The Interpretation of Dreams / Толкование сновидений

The transformation of an idea into an hallucination is not the only deviation of the dream from a waking thought which perhaps corresponds to it. From these pictures the dream forms a situation, it presents something in the present, it dramatises an idea, as Spitta⁶⁴ (p. 145) puts it.^[8] But the characteristic of this side of the dream life becomes complete only when it is remembered that while dreaming we do not – as a rule; the exceptions require a special explanation – imagine that we are thinking, but that we are living through an experience, i. e., we accept the hallucination with full belief. The criticism that this has not been experienced but only thought in a peculiar manner – dreamt – comes to us only on awakening. This character distinguishes the genuine sleeping dream from day dreaming, which is never confused with reality. The characteristics of the dream life thus far considered have been summed up by Burdach⁸ (p. 476) in the following sentences: “As characteristic features of the dream we may add (a) that the subjective activity of our mind appears as objective, inasmuch as our faculty of perception perceives the products of phantasy as if they were sensory activities… (b) sleep abrogates one̕s self-command, hence falling asleep necessitates a certain amount of passivity… The slumber pictures are conditioned by the relaxation of one̕s self-command.”

It is a question now of attempting to explain the credulity of the mind in reference to the dream hallucinations, which can only appear after the suspension of a certain arbitrary activity. Strümpell⁶⁶ asserts that the mind behaves in this respect correctly, and in conformity with its mechanism. The dream elements are by no means mere presentations, but true and real experiences of the mind, similar to those that appear in the waking state as a result of the senses (p. 34). Whereas in the waking state the mind represents and thinks in word pictures and language, in the dream it represents and thinks in real tangible pictures (p. 35). Besides, the dream manifests a consciousness of space by transferring the sensations and pictures, just as in the waking state, into an outer space (p. 36). It must therefore be admitted that the mind in the dream is in the same relation to its pictures and perceptions as in the waking state (p. 43). If, however, it is thereby led astray, this is due to the fact that it lacks in sleep the criticism which alone can distinguish between the sensory perceptions emanating from within or from without. It cannot subject its pictures to the tests which alone can prove their objective reality. It furthermore neglects to differentiate between pictures that are arbitrarily interchanged and others where there is no free choice. It errs because it cannot apply to its content the law of causality (p. 58). In brief, its alienation from the outer world contains also the reason for its belief in the subjective dream world.

Delbœuf¹⁶ reaches the same conclusion through a somewhat different line of argument. We give to the dream pictures the credence of reality because in sleep we have no other impressions to compare them with, because we are cut off from the outer world. But it is not perhaps because we are unable to make tests in our sleep, that we believe in the truth of our hallucinations. The dream may delude us with all these tests, it may make us believe that we may touch the rose that we see in the dream, and still we only dream. According to Delbœuf there is no valid criterion to show whether something is a dream or a conscious reality, except – and that only in practical generality – the fact of awakening. “I declare delusional everything that is experienced between the period of falling asleep and awakening, if I notice on awakening that I lie in my bed undressed” (p. 84). “I have considered the dream pictures real during sleep in consequence of the mental habit, which cannot be put to sleep, of perceiving an outer world with which I can contrast my ego.”^[9]

As the deviation from the outer world is taken as the stamp for the most striking characteristics of the dream, it will be worth while mentioning some ingenious observations of old Burdach8 which will throw light on the relation of the sleeping mind to the outer world and at the same time serve to prevent us from over-estimating the above deductions. “Sleep results only under the condition,” says Burdach, “that the mind is not excited by sensory stimuli… but it is not the lack of sensory stimuli that conditions sleep, but rather a lack of interest for the same; some sensory impressions are even necessary in so far as they serve to calm the mind; thus the miller can fall asleep only when he hears the rattling of his mill, and he who finds it necessary to burn a light at night, as a matter of precaution, cannot fall asleep in the dark” (p. 457).

