difficulties. 'Hypermnesia,' remarks Stoddart
('Early Symptoms of Mental Disease,' _British Medical Journal_, 11th May
1907), 'occurs most frequently in certain cases of idiocy, and in some
cases of chronic mania. One such patient could enumerate all the occasions
when any given medical officer had played tennis since he entered the
institution.' Hypermnesia in dreams has been dealt with by Carl du Prel,
_Philosophy of Mysticism_, vol. ii. ch. i.]
[Footnote 202: This delay is worth mentioning, for it is conceivable that,
in the case of a weak recollection, transference to the subconscious
sphere of sleep might involve a temporary disappearance from the conscious
waking sphere.]
[Footnote 203: There is a possible interest in the exact length of the
interval. Swoboda (_Die Perioden des Menschlichen Organismus in ihrer
psychologischen und biologischen Bedeutung_, 1904) believes that the
recurrence of memories tends to obey a law of periodicity, so that, for
instance, a melody heard at a concert may recur at a regular interval. I
cannot say that I have myself found evidence of such periodicity, though I
have made several observations on the recurrence of such memories.]
[Footnote 204: Similarly, Foucault (_Le Rêve_, p. 79) records the dream
of a lady concerning a place called Brétigny, near Dijon, though when
awake she was not aware there is such a place there. Elsewhere (p. 214)
Foucault also gives examples of sensations, not consciously perceived
in the waking state, but revived in dream. Beaunis, in his interesting
'Contribution à la Psychologie du Rêve' (_American Journal of Psychology_,
July-Oct. 1903) narrates a dream of his own in which a forgotten or
unconscious memory revived. Many such dreams could easily be brought
together. An often-quoted dream, apparently of this kind (see _e.g._,
_British Medical Journal_, 7th April 1900, p. 850), is that of Archbishop
Benson who, like his predecessor, Laud, took an interest in his dreams.
He dreamed that he was suffering severely in his chest, and that his
doctor, on being called in, told him that he had angĭna pectoris. The
archbishop in his dream exclaimed with indignation: 'Angǐna, angǐna!' The
dream made such an impression on him that he looked the matter up, but
only found the ordinary pronunciation, angīna, recorded. A week later he
was at Cambridge, dining in hall at Trinity, and seated next to Munro,
the Professor of Latin, who happened to ask him about the death of Thomas
Arnold. 'He died of angĭna pectoris,' said Benson. Munro smiled grimly
and said softly: 'Of angǐna, as we now call it.' There can be no doubt
that Benson, who was closely in touch with the academic world, had met
with this correction, which is accepted by all modern Latinists, and
'forgotten' it.]
[Footnote 205: Xenoglossia, as well as the tendency to utter gibberish,
are both classed under glossolalia. See _e.g._ E. Lombard, 'Phenomènes de
Glossolalie,' _Archives de Psychologie_, July 1907.]
[Footnote 206: In the eighteenth century Lord Monboddo (_Ancient
Metaphysics_, vol. iii., 1782, p. 217) referred to a Countess of Laval
who, during the delirium of illness, spoke the Breton tongue which she had
known as a child, but long since forgotten.]
[Footnote 207: In a somewhat similar manner the muscular contractions of
the hysterical may disappear during sleep, as may their paralyses and
their anaesthesias, as well as their losses of memory. (These phenomena
have been especially observed and studied by Raymond and Janet, _Névroses
et Idées Fixes_, vol. ii.) Such characteristics of the sleep of the
hysterical may well be a manifestation of the same tendency which in the
sleep of normal people leads to hypermnesia. In this connection reference
may be made to the interesting opposition between attention and memory
developed by Dr. Marie de Manacéïne ('De l'antagonisme qui existe entre
chaque effort de l'attention et des innervations motrices,' _Atti dell'
XI. Congresso Internazionale Medico_, 1894, Rome, vol. ii., 'Fisiologia,'
p. 48). Concentrated attention, she argues, paralyses memory, and there is
an absolute antagonism between motor innervation, or real movement, which
favours memory, and the concentrated effort which favours attention. 'In
psychological researches we must always separate the phenomena of memory
from the phenomena of attention, for memory is only possible through
muscular movement, and attention, on the contrary, is only active through
the suppression of movement.' In sleep, it is true, there may be no
actual movement, but there is relaxation of muscular tension and freedom
of motor ideas. It should be added that not all investigators confirm
Manacéïne's conclusion as to the antagonism between the conditions for
memory and attention. Thus R. MacDougall ('The Physical Characteristics
of Attention,' _Psychological Review_, March 1895), while finding that
muscular relaxation accompanies the recall of memories, finds also, though
not so markedly and constantly, a similar relaxation accompanying both
voluntary and spontaneous attention.]
[Footnote 208: The term 'paramnesia' was devised by Kraepelin, who
wrote the first comprehensive study of the subject, though he offered
no explanatory theory of it ('Ueber Erinnerungsfälschungen,' _Archiv
für Psychiatrie_, Bd. xvii. and xviii.). A very clear and comprehensive
account of the subject, up to the date of the article, was given by W. H.
Burnham ('Paramnesia,' _American Journal of Psychology_, May 1889). In
the following pages, together with much new matter, I have made use of my
paper entitled 'A Note on Hypnagogic Paramnesia,' published in _Mind_,
vol. vi. No. 22, in 1896.]
[Footnote 209: It has long been recognised by psychologists that
paramnesia occurs in dreams. Thus Burnham refers to it as frequent, and
Kraepelin mentions that he once dreamed of smoking a cigar for the fourth
or fifth time, though he had never smoked in his life.]
[Footnote 210: In alcoholic insanity, for instance, especially when it
leads to the occurrence of Korsakoff's syndrome, there is a notable degree
of mental weakness with a tendency to form false memories, both in the
form of confabulation (or the filling by imagination of lacunae in memory)
and pseudo-reminiscence. (See _e.g._ John Turner, 'Alcoholic Insanity,'
_Journal of Mental Science_, Jan. 1910, p. 41.)]
[Footnote 211: Dr. Marie de Manacéïne, who has studied the phenomena of
the hypnagogic state experimentally in much detail (_Sleep_, pp. 195-220),
finds that in its deepest stage it is marked by echolalia, or the tendency
to repeat automatically what is said, and in a less deep stage by abnormal
suggestibility or the tendency to accept ideas and especially emotions.
She considers that the hypnagogic state becomes abnormal when it lasts for
more than fifteen seconds. It may last for more than six minutes, and is
then of serious import. She shows reason to believe that the hypnagogic
state is substantially identical with the hypnotic state, and she regards
it as probably due to cerebral anaemia. She finds it especially marked in
children under fifteen, the more so if they belong to the working-class,
and rather common among adolescent girls and young women, especially
if anaemic, but among adults rarer in women than in men, becoming more
frequent in both sexes with old age; the phlegmatic are more liable to it
than the sanguine or the nervous.]
[Footnote 212: Sully, _The Human Mind_, vol. ii. p. 317. Foucault (_Le
Rêve_, p. 300), briefly notes that he has often had the illusion of
seeming to remember a fact which does not exist, and of recollecting a
person he has never seen.]
[Footnote 213: F. W. Colegrove, 'Individual Memories,' _American Journal
of Psychology_, Jan. 1899.]
[Footnote 214: See _e.g._ for such cases in sane persons, Hack Tuke,
'Hallucinations,' _Brain_, vol. xi., 1889. A man with chronic systematised
delusions writes: 'I am obsessed at nights; that is, I am made the
recipient of projected thoughts which become translated into dreams, and
on several occasions I have found, just after waking, and while still in a
very passive state, that some one was speaking to me in the ear.']
[Footnote 215: Hughlings Jackson (_Practitioner_, May 1874, also
_Brain_, July 1888, and _Brain_, 1899, p. 534) applied this term to the
intellectual aura preceding an epileptic attack and considered that
'pseudo-reminiscence' itself might indicate a slight epileptic paroxysm
in persons who show other symptoms of epilepsy. Gowers also (_Epilepsy_,
2nd ed., p. 133) considers 'dreamy state' to be closely associated with
minor attacks of epilepsy; and Crichton-Browne (_Dreamy Mental States_)
holds the same view. It should be added that 'dreamy state' by no means
necessarily involves pseudo-reminiscence; see _e.g._ S. Taylor, 'A Case
of Dreamy State,' _Lancet_, 9th Aug. 1890, p. 276, and W. A. Turner, 'The
Problem of Epilepsy,' _British Medical Journal_, 2nd April 1910, p. 805.
Leroy found that pseudo-reminiscence is usually rare in association with
epilepsy.]
