contrast by another observation of Hildebrandt, that the dream at times
allows us to glance into the deep and inmost recesses of our being,
which are generally closed to us in our waking state (p. 55). The same
knowledge is revealed by Kant in his _Anthropology_, when he states that
the dream exists in order to lay bare for us our hidden dispositions and
to reveal to us not what we are, but what we might have been if we had a
different education. Radestock[54] (p. 84) says that the dream often
only reveals to us what we do not wish to admit to ourselves, and that
we therefore unjustly condemn it as a liar and deceiver. That the
appearance of impulses which are foreign to our consciousness is merely
analogous to the already familiar disposition which the dream makes of
other material of the presentation, which is either absent or plays only
an insignificant part in the waking state, has been called to our
attention by observations like those of Benini,[3] who says: “Certe
nostre inclinazione che si credevano soffocate a spente da un pezzo, si
ridestano; passioni vecchie e sepolte rivivono; cose e persone a cui non
pensiamo mai, ci vengono dinanzi” (p. 149). Volkelt[72] expresses
himself in a similar way: “Even presentations which have entered into
our consciousness almost unnoticed, and have never perhaps been brought
out from oblivion, often announce through the dream their presence in
the mind” (p. 105). Finally, it is not out of place to mention here
that, according to Schleiermacher,[61] the state of falling asleep is
accompanied by the appearance of undesirable presentations (pictures).
We may comprise under “undesirable presentations” this entire material
of presentations, the occurrence of which excites our wonder in immoral
as well as in absurd dreams. The only important difference consists in
the fact that our undesirable presentations in the moral sphere exhibit
an opposition to our other feelings, whereas the others simply appear
strange to us. Nothing has been done so far to enable us to remove this
difference through a more penetrating knowledge.
But what is the significance of the appearance of undesirable
presentations in the dream? What inferences may be drawn for the
psychology of the waking and dreaming mind from these nocturnal
manifestations of contrasting ethical impulses? We may here note a new
diversity of opinion, and once more a different grouping of the authors.
The stream of thought followed by Hildebrandt, and by others who
represent his fundamental view, cannot be continued in any other way
than by ascribing to the immoral impulses a certain force even in the
waking state, which, to be sure, is inhibited from advancing to action,
and asserting that something falls off during sleep, which, having the
effect of an inhibition, has kept us from noticing the existence of such
an impulse. The dream thus shows the real, if not the entire nature of
man, and is a means of making the hidden psychic life accessible to our
understanding. It is only on such assumption that Hildebrandt can
attribute to the dream the rôle of monitor who calls our attention to
the moral ravages in the soul, just as in the opinion of physicians it
can announce a hitherto unobserved physical ailment. Spitta,[64] too,
cannot be guided by any other conception when he refers to the stream of
excitement which, _e.g._, flows in upon the psyche during puberty, and
consoles the dreamer by saying that he has done everything in his power
when he has led a strictly virtuous life during his waking state, when
he has made an effort to suppress the sinful thoughts as often as they
arise, and has kept them from maturing and becoming actions. According
to this conception, we might designate the “undesirable” presentations
as those that are “suppressed” during the day, and must recognise in
their appearance a real psychic phenomenon.
If we followed other authors we would have no right to the last
inference. For Jessen[36] the undesirable presentations in the dream as
in the waking state, in fever and other deliria, merely have “the
character of a voluntary activity put to rest and a somewhat mechanical
process of pictures and presentations produced by inner impulses” (p.
360). An immoral dream proves nothing for the psychic life of the
dreamer except that he has in some way become cognizant of the ideas in
question; it is surely not a psychic impulse of his own. Another author,
Maury,[48] makes us question whether he, too, does not attribute to the
dream state the capacity for dividing the psychic activity into its
components instead of destroying it aimlessly. He speaks as follows
about dreams in which one goes beyond the bounds of morality: “Ce sont
nos penchants qui parlent et qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience
nous retienne, bien que parfois elle nous avertisse. J’ai mes défauts et
mes penchants vicieux; à l’état de veille, je tache de lutter contre
eux, et il m’arrive assez souvent de n’y pas succomber. Mais dans mes
songes j’y succombe toujours ou pour mieux dire j’agis, par leur
impulsion, sans crainte et sans remords.... Évidemment les visions qui
se déroulent devant ma pensée et qui constituent le rêve, me sont
suggérées par les incitations que je ressens et que ma volonté absente
ne cherche pas à refouler” (p. 113).