“The psyche isolates itself during sleep from the outer world, and withdraws from the periphery… Nevertheless, the connection is not entirely interrupted; if one did not hear and feel even during sleep, but only after awakening, he would certainly never awake. The continuance of sensation is even more plainly shown by the fact that we are not always awakened by the mere sensory force of the impression, but by the psychic relation of the same; an indifferent word does not arouse the sleeper, but if called by name he awakens…: hence the psyche differentiates sensations during sleep… It is for this reason that we may be awakened by the lack of a sensory stimulus if it relates to the presentation of an important thing; thus one awakens when the light is extinguished, and the miller when the mill comes to a standstill; that is, the awakening is due to the cessation of a sensory activity, which presupposes that it has been perceived, and that it has not disturbed the mind, being indifferent or rather gratifying” (p. 460, etc.).

If we are willing to disregard these objections, which are not to be taken lightly, we still must admit that the qualities of the dream life thus far considered, which originate by withdrawing from the outer world, cannot fully explain the strangeness of the dream. For otherwise it would be possible to change back the hallucinations of the dream into presentations and the situations of the dream into thoughts, and thus to perform the task of dream interpretation. Now this is what we do when we reproduce the dream from memory after awakening, and whether we are fully or only partially successful in this back translation the dream still retains its mysteriousness undiminished.

Furthermore all the authors assume unhesitatingly that still other more far-reaching alterations take place in the presentation material of waking life. One of them, Strümpell,⁶⁶ expresses himself as follows (p. 17): “With the cessation of the objectively active outlook and of the normal consciousness, the psyche loses the foundation in which were rooted the feelings, desires, interests, and actions. Those psychic states, feelings, interests, estimates which cling in the waking state to the memory pictures also succumb to… an obscure pressure, in consequence of which their connection with the pictures becomes severed; the perception pictures of things, persons, localities, events, and actions of the waking state are singly very abundantly reproduced, but none of these brings along its psychic value. The latter is removed from them, and hence they float about in the mind dependent upon their own resources…”

This deprivation the picture suffers of its psychic value, which again goes back to the derivation from the outer world, is according to Strümpell mainly responsible for the impression of strangeness with which the dream is confronted in our memory.

We have heard that even falling asleep carries with it the abandonment of one of the psychic activities – namely, the voluntary conduct of the presentation course. Thus the supposition, suggested also by other grounds, obtrudes itself, that the sleeping state may extend its influence also over the psychic functions. One or the other of these functions is perhaps entirely suspended; whether the remaining ones continue to work undisturbed, whether they can furnish normal work under the circumstances, is the next question. The idea occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may be explained through the inferior psychic activity during the sleeping state, but now comes the impression made by the dream upon our waking judgment which is contrary to such a conception. The dream is disconnected, it unites without hesitation the worst contradictions, it allows impossibilities, it disregards our authoritative knowledge from the day, and evinces ethical and moral dulness. He who would behave in the waking state as the dream does in its situations would be considered insane. He who in the waking state would speak in such manner or report such things as occur in the dream content, would impress us as confused and weak-minded. Thus we believe that we are only finding words for the fact when we place but little value on the psychic activity in the dream, and especially when we declare that the higher intellectual activities are suspended or at least much impaired in the dream.

With unusual unanimity – the exceptions will be dealt with elsewhere – the authors have pronounced their judgments on the dream – such judgments as lead immediately to a definite theory or explanation of the dream life. It is time that I should supplement the résumé which I have just given with a collection of the utterances of different authors – philosophers and physicians – on the psychological character of the dream.

According to Lemoine,⁴² the incoherence of the dream picture is the only essential character of the dream.

Maury⁴⁸ agrees with him; he says (p. 163): “II n̕y a pas des rêves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque incohérence, quelque anachronisme, quelque absurdité.”

According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta,⁶⁴ the dream lacks all objective and comprehensible connection.

Dugas¹⁹ says: “Le rêve, c̕est l̕anarchie psychique, affective et mentale, c̕est le jeu des fonctions livrées à ellesmêmes et s̕exerçant sans contrôle et sans but; dans le rêve l̕esprit est un automate spirituel.”