[Footnote 216: 'The feeling of pre-existence,' writes Dr. J. G. Kiernan
in a private letter, 'frequently occurs as a consequence of delusions
of memory in epilepsy. The case on which George Sand built her story of
_Consuelo_ was one reported of an epileptic who during the epileptic
states had delusions of living in a distant historic past of which he
retained the memory as facts during the normal state. I know of two
epileptic theosophists who base their belief in transmigration on the
memories of their epileptic period. In my judgment a large part of
Swedenborg's visions were instances of delusions of memory.']
[Footnote 217: Professor Grasset ('La Sensation du "Déjà Vu,"' _Journal
de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_, Nov.-Feb. 1904) considers
that a feeling of anguish is the characteristic accompaniment of a
true paramnesic manifestation. This statement is too pronounced. There
is usually some emotional disturbance, but its degree depends on the
temperament of the person experiencing the phenomenon. Sometimes the
sensation of pseudo-reminiscence may be accompanied, as a medical man
subject to epilepsy (mentioned by Hughlings Jackson) found in his own
case, by 'a slight sense of satisfaction,' as in the finding of something
that had been sought for.]
[Footnote 218: _Revue Philosophique_, November 1893.]
[Footnote 219: _Revue Philosophique_, January 1894.]
[Footnote 220: Heymans found that students liable to paramnesia tended to
possess an aptitude for languages and an inaptitude for mathematics.]
[Footnote 221: Paul Bourget, the novelist, in an interesting letter
published by Grasset (_loc. cit._) states that this experience has been
habitual with him from as long back as he can remember, occurring in
regard to things heard or felt more than to things seen, and accompanied
by an emotional trouble similar to that experienced in dreams of dead
friends who appear as living, though even in his dreams the dreamer knows
that they are dead. Bourget adds that he is of emotional temperament, and
that the phenomenon was more pronounced in childhood than it is now.]
[Footnote 222: Paul Lapie, _Revue Philosophique_, March 1894; Charles
_Méré, Mercure de France_, July 1903; Sully, Tannery, and Buccola also
considered that this is a factor in the explanation of the phenomenon.
Freud (_Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagsleben_, 1907, p. 122) brings
forward a modification of this theory, and believes that false recognition
is a reminiscence of unconscious day-dreams.]
[Footnote 223: For a minute and searching criticism of the theory of the
duplex brain, see especially four articles by Bonne in the _Archives de
Neurologie_, March-June 1907.]
[Footnote 224: 'Epilepsy' wrote Binns long ago (_Anatomy of Sleep_, 1845,
p. 431), 'is a disease which in some of its symptoms strongly resembles
abnormal sleep.' The conditions under which a paramnesic manifestation
may really replace an epileptic fit are well described by a literary man
with hereditary epilepsy whose case has been recorded by Haskovec of
Prague (_XIIIe. Congrès International de Médecine: Comptes Rendus_, vol.
viii., 'Psychiatrie' p. 125): 'One day at the theatre, under the influence
of the heat and perhaps the music, I experienced extreme excitement and
fatigue. I thought I was about to have an attack, and resisted with all
my strength, and it failed to take place. But I found myself in a strange
psychic state. On leaving the theatre I seemed to be dreaming. I saw and
heard everything and talked as usual. But everything seemed strange.
Nothing seemed to reach directly _me_ or to be a real impression, but
merely the automatic reproduction of something learnt, only I felt that I
had lived it all before and felt it; at that moment I simply seemed to be
observing it.']
[Footnote 225: _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, April 1886. In some
forms of insanity the false recognition of a person may become a fixed
delusion. This question has been studied by Albès in his Paris thesis, _De
I'Illusion de Fausse Reconnaissance_, 1906.]
[Footnote 226: E. Maitland, _Anna Kingsford_, vol. i. p. 3. Lalande
(_Revue Philosophique_, November 1893, p. 487) gives a precisely similar
case in a child.]
[Footnote 227: As quoted by Jastrow, _The Subconscious_, p. 248.]
[Footnote 228: Leroy, _Etude sur l'Illusion de Fausse Reconnaissance_,
1898, with forty-nine new observations. Leroy states, however (in declared
opposition to my view), that only a minority of his cases actually mention
fatigue.]
[Footnote 229: Heymans, 'Eine Enquête über Depersonnalisation und Fausse
Reconnaissance,' _Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der
Sinnesorgane_, November, 1903; also a further paper in the same journal
confirming his conclusions, January 1906.]
[Footnote 230: Féré, 'Deuxième Note sur la Fausse Reconnaissance,'
_Journal de Neurologie_, 1905.]
[Footnote 231: Dromard et Albès, 'L'Illusion dit de Fausse
Reconnaissance,' _Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_,
May-June 1905.]
[Footnote 232: Dugas, 'Observations sur des Erreurs "Formelles" de la
Mémoire,' _Revue Philosophique_, July 1908.]
[Footnote 233: A friend, liable to this form of paramnesia, wrote to me
after the publication of my first paper on the subject: 'I find, as you
foretold, that it is difficult to recall an experience of this kind in all
its details. I feel sure, however, that it is not necessarily allied with
an enfeebled or overwrought nervous system. It was commonest with me in my
youth, at a time when my life was a pleasant one, and my brain not fagged
as now. I still [aged 43] have it occasionally, but not so frequently as
twenty years ago.' It may be added that my friend, of Highland family,
was a man of keen and emotional nervous temperament, a strenuous mental
worker--whence at one time a serious breakdown in health--and had
published two volumes of poems in early life. The greater liability to
paramnesia in early life, which is generally recognised, is comparable to
the special liability of children to hypnagogic visions, both phenomena
being probably due to the greater excitability and easier exhaustibility
of the youthful brain.]
[Footnote 234: For instance, by Allin, 'Recognition,' _American Journal of
Psychology_, January 1896.]
[Footnote 235: The explanation of paramnesia here set forth received on
its first publication the approval of Léon Marillier, who considered
it 'ingenious and seductive,' and as adequately accounting for the
phenomena, provided we bear in mind that the loss of a clear feeling of
time is characteristic of hypnagogic and allied states, the perception
of each moment being immediately transferred into an ancient memory, and
consequently recognised (_L'Année Biologique_, third year, 1897, p. 772).
This necessity for taking into account the co-existence of perception
and illusory remembrance has largely moulded several of the theories of
paramnesia. Thus Jean de Pury (_Archives de Psychologie_, December 1902),
while affirming that pseudo-reminiscence is due to an _anteriorisation_
of actual perceptions, regards it as of the nature of a double refraction
such as that simultaneously produced on two faces of a prism by the same
image; under the influence of conditions he is unable to define, an image
appears for the moment on the plane both of the past and of the present,
and psychically we see double just as physically we see double when the
parallelism of our visual rays is disturbed. Piéron, again, taking up a
theory at one time favoured by Dugas, and previously suggested in one form
or another by Ribot and Fouillée, assumes the formation of two images: one
which, owing to distraction or fatigue, reaches consciousness after having
traversed subconsciousness, and so takes on a dream-like and effaced
character, and almost simultaneously with this a direct perception which
has not thus changed its character; the shock of the conflict between
these two produces the pseudo-reminiscence ('Sur l'Interpretation des
Faits de Paramnésie,' _Revue Philosophique_, August 1902). Albès, in his
Paris thesis, criticises this explanation, pointing out that a sequence of
this kind very frequently occurs, but produces no pseudo-reminiscence.]
[Footnote 236: Michel Léon-Kindberg, 'Le Sentiment du Déjà Vu,' _Revue de
Psychiatrie_, April 1903, No. 4.]
[Footnote 237: G. Ballet, 'Un Cas de Fausse Reconnaissance,' _Revue
Neurologique_, 1904, p. 1221.]
[Footnote 238: Dugas, 'Observations sur des Erreurs "Formelles" de la
Mémoire', _Revue Philosophique_, July 1908; _ib._ June 1910. Dugas makes
no reference to Janet, nor to my paper on Hypnagogic Paramnesia, but his
statement of the matter to some extent combines and harmonises those of
the two earlier writers.]
[Footnote 239: P. Janet, 'A Propos du Déjà Vu,' _Journal de Psychologie
Normale et Pathologique_, July-August 1905.]
[Footnote 240: H. Bergson, 'Le Souvenir du Présent et la Fausse
Reconnaissance,' _Revue Philosophique_, December 1908. It should be
remarked that, except in the attempt to explain why paramnesia is not
normally habitual, Bergson's paper is based on the ideas or suggestions of
previous writers.]
