Viewing the dream content as the representation of a realised desire,
and referring its vagueness to the changes made by the censor in the
repressed matter, it is no longer difficult to grasp the function of
dreams. In fundamental contrast with those saws which assume that sleep
is disturbed by dreams, we hold the _dream as the guardian of sleep_. So
far as children’s dreams are concerned, our view should find ready
acceptance.
The sleeping state or the psychical change to sleep, whatsoever it be,
is brought about by the child being sent to sleep or compelled thereto
by fatigue, only assisted by the removal of all stimuli which might open
other objects to the psychical apparatus. The means which serve to keep
external stimuli distant are known; but what are the means we can employ
to depress the internal psychical stimuli which frustrate sleep? Look at
a mother getting her child to sleep. The child is full of beseeching; he
wants another kiss; he wants to play yet awhile. His requirements are in
part met, in part drastically put off till the following day. Clearly
these desires and needs, which agitate him, are hindrances to sleep.
Everyone knows the charming story of the bad boy (Baldwin Groller’s) who
awoke at night bellowing out, “_I want the rhinoceros_.” A really good
boy, instead of bellowing, would have _dreamt_ that he was playing with
the rhinoceros. Because the dream which realises his desire is believed
during sleep, it removes the desire and makes sleep possible. It cannot
be denied that this belief accords with the dream image, because it is
arrayed in the psychical appearance of probability; the child is without
the capacity which it will acquire later to distinguish hallucinations
or phantasies from reality.
The adult has learnt this differentiation; he has also learnt the
futility of desire, and by continuous practice manages to postpone his
aspirations, until they can be granted in some roundabout method by a
change in the external world. For this reason it is rare for him to have
his wishes realised during sleep in the short psychical way. It is even
possible that this never happens, and that everything which appears to
us like a child’s dream demands a much more elaborate explanation. Thus
it is that for adults—for every sane person without exception—a
differentiation of the psychical matter has been fashioned which the
child knew not. A psychical procedure has been reached which, informed
by the experience of life, exercises with jealous power a dominating and
restraining influence upon psychical emotions; by its relation to
consciousness, and by its spontaneous mobility, it is endowed with the
greatest means of psychical power. A portion of the infantile emotions
has been withheld from this procedure as useless to life, and all the
thoughts which flow from these are found in the state of repression.
Whilst the procedure in which we recognise our normal ego reposes upon
the desire for sleep, it appears compelled by the psycho-physiological
conditions of sleep to abandon some of the energy with which it was wont
during the day to keep down what was repressed. This neglect is really
harmless; however much the emotions of the child’s spirit may be
stirred, they find the approach to consciousness rendered difficult, and
that to movement blocked in consequence of the state of sleep. The
danger of their disturbing sleep must, however, be avoided. Moreover, we
must admit that even in deep sleep some amount of free attention is
exerted as a protection against sense-stimuli which might, perchance,
make an awakening seem wiser than the continuance of sleep. Otherwise we
could not explain the fact of our being always awakened by stimuli of
certain quality. As the old physiologist Burdach pointed out, the mother
is awakened by the whimpering of her child, the miller by the cessation
of his mill, most people by gently calling out their names. This
attention, thus on the alert, makes use of the internal stimuli arising
from repressed desires, and fuses them into the dream, which as a
compromise satisfies both procedures at the same time. The dream creates
a form of psychical release for the wish which is either suppressed or
formed by the aid of repression, inasmuch as it presents it as realised.
The other procedure is also satisfied, since the continuance of the
sleep is assured. Our ego here gladly behaves like a child; it makes the
dream pictures believable, saying, as it were, “Quite right, but let me
sleep.” The contempt which, once awakened, we bear the dream, and which
rests upon the absurdity and apparent illogicality of the dream, is
probably nothing but the reasoning of our sleeping ego on the feelings
about what was repressed; with greater right it should rest upon the
incompetency of this disturber of our sleep. In sleep we are now and
then aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the censorship
rather too much, we think, “It’s only a dream,” and sleep on.
It is no objection to this view if there are border-lines for the dream
where its function, to preserve sleep from interruption, can no longer
be maintained—as in the dreams of impending dread. It is here changed
for another function—to suspend the sleep at the proper time. It acts
like a conscientious night-watchman, who first does his duty by quelling
disturbances so as not to waken the citizen, but equally does his duty
quite properly when he awakens the street should the causes of the
trouble seem to him serious and himself unable to cope with them alone.
This function of dreams becomes especially well marked when there arises
some incentive for the sense perception. That the senses aroused during
sleep influence the dream is well known, and can be experimentally
verified; it is one of the certain but much overestimated results of the
medical investigation of dreams. Hitherto there has been an insoluble
riddle connected with this discovery. The stimulus to the sense by which
the investigator affects the sleeper is not properly recognised in the
dream, but is intermingled with a number of indefinite interpretations,
whose determination appears left to psychical free-will. There is, of
course, no such psychical free-will. To an external sense-stimulus the
sleeper can react in many ways. Either he awakens or he succeeds in
sleeping on. In the latter case he can make use of the dream to dismiss
the external stimulus, and this, again, in more ways than one. For
instance, he can stay the stimulus by dreaming of a scene which is
absolutely intolerable to him. This was the means used by one who was
troubled by a painful perineal abscess. He dreamt that he was on
horseback, and made use of the poultice, which was intended to alleviate
his pain, as a saddle, and thus got away from the cause of the trouble.
Or, as is more frequently the case, the external stimulus undergoes a
new rendering, which leads him to connect it with a repressed desire
seeking its realisation, and robs him of its reality, and is treated as
if it were a part of the psychical matter. Thus, someone dreamt that he
had written a comedy which embodied a definite _motif_; it was being
performed; the first act was over amid enthusiastic applause; there was
great clapping. At this moment the dreamer must have succeeded in
prolonging his sleep despite the disturbance, for when he woke he no
longer heard the noise; he concluded rightly that someone must have been
beating a carpet or bed. The dreams which come with a loud noise just
before waking have all attempted to cover the stimulus to waking by some
other explanation, and thus to prolong the sleep for a little while.