“The relaxation, solution, and confusion of the presentation life which is held together through the logical force of the central ego” is conceded even by Volkelt⁷² (p. 14), according to whose theory the psychic activity during sleep seems in no way aimless.

The absurdity of the presentation connections appearing in the dream can hardly be more strongly condemned than it was by Cicero (De Divin. II.): “Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare.”

Fechner⁵² says (p. 522): “It is as if the psychological activity were transferred from the brain of a reasonable being into the brain of a fool.”

Radestock³⁵ (p. 145) says: “It seems indeed impossible to recognise in this absurd action any firm law. Having withdrawn itself from the strict police of the rational will guiding the waking presentation life, and of the attention, the dream whirls everything about kaleidoscopically in mad play.”

Hildebrandt³⁵ (p. 45) says: “What wonderful jumps the dreamer allows himself, e. g., in his chain of reasoning! With what unconcern he sees the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down! What ridiculous contradictions he can tolerate in the orders of nature and society before things go too far, as we say, and the overstraining of the nonsense brings an awakening! We often multiply quite unconcernedly: three times three make twenty; we are not at all surprised when a dog recites poetry for us, when a dead person walks to his grave, and when a rock swims on the water; we go in all earnestness by high command to the duchy of Bernburg or the principality of Lichtenstein in order to observe the navy of the country, or we allow ourselves to be recruited as a volunteer by Charles XII. shortly before the battle of Poltawa.”

Binz⁴ (p. 33) points to a dream theory resulting from the impressions. “Among ten dreams nine at least have an absurd content. We unite in them persons or things which do not bear the slightest relation to one another. In the next moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the grouping changes, if possible to one more nonsensical and irrational than before; thus the changing play of the imperfectly sleeping brain continues until we awaken, and put our hand to our forehead and ask ourselves whether we really still possess the faculty of rational imagination and thought.”

Maury⁴⁸ (p. 50) finds for the relation of the dream picture to the waking thoughts, a comparison most impressive for the physician: “La production de ces images que chez l̕homme éveillé fait le plus souvent naître la volonté, correspond, pour l̕intelligence, à ce que cont pour la motilité certains mouvements que nous offrent la choreé et les affections paralytiques…” For the rest, he considers the dream “toute une série de dégradation de la faculté pensant et raisonant” (p. 27).

It is hardly necessary to mention the utterances of the authors which repeat Maury̕s assertion for the individual higher psychic activities.

According to Strümpell,⁶⁶ some logical mental operations based on relations and connections disappear in the dream – naturally also at points where the nonsense is not obvious (p. 26). According to Spitta,⁶⁴ (p. 148) the presentations in the dream are entirely withdrawn from the laws of causality. Radestock⁵⁴ and others emphasize the weakness of judgment and decision in the dream. According to Jodl³⁷ (p. 123), there is no critique in the dream, and no correcting of a series of perceptions through the content of the sum of consciousness. The same author states that “all forms of conscious activity occur in the dream, but they are imperfect, inhibited, and isolated from one another.” The contradictions manifested in the dream towards our conscious knowledge are explained by Stricker^{77 78} (and many others), on the ground that facts are forgotten in the dream and logical relations between presentations are lost (p. 98), etc., etc.

The authors who in general speak thus unfavourably about the psychic capacities in the dream, nevertheless admit that the dream retains a certain remnant of psychic activity. Wundt,⁷⁶ whose teaching has influenced so many other workers in the dream problems, positively admits this. One might inquire as to the kind and behaviour of the remnants of the psychic life which manifest themselves in the dream. It is now quite universally acknowledged that the reproductive capacity, the memory in the dream, seems to have been least affected; indeed it may show a certain superiority over the same function in the waking life (vid. supra, p. 10), although a part of the absurdities of the dream are to be explained by just this forgetfulness of the dream life. According to Spitta,⁶⁴ it is the emotional life of the psyche that is not overtaken by sleep and that then directs the dream. “By emotion [“Gemüth”] we understand the constant comprehension of the feelings as the inmost subjective essence of man” (p. 84).