[Footnote 241: Before the appearance of my paper, as already mentioned,
Anjel had emphasised the significance of fatigue in the production of
paramnesia (_Archiv für Psychiatrie_, Bd. viii. pp. 57 _et seq._). His
theory, indeed (only known to me through brief summaries)--according to
which the pseudo-reminiscence is due to the tardy apprehension by the
fatigued mind of a sensation which is thus degraded to the level of a
reproduced impression--seems practically identical with that which I
independently reached in the light of hypnagogic phenomena.]
[Footnote 242: I disregard those theories which invoke histological
explanations, as by some peculiar disposition of the neurons. Such
explanations are as much outside the psychologist's sphere as the
old-fashioned explanations by reference to God and the Devil. A known
physiological or pathological process may, indeed, quite properly be
recognised by the psychologist; such, for instance, as the disturbance
of the heart associated with some dreams. Even minute changes in the
brain, when they have been properly determined by the histologist, may be
effectively invoked by the psychologist if they seem to supply an exact
physical correlative to his own findings. But for the psychologist to go
outside his own field, and invent a purely fanciful and arbitrary neuronic
scheme to suit a psychic process, explains nothing. It is merely child's
play. The stuff that the psychologist works with must be psychical, just
as the stuff of the physicist's work must be physical.]
CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
The Fundamental Nature of Dreaming--Insanity and Dreaming--The
Child's Psychic State and the Dream State--Primitive Thought and
Dreams--Dreaming and Myth-Making--Genius and Dreams--Dreaming as a
Road into the Infinite.
In the preceding chapters we have traced some of the elementary tendencies
which prevail in the formation of dreams. These tendencies are in some
respects so unlike those that rule in waking life--slight and subtle as
their unlikeness often seems--that we are justified in regarding the
psychic phenomena of sleeping life as constituting a world of their own.
Yet when we look at the phenomena a little more deeply we realise that,
however differentiated they have become, dream life is yet strictly
co-ordinated with other forms of psychic life. If we pierce below the
surface we seem to reach a primitive fundamental psychic stage in
which the dreamer, the madman, the child, and the savage alike have
their starting point, and possess a degree of community from which the
waking, civilised, sane adult of to-day is shut out, so that he can
only comprehend it by an intellectual effort.[243] It thus happens that
the ways of thinking and feeling of the child and the savage and the
lunatic each furnish a road by which we may reach a psychic world which is
essentially that of the dreamer.
The resemblance of insanity to dream life has, above all, impressed
observers from the time when the nature of insanity was first definitely
recognised. It would be outside the limits of the present book to discuss
the points at which dreams resemble or differ from insanity, but it is
worth while to touch on the question of their affinity. The recognition of
this affinity, or at all events analogy, though it was stated by Cabanis
to be due to Cullen, is as old as Aristotle, and has constantly been put
forward afresh. Thus in the sixteenth century Du Laurens (A. Laurentius),
in his treatise on the disease of melancholy, as insanity was then termed,
compared it to dreaming.[244] The same point is still constantly brought
forward by the more philosophic physician. 'Find out all about dreams,'
Hughlings Jackson has said, 'and you will have found out all about
insanity.' From the wider standpoint of the psychologist, Jastrow points
out that not only insanity, but all the forms of delirium, including the
drug-intoxications, are 'variants of dream consciousness.'
The reality of the affinity of dreaming and insanity is well illustrated
by a case, coming under the observation of Marro, in which a dream,
formed according to the ordinary rules of dreaming, produced a temporary
fit of insanity in an otherwise perfectly sane subject.[245] In this
case a highly intelligent but somewhat neurotic young man was returning
to Italy after pursuing his studies abroad, and reached Turin, on the
homeward journey, in a somewhat tired state. In the train he believed
that he had detected some cardsharpers, and that they suspected him of
finding them out, and bore him ill-will in consequence. This produced a
state of general nervous apprehension. At the hotel his room was over
the kitchen; it was in consequence very hot, and to a late hour he could
still hear voices and catch snatches of conversation, which seemed to him
to be directed against himself. His suspicions deepened, he heard noises,
in reality due to the kitchen utensils, which seemed preparations for
his murder, and he ultimately became convinced that there was a plot to
set fire to his room in order to force him to leave it, when he would be
seized and murdered. He resolved to escape, got out of the window with
his revolver in his hand, found his way to another part of the house,
encountered a man who had been awakened by his movements, and shot at him,
believing him to be a party to the imaginary conspiracy. He was seized and
taken to the asylum, where he speedily regained calm, and realised the
delusion into which he had fallen. When questioned by Marro, on reaching
the asylum, he was unaware that he had ever fallen asleep during the
night; he could not, however, account for all the time that had elapsed
before he left the room, and it was probable, Marro concludes, that he
was in a state between waking and sleeping, and that his delusion was
constituted in a dream. Fatigue, nervous apprehension, an unduly hot
bedroom, the close proximity of servants' voices, and the sound of kitchen
utensils, had thus combined, in a state of partial sleep, to produce in an
otherwise sane person, a morbid condition in every respect identical with
that found in insane persons who are suffering from systematised delusions
of persecution.[246]
The resemblance of the child's psychic state to the dream state is an
observation of less ancient date than that of the analogy between dreaming
and insanity, but it has frequently been made by modern psychologists. 'In
dreams,' says Freud, 'the child with his impulses lives again,'[247] and
Giessler has devoted a chapter to the points of resemblance between dream
life and the mental activity of children.[248]
I should be more especially inclined to find the dream-like character of
the child's mind at three points: (1) the abnormally logical tendency
of the child's mind and the daring mental fusions which he effects in
forming theories; (2) the greater preponderance of hypnagogic phenomena
and hallucinations in childhood, as well as the large element of reverie
or day-dreaming in the child's life, and the facility with which he
confuses this waking imagination with reality; and (3) the child's
tendency to mistake, also, the dreams of the night for real events.[249]
This last tendency is of serious practical import when it leads a child,
in all innocence, to make criminal charges against other persons.[250]
This tendency clearly indicates the close resemblance which there is for
children between dream life and waking life; it also shows the great
vividness which children's dreams possess. In imaginative children, it
may be added, a rich and vivid dream life is not infrequently the direct
source of literary activities which lead to distinction in later life.[251]
The child, we are often told, is the representative of the modern savage
and the primitive man. That is not, in any strict sense, true, nor can we
assume without question that early man and modern savages are identical.
But we can have very little doubt that in our dreams we are brought near
to ways of thought and feeling that are sometimes closer to those of early
man, as well as of latter-day savages, than are our psychic modes in
civilisation.[252] So remote are we to-day from the world of our dreams
that we very rarely draw from them the inspiration of our waking lives.
For the primitive man the laws of the waking world are not yet widely
differentiated from the laws of the sleeping world, and he finds it not
unreasonable to seek illumination for the problems of one world in the
phenomena of the other. The doctrine of animism, as first formulated by
Tylor (more especially in his _Primitive Culture_) finds in dreams the
chief source of primitive religion and philosophy. Of recent years there
has been a tendency to reject the theory of animism.[253] Certainly it is
possible to rely too exclusively on dreams as the inspiration of early
man; if the evidence of dreams had not been in a line with the evidence
that he derived from other sources, there is no reason why the man of
primitive times should have attached any peculiar value to dreams. But
if the animistic conception presents too extreme a view of the primitive
importance of dreaming, we must beware lest the reaction against it should
lead us to fall into the opposite extreme. Durkheim argues that it is
unlikely that early man attaches much significance to dreams, for the
modern peasant, who is the representative of primitive man, appears to
dream very little, and not to attach much importance to his dreams. But
it is by no means true that the peasant of civilisation, with his fixed
agricultural life, corresponds to early man who was mainly a hunter and
often a nomad. Under the conditions of civilisation the peasant is fed
regularly and leads a peaceful, stolid, laborious, and equable life,
which is altogether unfavourable to psychic activity of any kind, awake
or asleep. The savage man, now and ever, as a hunter and fighter, leads
a life of comparative idleness, broken by spurts of violent activity;
sometimes he can gorge himself with food, sometimes he is on the verge
of starvation. He lives under conditions that are more favourable to the
psychic side of life, awake or asleep, than is the case with the peasant
of civilisation.
