Inasmuch as the dream is one of my own, I may be permitted to testify that
it was unmistakably connected with a scratching sensation at my ear, as I
distinctly perceived on awaking. This stimulation proceeded obviously from a
mouse, which I had time to observe in close proximity, as it remained
perched on the bedclothes, until my own startled movements put it to flight.
Tracing the stimulation from this external source, I shall try to maintain
the following interpretation:--
First, that the dream is an associative reaction to the sensation of
scratching, in the form of evocations of imagery related in experience to
this sensory element; and that the dream-process was a part of the
perception, or recognition or apperception of the stimulus.
Second, that this reaction--let us name it apperception of the stimulus--
took place slowly and imperfectly, owing to the state of sleep, so that the
reaction was, to begin with, only remotely relevant to the stimulus, but
improved in relevancy with successive evocations, until the mental
representation closely approximated the character of the stimulus.
Third, that in and among the secondary images[27] so evoked, incidental
processes of thought, tertiary compoundings of these images, were
immediately set up; the selection and re-arrangement of these secondary and
tertiary features, constituting the revelation of a significant state of
mind which had preceded the dream.
Specifically, in addition to the mental response to the external stimulus,
there was a phantasy representing an imaginary wish-fulfilment: namely the
desire to forsake the study of histology, with the eye-straining search
through the microscope, in favor of the study of reflex-action or
reflexology.
My contention is that this blended response[28] to a physical and to a
psychic cue arose very naturally and simply out of a single context,
prepared by events of the night before; and I would show that by comparing
the phantasy with this context, it is possible to reconstitute the dream in
a way that amounts to a refutation of the two other interpretations, which I
have essayed in accordance with the methods of Freud and of Jung,
respectively.