Scholz⁵⁹ (p. 37) sees a psychic activity manifested in the dream in the “allegorising interpretation” to which the dream material is subjected. Siebeck⁶² verifies also in the dream the “supplementary interpretative activity” (p. 11) which the mind exerts on all that is perceived and viewed. The judgment of the apparently highest psychic function, the consciousness, presents for the dream a special difficulty. As we can know anything only through consciousness, there can be no doubt as to its retention; Spitta, however, believes that only consciousness is retained in the dream, and not self-consciousness. Delbœuf¹⁶ confesses that he is unable to conceive this differentiation.

The laws of association which govern the connection of ideas hold true also for the dream pictures; indeed, their domination evinces itself in a purer and stronger expression in the dream than elsewhere. Strümpell⁶² (p. 70) says: “The dream follows either the laws of undisguised presentations as it seems exclusively or organic stimuli along with such presentations, that is, without being influenced by reflection and reason, aesthetic sense, and moral judgment.” The authors whose views I reproduce here conceive the formation of the dream in about the following manner: The sum of sensation stimuli affecting sleep from the various sources, discussed elsewhere, at first awaken in the mind a sum of presentations which represent themselves as hallucinations (according to Wundt, it is more correct to say as illusions, because of their origin from outer and inner stimuli). These unite with one another according to the known laws of association, and, following the same rules, in turn evoke a new series of presentations (pictures). This entire material is then elaborated as well as possible by the still active remnant of the organising and thinking mental faculties (cf. Wundt⁷⁶ and Weygandt⁷⁵). But thus far no one has been successful in finding the motive which would decide that the awakening of pictures which do not originate objectively follow this or that law of association.

But it has been repeatedly observed that the associations which connect the dream presentations with one another are of a particular kind, and different from those found in the waking mental activity. Thus Volkelt⁷² says: “In the dream, the ideas chase and hunt each other on the strength of accidental similarities and barely perceptible connections. All dreams are pervaded by such loose and free associations.” Maury48 attaches great value to this characteristic of connection between presentations, which allows him to bring the dream life in closer analogy to certain mental disturbances. He recognises two main characters of the délire: “(1) une action spontanée et comme automatique de l̕esprit; (2) une association vicieuse et irregulière des idées” (p. 126). Maury gives us two excellent examples from his own dreams, in which the mere similarity of sound forms the connection of the dream presentations. He dreamed once that he undertook a pilgrimage (pélerinage) to Jerusalem or Mecca. After many adventures he was with the chemist Pelletier; the latter after some talk gave him a zinc shovel (pelle) which became his long battle sword in the dream fragment which followed (p. 137). On another occasion he walked in a dream on the highway and read the kilometres on the milestones; presently he was with a spice merchant who had large scales with which to weigh Maury; the spice merchant then said to him: “You are not in Paris; but on the island Gilolo.” This was followed by many pictures, in which he saw the flower Lobelia, then the General Lopez, of whose demise he had read shortly before. He finally awoke while playing a game of lotto.

We are, however, quite prepared to hear that this depreciation of the psychic activities of the dream has not remained without contradiction from the other side. To be sure, contradiction seems difficult here. Nor is it of much significance that one of the depreciators of dream life, Spitta⁶⁴ (p. 118), assures us that the same psychological laws which govern the waking state rule the dream also, or that another (Dugas19) states: “Le rêve n̕est pas déraison ni même irraison pure,” as long as neither of them has made any effort to bring this estimation into harmony with the psychic anarchy and dissolution of all functions in the dream described by them. Upon others, however, the possibility seems to have dawned that the madness of the dream is perhaps not without its method – that it is perhaps only a sham, like that of the Danish prince, to whose madness the intelligent judgment here cited refers. These authors must have refrained from judging by appearances, or the appearance which the dream showed to them was quite different.