Moreover, it must be remembered that all the peoples whom we may fairly
regard as in some degree resembling early man possess a specialised caste
of exceptional men who artificially cultivate their psychic activities,
and thereby exert great influence on their fellows. These are termed,
after their very typical representatives in some Siberian tribes,
_shamans_, and combine the functions of priests and sorcerers and medicine
men. It is nearly everywhere found that the shaman--who is often, it would
appear, at the outset a somewhat abnormal person--cultivates solitude,
fasting, and all manner of ascetic practices, thereby acquiring an unusual
aptitude to dream, to see visions, to experience hallucinations, and, it
may well be, to acquire abnormally clairvoyant powers. The shamans of the
Andamanese are called by a word signifying dreamer, and in various parts
of the world the shaman finds the first sign of his vocation in a dream.
The evocation of dreams is often the chief end of the shaman's abnormal
method of life. Thus, among the Salish Indians of British Columbia, dreams
are the proper mode of communication with guardian spirits, and 'prolonged
fasts, bathings, forced vomitings, and other exhausting bodily exercises
are the means adopted for inducing the mystic dreams and visions.'[254]
When we witness the phenomena of Shamanism in all parts of the world it
is difficult to dispute the statement of Lucretius that the gods first
appeared to men in dreams. This may be said to be literally true; even
to-day it often happens that the savage's totem, who is practically
his tutelary deity, first appears to him in a dream.[255] An influence
which seems likely to have been so persistent may well have had a large
plastic power in moulding the myths and legends which everywhere embody
the religious impulses of men. This idea was long ago suggested by Hobbes.
'From this ignorance of how to distinguish dreams and other strong
Fancies,' he wrote, 'from Vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of
the Religion of the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyrs, Fauns,
Nymphs, and the like.'[256]
Ludwig Laistner, however, appears to have been the first to argue in
detail that dreams, and especially nightmares, have played an important
part in the evolution of mythological ideas. 'If we bear in mind,' he said
in the Preface to his great work, 'how intimately poetry and religion
are connected with myth, we encounter the surprising fact that the first
germ of these highly important vital manifestations is not to be found
in any action of the waking mind, but in sleep, and that the chief and
oldest teacher of productive imagination is not to be found in the
experiences of life, but in the phantasies of dream.'[257] The pictures
men formed of the over-world and the under-world have the character of
dreams and hypnagogic visions, and this is true even within the sphere of
Christianity.[258] The invention of Hell, Maudsley has declared, would
find an adequate explanation, if such is needed, in the sufferings of some
delirious patients, while the apocalyptic vision of Heaven with which
our Christian Bible concludes, is, Beaunis remarks, nothing but a long
dream.[259] And if it is true, as Baudelaire has said, that 'every well
conformed brain carries within it two infinites: Heaven and Hell,' we may
well believe that both Heaven and Hell find their most vivid symbolism in
the spontaneous action of dreams.
In migraine and the epileptic aura visions of diminutive creatures
sometimes occur, and occasionally micropsic vision in which real objects
appear diminished. It has been suggested by Sir Lauder Brunton that we may
here have the origin of fairies, at all events for some races of fairies;
for fairies, though diminutive in some countries, as in England, are not
diminutive in others, as in Ireland. A more normal and frequent channel
of intercourse with such creatures is, however, to be found in dreams.
This is illustrated by the following dream experienced by a lady: 'I saw
a man wheeling along a cripple. Eventually the cripple became reduced to
about the size of a walnut, and the man told me that he had the power of
becoming any size and of going anywhere. To my horror he then threw him
into the water. In answer to my remonstrances that he would surely be
drowned, the man said that it was all right, the little fellow would be
home in a few hours. He then shouted out, "What time do you expect to get
back?" The tiny creature, who was paddling along in the water, then took
out a miniature watch, and replied: "About seven!"'[260] In a dream of my
own I saw little creatures, a few inches high, moving about and acting on
a diminutive stage. Though I regarded them as really living creatures, and
not marionettes, the spectacle caused me no surprise.
The dream-like character of myths, legends, and fairy tales is probably,
however, not entirely due to direct borrowing from the actual dreams of
sleep, or even from the hallucinations connected with insanity, music, or
drugs, though all these may have played their part. The greater nearness
of the primitive mind to the dream-state involves more than a tendency
to embody in waking life conceptions obtained from dreams. It means that
the waking psychic life itself is capable of acting in a way resembling
that of the sleeping psychic life, and of evolving conceptions similar to
dreams.
This point of view has in recent years been especially set forth by Freud
and his school, who argue that the laws of the formation of myths and
fairy tales are identical with the laws in accordance with which dreams
are formed.[261] It certainly seems to be true that the resemblances
between dreams and legends are not adequately explained by supposing that
the latter are moulded out of the former. We have to believe that on the
myth-making plane of thought we are really on a plane that is more nearly
parallel with that of dreaming than is our ordinary civilised thought.
We are in a world of things that are supernormally enormous or delicate,
and the emotional vibrations vastly enlarged, a world in which miracles
happen on every hand and cause us no surprise. Slaughter and destruction
take place on the heroic scale with a minimum expenditure of effort; men
are transformed into beasts and beasts into men, so that men and beasts
converse with each other.[262]
Finally, it may be observed that the atmosphere into which genius
leads us, and indeed all art, is the atmosphere of the world of dreams.
The man of genius, it is often said, has the child within him; he is,
according to the ancient dictum, which is still accepted, not without an
admixture of insanity, and he is unquestionably related to the primitive
myth-maker. All these characteristics, as we see, bring him near to the
sphere of dreaming, and we may say that the man of genius is in closer
touch with the laws of the dream world than is the ordinary civilised
man. 'It would be no great paradox,' remarks Maudsley, 'to say that the
creative work of genius was excellent dreaming, and dramatic dreaming
distracted genius.'[263] This has often been recognised by some of the
most typical men of genius. Charles Lamb, in speaking of Spenser, referred
to the analogy between dreaming and imagination. Coleridge, one of the
most essential of imaginative men, argued that the laws of drama and of
dreaming are the same.[264] Nietzsche, more recently, has developed the
affinity of dreaming to art, and in his _Birth of Tragedy_ argued that
the Appollonian or dream-like element is one of the two constituents of
tragedy. Mallarmé further believed that symbolism, which we have seen to
be fundamental in dreaming, is of the essence of art. 'To name an object,'
he said, 'is to suppress three-quarters of the enjoyment in a poem which
is made up of the happiness of gradually divining; to suggest--that is
our dream. The perfect usage of this mystery constitutes symbolism: to
evoke an object, little by little, in order to exhibit a state of the
soul, or, inversely, to choose an object, and to disengage from it a state
of the soul by a series of decipherments.'[265] It may be added that
imaginative and artistic men have always been prone to day-dreaming and
reverie, allowing their fancies to wander uncontrolled, and in so doing
they have found profit to their work.[266] From Socrates onwards, too,
men of genius have sometimes been liable to fall into states of trance,
or waking dream, in which their mission or their vision has become more
clearly manifested;[267] the hallucinatory voices which have determined
the vocation of many great teachers belong to psychic states allied to
these trances.
It is scarcely necessary to refer to the occasional creative activity
of men of genius during actual sleep or to the debts which they have
acknowledged to suggestions received in dreams.[268] This has perhaps,
indeed, been more often exaggerated than overlooked. There can be no doubt
that a great many writers and thinkers, including some of the highest
eminence, have sometimes been indebted to their dreams. We might expect as
much, for most people occasionally have more or less vivid or suggestive
new ideas in dreams,[269] and it is natural that this should occur more
often, and to a higher degree, in persons of unusual intellectual force
and activity. But it is more doubtful whether the creative activity of
normal dreams ever reaches a sufficient perfection to take, as it stands,
a very high place in a master's work. Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' has the
most notable claim to be an exception to this rule. This poem was written
by Coleridge in 1788, soon after 'Christabel,' and at a time when the poet
was suffering much from depression, and taking a great deal of laudanum.
We are entitled to assume, therefore, that the poem was composed under
the influence of opium, and not in normal sleep. It may be added that
it is difficult to believe that Coleridge could have recalled the whole
poem from either a normal or abnormal dream; as a rule, when we compose
verses in sleep we can usually recall only the last two, or at most four,
lines.[270] Moreover, there is reason to believe that the first draft of
'Kubla Khan' was not the poem as we now know it.[271]
After Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' the most important artistic composition
usually assigned to a dream is the _Trillo del Diavolo_ sonata of Tartini,
the eighteenth-century composer and violinist, who has been called the
prototype of Paganini. Tartini, who was a man of nervous and emotional
temperament, seems to have possessed real genius, and this sonata is his
principal work. But there is not the slightest ground for stating that it
was composed in a dream, and Tartini himself made no such claim.[272]
The imaginative reality of dreams is perhaps appreciated by none so
much as by those who are deprived of some of their external senses. Thus
a deaf and dumb writer of ability who has precise and highly emotional
dreams--which sometimes remind him of the atmosphere of Poe's tales, and
are occasionally in organised sequence from night to night--writes: 'The
enormous reality and vividness of these dreams is their remarkable point.
