Accordingly, I will now point out the fact that the analysis of the
Scratch-Reflex dream has been carried to the stage where the dream stands
reconstituted as follows:--
It is an attempt of the nervous mechanism to resolve a specific sensory
stimulus-idea (A) by the discharge of nervous energy into a previously
prepared or "facilitated" set-of-the-mind or context (Hidden Z). This, in
the premises, happened to possess associative affinity for the stimulus, and
was therefore, by the same token, chosen, i. e., brought into play, as a
spillway for the stimulus. The secondary images (C) in the dream, evoked by
the derivation of excitement through the channels of the given context
(conversation with Dr. X.) are explained as forming--in the order of their
appearance-- a chain of apperceptive pictures, or trial-and-error series,
whose links or steps approximate gradually to the characteristic features of
the primary stimulus-idea (scratching sensation). But while regarding this
immediate influence as the principal cue to memory (calling it A), we must
admit an ulterior influence or motive-power, itself in the nature of an
accessory cue, namely a wish (B), revived along with the memory of the
conversation. This wish (to substitute reflexology for histology)
contributes a special configuration or phantastic, wishful arrangement to
the group of successive trial apperceptions called forth by the physical
stimulus (A). The corresponding motives of desire and of aversion,
(concisely pictured as positive interest in the reflex and disinterest in
the microscope), although seeming to spring out of the system of memories
(Z), which form the context, are none the less separate from it as
self-acting sources of stimulus, as a wish apart from the mere brute memory
of the talk about reflexes. The wish is thus an accessory cue (B) operating
in conjunction with the external stimulus, although revived by the energy of
the latter. In this case, the imaginary wish-fulfilment achieves an
immediate, though limited, success. Correspondingly, it does not exhibit on
its own account the feature of trial-and-error which we have learnt to
recognize in the working of the unadjusted sensory stimulus (scratching).
While this dream does not exemplify trial-and-error processes in response to
a psychic cue, it is proper to state that the same mechanism can be
demonstrated in the more purely psychic dreams, as well as in this one,
wherein we have followed the trial apperceptions of a stimulus, from their
incipience, to the point of awaking to a conscious recognition of the source
of excitation. Moreover, by a more delicate and intricate use of the
reconstitutive method it is possible to discover the stimulus-ideas in those
cases where the dreamer is not able to testify to their character, as I was
in this simple instance; purposely chosen, I may add, to outline the method
in its simplest aspect.
According to the reconstitutive method, a dream is sufficiently interpreted
and explained by having formulated the operation of the several specific
factors, as in the foregoing example; that is, no preconceptions as to
content or meaning or transcendental symbols are imported into this sort of
purely mechanistic interpretation.