Without wishing to linger at its apparent absurdity, Havelock Ellis²³ considers the dream as “an archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect thoughts,” the study of which may make us acquainted with primitive stages of development of the psychic life. A thinker like Delbœuf¹⁶ asserts – to be sure without adducing proof against the contradictory material, and hence indeed unjustly: “Dans le sommeil, hormis la perception, toutes les facultés de l̕esprit, intelligence, imagination, mémoire, volonté, moralité, restant intactes dans leur essence; seulement, elles s̕appliquent à des objets imaginaires et mobiles. Le songeur est un acteur qui joue à volonté les fous et les sages, les bourreaus et les victimes, les nains et les géants, les démons et les anges” (p. 222). The Marquis of Hervey, who is sharply controverted by Maury,⁴⁸ and whose work I could not obtain despite all effort, seems to combat most energetically the under-estimation of the psychic capacity in the dream. Maury speaks of him as follows (p. 19): “M. le Marquis d̕Hervey prête à l̕intelligence, durant le sommeil toute sa liberté d̕action et d̕attention et il ne semble faire consister le sommeil que dans l̕occlusion des sens, dans leur fermeture au monde extérieur; en sorte que l̕homme qui dort ne se distingué guère, selon sa manière de voir, de l̕homme qui laisse vaguer sa pensée en se bouchant les sens; toute la différence qui séparé alors la pensée ordinaire du celle du dormeur c̕est que, chez celui-ci, l̕idée prend une forme visible, objective et ressemble, à s̕y meprendre, à la sensation déterminée par les objets extérieurs; le souvenir revêt l̕apparence du fait présent.”

Maury adds, however; “Qu̕il y a une différence de plus et capitale à savoir que les facultés intellectuelles de l̕homme endormi n̕offrent pas l̕équilibre qu̕elles gardent chez l̕homme l̕éveillé.”

The scale of the estimation of the dream as a psychic product has a great range in the literature; it reaches from the lowest under-estimation, the expression of which we have come to know, through the idea of a value not yet revealed to the over-estimation which places the dream far above the capacities of the waking life. Hildebrandt,³⁵ who, as we know, sketches the psychological characteristics into three antinomies, sums up in the third of these contradistinctions the extreme points of this series as follows (p. 19): “It is between a climax, often an involution which raises itself to virtuosity, and on the other hand a decided diminution and weakening of the psychic life often leading below the human niveau.”

“As for the first, who could not confirm from his own experience that, in the creations and weavings of the genius of the dream, there sometimes comes to fight a profundity and sincerity of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a clearness of view, a fineness of observation, and a readiness of wit, all which we should modestly have to deny that we possess as a constant property during the waking life? The dream has a wonderful poetry, an excellent allegory, an incomparable humour, and a charming irony. It views the world under the guise of a peculiar idealisation, and often raises the effect of its manifestations into the most ingenious understanding of the essence lying at its basis. It represents for us earthly beauty in true heavenly radiance, the sublime in the highest majesty, the actually frightful in the most gruesome figure, and the ridiculous in the indescribably drastic comical; and at times we are so full of one of these impressions after awakening that we imagine that such a thing has never been offered to us by the real world.”

One may ask, is it really the same object that the depreciating remarks and these inspired praises are meant for? Have the latter overlooked the stupid dreams and the former the thoughtful and ingenious dreams? And if both kinds do occur – that is, dreams that merit to be judged in this or that manner – does it not seem idle to seek the psychological character of the dream? would it not suffice to state that everything is possible in the dream, from the lowest depreciation of the psychic life to a raising of the same which is unusual in the waking state? As convenient as this solution would be it has this against it, that behind the efforts of all dream investigators, it seems to be presupposed that there is such a definable character of the dream, which is universally valid in its essential features and which must eliminate these contradictions.