They leave a mark behind. When I come to consider I believe that much that
I have written, and many things that I have said and thought and believed,
are directly due to these dream-experiences and my ponderings over how
they came. Beneath the superficiality of our conscious mind--prim, smug,
self-satisfied, owlishly wise--there lies the vast gulf of a subconscious
personality that is dark and obscure, seldom seen or even suspected. It is
this, I think, that wells up into my dreams. It is always there--always
affecting us and modifying us, and bringing about strange and unforeseen
new things in us--but in these dreams I peer over the edge of the
conscious world into the giant-house and Utgard of the subconscious, lit
by one ray of sunset that shows the weltering deeps of it. And the vivid
sense of this is responsible for many things in my life.'[273]
Dreaming is thus one of our roads into the infinite. And it is interesting
to observe how we attain it--by limitation. The circle of our conscious
life is narrowed during sleep; it is even by a process of psychic
dissociation broken up into fragments. From that narrowed and broken-up
consciousness the outlook becomes vaster and more mysterious, full
of strange and unsuspected fascination, and the possibilities of new
experiences, just as a philosophic mite inhabiting a universe consisting
of a Stilton cheese would probably be compelled to regard everything
outside the cheese as belonging to the realm of the Infinite. In reality,
if we think of it, all our visions of the infinite are similarly
conditioned. It is only by emphasising our finiteness that we ever become
conscious of the infinite. The infinite can only be that which stretches
far beyond the boundaries of our own personality. It is the charm of
dreams that they introduce us into a new infinity. Time and space are
annihilated, gravity is suspended, and we are joyfully borne up in the
air, as it were in the arms of angels; we are brought into a deeper
communion with Nature, and in dreams a man listens to the arguments of his
dog with as little surprise as Balaam heard the reproaches of his ass.
The unexpected limitations of our dream world, the exclusion of so many
elements which are present even unconsciously in waking life, impart a
splendid freedom and ease to the intellectual operations of the sleeping
mind, and an extravagant romance, a poignant tragedy, to our emotions. 'He
has never known happiness,' said Lamb, speaking out of his own experience,
'who has never been mad.' And there are many who taste in dreams a
happiness they never know when awake.[274] In the waking moments of our
complex civilised life we are ever in a state of suspense which makes
all great conclusions impossible; the multiplicity of the facts of life,
always present to consciousness, restrains the free play of logic (except
for that happy dreamer, the mathematician), and surrounds most of our
pains and nearly all our pleasures with infinite qualifications; we are
tied down to a sober tameness. In our dreams the fetters of civilisation
are loosened, and we know the fearful joy of freedom.
In this way the Paradise of dreams has been a reservoir from which men
have always drawn consolation and sweet memory and hope, even belief, the
imagination and gratification of desires that the world restrained, the
promise and proof of the dearest and deepest aspirations.
Yet, while there is thus a real sense in which dreams produce their effect
by the retraction of the field of consciousness and the limitation of the
psychic activities which mark ordinary life, it remains true that if we
take into account the complete psychic life of dreaming, subconscious as
well as conscious, it is waking, not sleeping, life which may be said to
be limited.[275] Thus it is, as we have seen, that the most fundamental
and the most primitive forms of psychic life, as well as the rarest and
the most abnormal, all seem to have their prototype in the vast world of
dreams. Sleep, Vaschide has said, is not, as Homer thought, the brother of
Death, but of Life, and, it may be added, the elder brother.
'We dream, see visions, converse with chimæras,' said Joseph Glanvill, the
seventeenth-century philosopher; 'the one half of our life is a romance,
a fiction.' And what of the other half? Pepys tells us how another
distinguished man of the same century, Sir William Petty, 'proposed it as
a thing that is truly questionable whether there really be any difference
between waking and dreaming.'[276] Our dreams are said to be delusions,
constituted in much the same way as the delusion of the insane. But, says
Godfernaux, 'all life is a series of systematised delusions, more or less
durable.' Men weary of too much living have sometimes found consolation
in this likeness of the world of dreams to the world of life. 'When thou
hast roused thyself from sleep thou hast perceived that they were only
dreams which troubled thee,' wrote the Imperial Stoic to himself in his
_Meditations;_ 'now in thy waking hours look at these things about thee as
thou didst look at those dreams.' Dreams are true while they last. Can we,
at the best, say more of life?
* * * * *
We set out to study as carefully as possible the small field of dream
consciousness belonging to a few persons, not, it may be, abnormal, of
whom it was possible to speak with some assurance. The great naturalist,
Linnæus, once said that he could spend a lifetime in studying as much of
the earth as he could cover with his hand. However small the patch we
investigate, it will lead us back to the sun at last. There is nothing
too minute or too trivial. I have often remembered with a pang, how, long
years ago, I once gave pain by saying, with the arrogance of boyhood, that
it was foolish to tell one's dreams. I have done penance for that remark
since. 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin,' said the wise philosopher of the
eighteenth century. I have cultivated, so far as I care to, my garden of
dreams, and it scarcely seems to me that it is a large garden. Yet every
path of it, I sometimes think, might lead at last to the heart of the
universe.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 243: Certain phases of waking psychic life are, however, closely
related to dreaming. This is obviously the case as regards day-dreaming or
reverie. (See _e.g._ Janet, _Névroses et Idées Fixes_, vol. i. pp. 390-6.)
It would also appear that wit is the result of a process analogous to that
fusion of incompatible elements which we have found to prevail in dreams.
Our dreams are sometimes full of usually ineffective wit; I could easily
quote dreams in illustration. (Freud has, from his point of view, studied
the analogy between wit and dreaming in _Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum
Unbewussten_.)]
[Footnote 244: In more recent times Moreau of Tours, especially,
argued (_Du Haschich et de l'Aliénation Mentale_, 1845) that
_haschisch_-intoxication is insanity, and that insanity is a waking dream.]
[Footnote 245: In insane subjects a dream not uncommonly forms the
starting point of a delusion, and many illustrative examples could be
brought forward.]
[Footnote 246: Marro, _La Pubertà_, pp. 286-92.]
[Footnote 247: Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, p. 13. Elsewhere (p. 135) Freud
remarks: 'The deeper we go in the analysis of dreams the more frequently
we come across traces of childish experience which form a latent source
of dreams.' The same point had been previously emphasised by Sully, 'The
Dream as a Revelation,' _Fortnightly Review_, March 1893.]
[Footnote 248: C. M. Giessler, _Die Physiologischen Beziehungen der
Traumvorgänge_, ch. iv.]
[Footnote 249: Jewell, who gives illustrations in evidence, concludes
(_American Journal of Psychology_, January 1905, pp. 25-8) that 'the
confusion of dreams with real life is almost universal with children, and
quite common among adolescents and adults.']
[Footnote 250: Hans Gross, the distinguished criminologist, refers
(_Kriminalpsychologie_, p. 672) to two cases of children who brought
criminal charges which were apparently based on dreams. Gross mentions
that this may often be suspected when the child says nothing at the time,
and shows no excitement or depression until a day or two after the date of
the alleged event. For confusion of dream with reality, see also Gross,
_Gesammelte Kriminalistische Aufsätze_, vol. ii. p. 174.]
[Footnote 251: Thus Rachilde (Mme. Vallette) writes that as a young
girl her dreams were so vivid that 'I would often ask myself if I had
not an existence in two forms: my waking personality and my dreaming
personality. Sometimes I was deceived and imagined that my real life was
dreams.' She instinctively began to write at the age of twelve, and it
was by completing her dreams that she became a novelist (Chabaneix, _Le
Subconscient_, p. 49). George Sand's early day-dreams, of which she gives
so interesting an account (_Histoire de ma Vie_, part III. ch. viii),
developed around the central figure of Corambé, first seen in a real
dream. Corambé was, at the same time, a divine being, to whom she erected
an altar. So that of the child it may be said, as Lucretius said of
primitive man, that the gods first appear in dreams.]
[Footnote 252: 'In sleep,' says Sully (_Fortnightly Review_, March 1893),
'we have a reversion to a more primitive type of experience.' 'Dreaming,'
says Jastrow (_The Subconscious_, p. 219), 'may be viewed as a reversion
to a more primitive type of thought.']
[Footnote 253: This tendency is notably represented by Durkheim ('Origines
de la Pensée Religieuse,' _Revue Philosophique_, January 1909) and Crawley
(_The Idea of the Soul_, 1909).]
[Footnote 254: Hill Tout, _Journal_, Anthropological Institute,
January-June 1905, p. 143; Sidney Hartland, in his presidential address
to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, in 1906,
emphasised the significance of dreams in Shamanism, and Sir Everard im
Thurn, in his _Among the Indians of Guiana_, shows how practically real
are dreams to the savage mind.]
[Footnote 255: See, _e. g_., as regards the American Indians, Thornton
Parker in the _Open Court_, May 1901.]
[Footnote 256: _Leviathan_, part I. ch. ii.]
[Footnote 257: Laistner, _Das Rätsel der Sphinx_, 1889, vol. 1. p.
xiii. While Laistner was chiefly concerned with the exploration of the
religious myths, he pointed out that epics and fairy-tales (Amor and
Psyche, the stories of the Nibelung and Baldur, etc.) may be similarly
explained. It seems probable that his investigations received a stimulus
in the earlier experiments of J. Boerner (_Das Alpdrücken_, 1855) on the
production of nightmare. Laistner has had many followers, notable C. Ruths
(_Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome_, 1898), who argues (pp.
415-46) that the old Greek myths had their chief root in dream phenomena,
in delirium, and in the visions aroused in some persons by hearing music,
while he considers that many fabulous monsters and dragons have arisen
from the combinations seen in dreams. We know that the Greeks, who were
such great myth-makers, much occupied themselves in lying in wait for
dreams, and in oneiromancy and necromancy (_e.g._, Bouché-Leclercq,
_Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité_, vol. 1. Bk. ii. ch. i. pp.
277-329). In this way alone it is doubtless true that, as Jewell says,
'dreams have had a great effect upon the history of the world.']
[Footnote 258: For evidence regarding the high esteem in which many of the
greatest Greek and Latin Fathers held dreams as divine revelations, see
_e.g._, Sully, Art. 'Dreams,' _Encyclopædia Britannica_.]
[Footnote 259: There is still a natural tendency in the uninstructed mind
to identify spontaneous visual phenomena with Heaven. 'When I gets to
bed,' said an aged and superannuated dustman to Vanderkiste (_The Dens of
London_, p. 14), 'I says my prayers, and I puts my hands afore my eyes--so
[covering his face with his hands]; well, I sees such beautiful things,
sparkles like, all afloating about, and I wished to ax yer, sir, if that
ain't a something of Heaven, sir.']
[Footnote 260: This was the only traceable element in the dream. The
dreamer was accustomed to look at her watch on awaking in the morning,
and, if it was seven or later, not to go to sleep again.]
[Footnote 261: Freud, 'Der Dichter und das Phantasieren' (1908), in second
series of his _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre;_ K. Abraham,
_Traum und Mythus_ (1909); and O. Rank, _Der Mythus von der Geburt
des Helden_ (1909), both published in the _Schriften zur angewandten
Seelenkunde_, edited by Freud.]
[Footnote 262: Synesius refers to conversations with sheep in dreams,
and he was probably the first to suggest that such dream phenomena may
be the origin of fables in which animals speak. The dog and the cat,
as we should expect, seem most frequently to speak in the dreams of
civilised people. Thus I dreamed that I had a conversation with a cat who
spoke with fair clearness and sense, though the whole of her sentences
were not intelligible. I was not surprised at this relative lack of
intelligibility, but neither was I surprised at her speaking at all. I
have also encountered a talking parrot whose speech was more relevant than
that of most talking parrots; this somewhat surprised me. In legends a
wider range of animals are able to speak, no doubt because the primitive
legend-makers were familiar with a wider range of animal life. How natural
it is to the uninstructed mind to treat animals like human beings is well
shown by the experiences of Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, who writes
(_The World I Live in_, p. 147): 'After my education began, the world
which came within my reach was all alive.... It was two years before I
could be made to believe that my dogs did not understand what I said, and
I always apologised to them when I ran into or stepped on them.']
[Footnote 263: _Journal of Mental Science_, January 1909, p. 16.]
[Footnote 264: 'Images and thoughts,' he said, 'possess a power in and
of themselves independent of that act of the judgment or understanding
by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality correspondent to
them. Such is the ordinary state of the mind in dreams.... Add to this
a voluntary lending of the will to this suspension of one of its own
operations, and you have the true theory of stage illusion.']
[Footnote 265: Quoted by Paul Delior, _Remy de Gourmont et son Œuvre_, p.
14.]
[Footnote 266: Thus even Leonardo da Vinci (Solmi, _Frammenti_, p. 285)
acknowledged the benefit which he had gained by gazing at clouds or at
mud-bespattered walls; and recommended the practice to other artists,
for thereby, he says, they will receive suggestions for landscapes,
battlepieces, 'and infinite things,' which they may bring to perfection.
He compared this to the possibility of hearing words in the sounds of
bells. Some other distinguished artists have adopted somewhat similar
practices which are fundamentally the child's habit of seeing pictures in
the fire.]
[Footnote 267: Thus Tennyson (_Memoir_, by his son, vol. i. p. 320) was
subject from boyhood to a kind of waking trance. 'This has generally
come upon me,' he wrote, 'through repeating my own name two or three
times to myself silently.' (It thus seems to have been a sort of
auto-hypnotisation.) In this state, individuality seemed to dissolve, he
said, and he found in it a proof that the extinction of personality by
death would not involve loss of life, but rather a fuller life. We are so
easily convinced in these matters!]
[Footnote 268: See _e.g._, De Manacéïne, _Sleep_, p. 314; Arturo Morselli,
'Dei Sogni nei Genii,' _La Cultura_, 1899.]
[Footnote 269: Thus I once planned in a dream a paper on the Progress of
Psychology, which seemed to me on awakening to present a quite workable
though not notably brilliant scheme.]
[Footnote 270: Sante de Sanctis, however (_I Sogni_, p. 369), reproduces a
dream poem of twelve lines.]
[Footnote 271: See note in J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge's
_Poetical Works_, p. 592.]
[Footnote 272: Tartini composed the sonata--a noble and beautiful work
which still survives--at the age of twenty-one. In old age he told Lalande
the astronomer (as the latter relates in his _Voyage d'un Français en
Italie_, 1765, vol. ix. p. 55) that he had had a dream in which he sold
his soul to the Devil, and it occurred to him in his dream to hand his
fiddle to the Devil to see what he could do with it. 'But how great was
my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of
such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flights of my imagination.
I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away, and
I awoke. Seizing my violin I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But
it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the "Devil's Sonata," was the
best I ever wrote, but how far below the one I had heard in my dream!'
The dream, it will be seen, was of a fairly common type, and to Tartini's
excitable temperament it served as a stimulus to his finest energies.
But the real 'Devil's Sonata' was hopelessly lost. (See the articles on
Tartini in Fetis, _Biographic Universelle des Musiciens_, and Grove's
_Dictionary of Music and Musicians_.)]
[Footnote 273: Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, has written some
interesting chapters on her dreams in _The World I Live in_. For the
most part it would seem that the dream life of the blind (which has been
studied by, among others, Jastrow, _Fact and Fable in Psychology_, pp. 337
_et seq._) is not usually rich or vivid.]
[Footnote 274: See _e.g._, Marie de Manacéïne, _Sleep_, p. 313.]
[Footnote 275: This aspect of dreaming has been set forth by Bergson
(_Revue Philosophique_, December 1908, p. 574). 'The dream state,' he
remarks, 'is the substratum of our normal state. Nothing is added in
waking life; on the contrary, waking life is obtained by the limitation,
concentration, and tension of that diffuse psychological life which is the
life of dreaming. The perception and the memory which we find in dreaming
are, in a sense, more natural than those of waking life: consciousness is
then amused in perceiving for the sake of perceiving, and in remembering
for the sake of remembering, without care for life, that is to say for
the accomplishment of actions. To be awake is to eliminate, to choose, to
concentrate the totality of the diffused life of dreaming to a point, to a
practical problem. To be awake is to will; cease to will, detach yourself
from life, become disinterested: in so doing you pass from the waking ego
to the dreaming ego, which is less _tense_, but more _extended_ than the
other.']
[Footnote 276: Pepys, _Diary_, 2nd April 1664.]
INDEX
Abraham, K., 65, 272.
After-images, 26.
Albès, 246, 248, 252, 256.
Alcohol, 250.
Aliotta, 102.
Allin, 249.
Analogy in dreams, 41.
Andamanese shamans, 268.
Anaesthesia from drugs, 101.
Andrews, Grace, 84, 108.
Animism and dreaming, 210, 266.
Anjel, 247, 257.
Antoninus, 281.