It is unquestionable that the psychic capacities of the dream have found quicker and warmer recognition in that intellectual period which now lies behind us, when philosophy rather than exact natural science ruled intelligent minds. Utterances like those of Schubert, that the dream frees the mind from the power of outer nature, that it liberates the soul from the chains of the sensual, and similar opinions expressed by the younger Fichte^[10], and others, who represent the dream as a soaring up of the psychic life to a higher stage, hardly seem conceivable to us to-day; they are only repeated at present by mystics and devotees. With the advance of the scientific mode of thinking, a reaction took place in the estimation of the dream. It is really the medical authors who are most prone to underrate the psychic activity in the dream, as being insignificant and invaluable, whereas, philosophers and unprofessional observers – amateur psychologists – whose contributions in this realm can surely not be overlooked, in better agreement with the popular ideas, have mostly adhered to the psychic value of the dream. He who is inclined to underrate the psychic capacity in the dream prefers, as a matter of course, the somatic exciting sources in the etiology of the dream; he who leaves to the dreaming mind the greater part of its capacities, naturally has no reason for not also admitting independent stimuli for dreaming.

Among the superior activities which, even on sober comparison, one is tempted to ascribe to the dream life, memory is the most striking; we have fully discussed the frequent experiences which prove this fact. Another superiority of the dream life, frequently extolled by the old authors, viz. that it can regard itself supreme in reference to distance of time and space, can be readily recognised as an illusion. This superiority, as observed by Hildebrandt,³⁵ is only illusional; the dream takes as much heed of time and space as the waking thought, and this because it is only a form of thinking. The dream is supposed to enjoy still another advantage in reference to time; that is, it is independent in still another sense of the passage of time. Dreams like the guillotine dream of Maury,⁴⁸ reported above, seem to show that the dream can crowd together more perception content in a very short space of time than can be controlled by our psychic activity in the waking mind. These conclusions have been controverted, however, by many arguments; the essays of Le Lorrain⁴⁵ and Egger²⁰ “Concerning the apparent duration of dreams” gave rise to a long and interesting discussion which has probably not said the last word upon this delicate and far-reaching question.

That the dream has the ability to take up the intellectual work of the day and bring to a conclusion what has not been settled during the day, that it can solve doubt and problems, and that it may become the source of new inspiration in poets and composers, seems to be indisputable, as is shown by many reports and by the collection compiled by Chabaneix.¹¹ But even if there be no dispute as to the facts, nevertheless their interpretation is open in principle to a great many doubts.

Finally the asserted divinatory power of the dream forms an object of contention in which hard unsurmountable reflection encounters obstinate and continued faith. It is indeed just that we should refrain from denying all that is based on fact in this subject, as there is a possibility that a number of such cases may perhaps be explained on a natural psychological basis.

(f) The Ethical Feelings in the Dream. – For reasons which will be understood only after cognisance has been taken of my own investigations of the dream, I have separated from the psychology of the dream the partial problem whether and to what extent the moral dispositions and feelings of the waking life extend into the dreams. The same contradictions which we were surprised to observe in the authors̕ descriptions of all the other psychic capacities strike us again here. Some affirm decidedly that the dream knows nothing of moral obligations; others as decidedly that the moral nature of man remains even in his dream life.

A reference to our dream experience of every night seems to raise the correctness of the first assertion beyond doubt. Jessen³⁶ says (p. 553): “Nor does one become better or more virtuous in the dream; on the contrary, it seems that conscience is silent in the dream, inasmuch as one feels no compassion and can commit the worst crimes, such as theft, murder, and assassination, with perfect indifference and without subsequent remorse.”

Radestock⁵⁴ (p. 146) says: “It is to be noticed that in the dream the associations terminate and the ideas unite without being influenced by reflection and reason, aesthetic taste, and moral judgment; the judgment is extremely weak, and ethical indifference reigns supreme.”

Volkelt⁷² (p. 23) expresses himself as follows: “As every one knows, the sexual relationship in the dream is especially unbridled. Just as the dreamer himself is shameless in the extreme, and wholly lacking moral feeling and judgment, so also he sees others, even the most honoured persons, engaged in actions which even in thought he would blush to associate with them in his waking state.”

Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that in the dream every person acts and talks in accordance with his character, form the sharpest contrast to those mentioned above. R. P. Fischer^[11] maintains that the subjective feelings and desires or affects and passions manifest themselves in the wilfulness of the dream life, and that the moral characteristics of a person are mirrored in his dream.