Apperception in dreams, 68, 259.
Apraxia, 97.
Aristotle, 17, 31, 65, 92.
Arnaud, 255.
Artemidorus of Daldi, 157.
Atavistic dreams, alleged, 133.
Attention in dreams, 24 _et seq.;_ 67, 219, 229, 252.
Auditory element in dreams, 77 _et seq._
Augustine, St., 239.
Aural origin of some dreams, alleged, 139.
Autoscopy, 163.
Bach, 153.
Baldwin, 2, 4, 68.
Ballet, G., 253.
Bancroft, H. H., 37.
Baudelaire, 152.
Beaunis, 14, 33, 72, 132, 145, 203, 211, 224, 270.
Beddoes, T., 199.
Benson, Archbishop, 224.
Bergson, 137, 255 _et seq._, 280.
Binet, 56, 57, 58, 201.
Binns, 246.
Binswanger, L., 144.
Birds in dreams, 37.
Bladder as a stimulant to dreams, 88, 96, 163, 164.
Bleuler, 150, 154.
Blind, dreams of the, 278.
Blood, dreams of, 183.
Bode, 2.
Boerner, J., 269.
Bolton, F. E., 133.
Bolton, J., 69.
Bonatelli, 247.
Bonne, 244.
Bouché-Leclercq, 270.
Bourget, 241.
Bradley, F. H., 97.
Bramwell, J. M., 188.
Brill, 165.
Brodie, Sir B., 13.
Brown, Horatio, 30, 108.
Browning, 146.
Brunton, Sir Lauder, 270.
Buccola, 244.
Buchan, 90.
Burnham, 230, 242.
Cabanis, 13.
Calkins, 17.
Capuana, 92.
Cardiac stimuli of dreams, 88, 90, 136, 140.
Carpenter, W., 14.
Cerebral light, 27.
Cervantes, 129.
Chabaneix, 130, 143, 206, 265.
Child, psychic state of, 189, 264.
Childhood, hypnogogic hallucinations of, 28 _et seq._, 232.
Chloroform anaesthesia compared to dreaming, 16, 32, 34, 135, 137.
Christina the Wonderful, 144.
Cicero, 129.
Claparède, 171, 174.
Clarke, E. H., 30, 119.
Classification of dreams, 17, 71.
Clavière, 150, 215, 216.
Cleland, 155.
Colegrove, 234.
Coleridge, 273, 275.
Colour in dreams, 33.
Colour associations, 149.
Coloured hearing, 150.
Comar, 163.
Confusion in dreams, 36 _et seq._
Consciousness, definition of, 2.
Contrast dreams, 175, 208.
Cooley, 189.
Corning, L., 79.
Crawley, 266.
Crichton-Browne, 108.
Criminals, dreams of, 120.
Curnock, N., 228.
Dauriac, 79, 152.
Day-dreams, 167, 244, 261, 274.
Dead, dreams of the, 194 _et seq._
Delacroix, 60.
Delage, 31.
Delbœuf, 5, 23.
Delior, 274.
Descartes, 13.
Dickens, 239.
Dircks, H., 2.
Dissociation in dreams, 66, 148, 185, 195, 221.
Dissolving view, dreams compared to, 36, 47.
Dogs, sleep of, 15, 101.
Dramatic element in dreams, 180 _et seq._
Dreaming, alleged dreams of, 65.
Dreamless sleep, 14.
Dreamy state, 239.
Dromard, 248, 255.
Drowning, hallucinations of the, 145, 214.
Dugas, 240, 248, 252, 253.
Duplex brain, theory of, 244.
Durkheim, 266.
Dying, hallucinations of the, 145, 161.
Ecstasy, Hysterical, 144.
Egger, 213, 216.
Ellis, Havelock, 28, 37, 165, 168, 179, 191, 197.
Emotion in dreams, 94 _et seq._
Epilepsy and pseudo-reminiscence, 239, 245.
Epileptic dreams, 139.
Erotic dreams, 88, 126, 177.
Erotic symbolism, 65, 179.
Extrospection, 172.
Fairies and dreams, 270.
Falling, dreams of, 129 _et seq._
False recognition in dreams, 230 _et seq._
Fear in dreams, 121, 174.
Féré, 92, 139, 156, 163, 248.
Ferenczi, 168.
Ferrero, 151.
Fish, dreams of, 163.
Floating, dreams of, 143.
Flournoy, 174, 187.
Flying, dreams of, 129 _et seq._
Forman, Simon, 30.
Foucault, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 17, 22, 24, 174, 187, 195, 202, 215, 216,
224, 234.
Fouillée, 252, 255.
Freud, 52, 56, 65, 89, 99, 119, 120, 127, 133, 164 _et seq._, 210,
216, 217, 244, 262, 264, 272.
Fusion of dream imagery, 36 _et seq._
Galton, Sir F., 149.
Gassendi, 65, 202.
Genius and dreaming, 273.
Giessler, 22, 72, 174, 187, 189, 264.
Gissing, 170.
Glanvill, J., 280.
Glossolalia, 225.
Goblot, 6, 32, 154.
Godfernaux, 280.
Gods first appeared in dreams, 268.
Goethe, 70, 208.
Goncourt, E. de, 203.
Goncourt, J. de, 142.
Goron, 140.
Gowers, Sir W. R., 139, 239.
Grasset, 240, 243.
Greenwood, F., 66, 113, 163, 228.
Griesinger, 208.
Gross, Hans, 265.
Gruithuisen, 32.
Gustatory dreams, 85.
Guthrie, 76, 108, 138.
Guyon, E., 29, 31.
Hall, Stanley, 29, 65, 133, 174, 189.
Hallam, Florence, 74.
Hallucinations, 26, 159, 182, 188, 235, 271.
Hammond, 14, 65, 92, 104.
Hartland, E. S., 268.
Haschisch, 98, 215, 262.
Haskovec, 246.
Hawthorne, 228.
Head, H., 34, 121.
Headache and dreams, 34, 91, 116, 177.
Hearn, Lafcadio, 108, 133, 138, 209.
Heaven and dreams, 270.
Heine, 152.
Hell and dreams, 270.
Hermes, 129.
Herodotus, 89.
Herrick, C. L., 107.
Hervey de Saint-Denis, 159.
Heymans, 240, 248, 255.
Hilprecht, 220.
Hinton, James, 63.
Hippocrates, 13.
Hobbes, 31, 109, 269.
Holland, Sir H., 13.
Howells, W. D., 121.
Hutchinson, H., 132, 138.
Hypermnesia, 218 _et seq._
Hypnagogic hallucinations, 15, 28 _et seq._, 67, 141, 160, 181, 215,
232, 265.
Hypnagogic paramnesia, 232 _et seq._
Hypnopompic state, 238.
Hypnotism, 79, 231, 232, 234.
Hyslop, J. H., 27.
Hysteria, 67, 143, 162, 168, 187, 217, 219.
Icarus, 130, 138.
Ida of Louvain, St., 144.
Imagery in dreams, 21 _et seq._, 64, 104, 120.
Insane, hallucinations of, 34, 271.
Insanity compared to dreaming, 48, 69, 105, 170, 188, 231, 262
_et seq._
Isserlin, 165.
Jackson, Hughlings, 239, 240, 262.
James-Lange theory of emotion, 109.
Janet, 67, 144, 187, 229, 254, 255, 261.
Jastrow, J., 14, 64, 96, 220, 247, 262, 266, 278.
Jerome, St., 129.
Jessin, 242.
Jesus, 147, 210.
Jewell, 92, 99, 138, 140, 199, 211, 228, 265, 270.
Johnson, Dr., 185.
Joseph of Cupertino, St., 144.
Jones, Elmer, 32, 34, 135, 137.
Jones, Ernest, 165.
Jung, C. J., 89.
Kaleidoscope, dream process compared to, 21, 28.
Keller, Helen, 273, 278.
Kiernan, 92, 239.
Kingsford, Anna, 119, 247.
Kraepelin, 48, 230.
Krauss, F. S., 157.
Laistner, 269.
Lalande, 240, 247, 255.
Lalanne, 105.
Lamb, C., 273.
Languages remembered In sleep, 225.
Lapie, 243.
Laud, 176.
Laurentius, 17, 262.
Legends, symbolism in, 156, 209.
Leibnitz, 13.
Léon-Kindberg, 252, 255.
Leroy, 26, 60, 161, 239, 247.
Lessing, 14.
Levitation, 144.
Liepmann, 97, 170.
Lilliputian hallucinations, 161, 270.
Little, Graham, 108.
Linnæus, 281.
Locke, 14.
Logic of dreams, 5 _et seq._, 56 _et seq._
Logorrhœa, 170.
Lombard, E., 225.
Lombroso, 208.
Lorrain, Jacques le, 105.
Löwenfeld, 165.
Lubbock, 210.
Lucretius, 15, 129, 238, 268.
Macario, 92.
Macaulay, Lord, 221.
MacDougall, R., 79, 107, 138, 208, 229.
Macnish, 14.
Maeder, 156, 160, 164, 166.
Magnification of dream imagery, 104 _et seq._, 135, 160.
Maine de Biran, 26, 94.
Maitland, E., 119, 247.
Mallarmé, 274.
Manacéïne, Marie de, 119, 163, 187, 199, 229, 232, 275, 279.
Marillier, 251.
Marro, 263.
Marshall, H. R., 57.
Masselon, 92.
Maudsley, 119, 270, 273.
Maurier, G. du, 206.
Maury, 31, 32, 47, 186, 203, 213.
Memory and dreams, 8 _et seq._, 212 _et seq._
Mercier, C., 2, 110.
Méré, 243.
Mescal, 27, 28.
Metamorphosis of dream imagery, 22.
Metaphysics and dreams, 63.
Metchnikoff, 174.
Meunier, R., 84, 92, 108.
Migraine, 34, 270.
Millet, J., 150.
Miner, J. B., 138, 152.
Mitchell, Sir A., 13.
Mitchell, Weir, 32.
Moll, 234.
Monboddo, Lord, 158, 226.
Monroe, W. S., 74, 83.
Moral attitude in dreaming, 118 _et seq._
Moreau of Tours, 262.
Morphia dreams, 140.
Morselli, A., 275.
Mosso, 136.
Mourre, Baron, 24.
Movement in dreams, 20, 45, 96, 97 _et seq._
Movement in sleep, 15.
Müller, J., 32.
Murder, dreams of, 111 _et seq._, 142.
Murray, Elsie, 110.
Music, symbolism of, 151.
Music in dreams, 77 _et seq._
Myers, 255.
Myth-making and dreaming, 210, 269 _et seq._
Näcke, 13, 119, 175, 202, 208, 236.
Nayrac, 68.
Neologisms in dreams, 48.
Neurasthenia, 27.
Newbold, 220.
Newman, E., 153.
Nietzsche, 274.
Nightmare, 99, 181.
Night-terrors, 30, 96, 108.
Nitrous oxide anaesthesia, 101, 135.
Nocturnal enuresis, 90.
Number-forms, 149.
Olfactory dreams, 83.
Oneiromancy, 156, 270.
Opium visions, 28, 140.
Orpheus, 210.
Paramnesia, 230 _et seq._
Paraphasia, 48.
Parish, E., 67, 184, 235.
Parker, Thornton, 269.
Partridge, G. E., 29.
Paul, St., 191.
Pepys, 202, 280.
Periodicity in memory, 224.
Personality in dreams, division of, 187.
Peter, St., 146.
Petty, Sir W., 280.
Philostratus, 157.
Pick, 97.
Piderit, 155.
Piéron, 92, 145, 159, 162, 215, 216, 252, 255.
Pirro, 153.
Pliny the Elder, 157.
Prel, Carl du, 221.
Premonitory dreams, 91, 163.
Presentative dreams, 17, 71, 166.
Primitive psychic slate, 266.
Prince, Morton, 174, 187.
Prodromic dreams, 91, 157, 163.
Prophetic dreams, 93, 157.
Pseudo-reminiscence in dreams, 230 _et seq._
Psychasthenia, 255.
Punning in dreams, 51.
Purcell, 153.
Pury, Jean de, 251.
Pythagoras, 242.
Quincey, De, 28, 30.
Rachilde, 143, 265.
Raffaelli, 130.
Railway travelling, dreams of, 81, 119.
Rank, O., 272.
Rapidity of dreams, alleged, 213 _et seq._
Raymond, 229.
Reasoning in dreams, 56 _et seq._
Renan, 203.
Representative dreams, 17, 71, 167.
Respiratory stimuli to dreams, 134 _et seq._
Retinal element in dreams, 23, 26, 31, 183.
Rhythm, 138.
Ribot, 25, 26, 79, 85, 242, 252, 255.
Rochas, Colonel de, 79, 131, 144.
Rosenbach, 246.
Ruths, C., 79, 129, 211, 269.
Sageret, 41.
Saints, alleged levitation of, 144.
Salish Indians, 210, 268.
Sand, George, 239, 265.
Sante de Sanctis, 92, 120, 168, 199, 208, 276.
Savage, psychic state of, 190, 266.
Savage, G. H., 33.
Schaaffhausen, 13.
Scherner, 88, 135, 159, 163, 164.
School, dreams of return to, 83, 195.
Schopenhauer, 175.
Schroeder, T., 191.
Schweitzer, 153.
Scripture, E. W., 27.
Secondary self in dreams, 187.
Segre, 96.
Sensory impressions in sleep, 71 _et seq._
Shamans, 268.
Shelley, 241.
Silberer, 141.
Simon, Max, 91.
Skin sensations in dreams, 74 _et seq._, 117, 135, 137.
Sleep, dreamless, 14.
Smith, Hélène, 187.
Snakes, dreams of, 65.
Sollier, 144, 163, 188.
Solmi, 274.
Somnambulism, 95.
Spencer, Herbert, 130, 210.
Spontaneous character of dream imagery, 24.
Ssikorski, 145.
Stekel, 168.
Stewart, Dugald, 104.
Stoddart, 34, 221.
Stomach on dreams, influence of, 108 _et seq._
Storms as cause of dreams, 81.
Stout, 2, 4, 68, 98, 195.
Stevenson, R. L., 217.
Stretton, 2.
Strümpell, 14, 135.
Suarez de Mendoza, 150.
Subconscious, definition of, 4.
Subconsciousness in dreams, 23, 63.
Suggestibility in dreams, 230.
Sully, 17, 234, 242, 244, 264, 266, 270.
Sunshine in dreams, 2.
Sutton, Bland, 133.
Swedenborg, 239.
Swoboda, 224.
Syllogistic arrangement of dreams, 58.
Symbolism in dreams, 81, 91, 109, 141, 148 _et seq._
Symonds, J. A., 30, 108.
Synaesthesias, 149.
Synesius, 65, 129, 157, 227, 272.
Tactile sensations in dreams, 74 _et seq._, 85, 137.
Tannery, 5, 6, 66, 244.
Tartini, 276.
Taste dreams, 85.
Taylor, S., 239.
Therapeutic use of music during sleep, 79, 84.
Theresa, St., 144.
Thurn, Sir E. im, 268.
Tennyson, 275.
Time in dreams, estimate of, 250.
Tissié, 17, 72, 250.
Titchener, 85.
Tobolowska, 60, 216.
Toothache as a cause of dreams, 116.
Tout, Hill, 268.
Tuke, Hack, 235.
Turner, J., 231.
Turner, W. A., 239.
Tylor, 210, 266.
Urbantschitsch, 155.
Vanderkiste, 270.
Vaschide, 13, 92, 159, 162, 172, 199, 280.
Verbal transformations in dreams, 47.
Vesical dreams, 88, 96, 163, 164.
Vesme, C. de, 131.
Vigilambulism, 144.
Vinci, L. da, 274.
Visceral stimuli of dreams, 87 _et seq._, 121, 164.
Vision in dreams, 20.
Visual stimuli of dreams, 86, 108 _et seq._
Vold, Mourly, 32.
Volkelt, 89.
Vurpas, 172.
Wagner, 153, 183.
Weed, Sarah, 74.
Weygandt, 14, 72, 199.
Wigan, 244, 245.
Wiggam, 176, 208.
Wilks, Sir S., 214.
Wilson, A., 187.
Winslow, Forbes, 92.
Wish-dreams, 89, 165 _et seq._
Wordsworth, 215.
Wright, H., 96.
Wundt, 14, 23, 57, 72, 135, 136, 195, 210.
Zenoglossia, 225.
Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD.
at the Edinburgh University Press
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| Transcriber notes: |
| |
| P. 189. 'given him posion', changed 'posion' to 'poison'. |
| P. 203. Added footnote [184] link. |
| P. 214. 'concommitants' changed to 'concomitants'. |
| P. 215. 'alarum clock', changed 'alarum' to 'alarm'. |
| P. 215. 'hashisch' changed to 'hashish'. |
| P. 231. Footnote 210, 'alcholic' changed to 'alcoholic'. |
| P. 249. 'hue to' changed to 'due to'. |
| Fixed various punctuation |
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