If one believes in the capacity of the dream to reveal an actually
existing but repressed or concealed immoral disposition of the dreamer,
he could not emphasize his opinion more strongly than with the words of
Maury (p. 115): “En rêve l’homme se révèle donc tout entier à soi-même
dans sa nudité et sa misère natives. Dès qu’il suspend l’exercice de sa
volonté, il dévient le jouet de toutes les passions contre lesquelles, à
l’état de veille, la conscience, le sentiment d’honneur, la crainte nous
défendent.” In another place he finds the following striking words (p.
462): “Dans le rêve, c’est surtout l’homme instinctif que se révèle....
L’homme revient pour ainsi dire à l’état de nature quand il rêve; mais
moins les idées acquises ont pénétré dans son esprit, plus les penchants
en désaccord avec elles conservent encore sur lui d’influence dans le
rêve.” He then mentions as an example that his dreams often show him as
a victim of just those superstitions which he most violently combats in
his writing.
The value of all these ingenious observations for a psychological
knowledge of the dream life, however, is marred by Maury through the
fact that he refuses to recognise in the phenomena so correctly observed
by him any proof of the “automatisme psychologique” which in his opinion
dominates the dream life. He conceives this automatism as a perfect
contrast to the psychic activity.
A passage in the studies on consciousness by Stricker[77] reads: “The
dream does not consist of delusions merely; if, _e.g._, one is afraid of
robbers in the dream, the robbers are, of course, imaginary, but the
fear is real. One’s attention is thus called to the fact that the
effective development in the dream does not admit of the judgment which
one bestows upon the rest of the dream content, and the problem arises
what part of the psychic processes in the dream may be real, _i.e._ what
part of them may demand to be enrolled among the psychic processes of
the waking state?”
(_g_) _Dream Theories and Functions of the Dream._—A statement
concerning the dream which as far as possible attempts to explain from
one point of view many of its noted characters, and which at the same
time determines the relation of the dream to a more comprehensive sphere
of manifestations, may be called a theory of dreams. Individual theories
of the dream will be distinguished from one another through the fact
that they raise to prominence this or that characteristic of the dream,
and connect explanations and relations with it. It will not be
absolutely necessary to derive from the theory a function, _i.e._ a use
or any such activity of the dream, but our expectation, which is usually
adjusted to teleology, will nevertheless welcome those theories which
promise an understanding of the function of the dream.
We have already become acquainted with many conceptions of the dream
which, more or less, merit the name of dream theories in this sense. The
belief of the ancients that the dream was sent by the gods in order to
guide the actions of man was a complete theory of the dream giving
information concerning everything in the dream worth knowing. Since the
dream has become an object of biological investigation we have a greater
number of theories, of which, however, some are very incomplete.
If we waive completeness, we may attempt the following loose grouping of
dream theories based on their fundamental conception of the degree and
mode of the psychic activity in the dream:—
1. Theories, like those of Delbœuf,[16] which allow the full psychic
activity of the waking state to continue into the dream. Here the mind
does not sleep; its apparatus remains intact, and, being placed under
the conditions different from the waking state, it must in normal
activity furnish results different from those of the waking state. In
these theories it is a question whether they are in position to derive
the distinctions between dreaming and waking thought altogether from the
determinations of the sleeping state. They moreover lack a possible
access to a function of the dream; one cannot understand why one dreams,
why the complicated mechanism of the psychic apparatus continues to play
even when it is placed under conditions for which it is not apparently
adapted. There remain only two expedient reactions—to sleep dreamlessly
or to awake when approached by disturbing stimuli—instead of the third,
that of dreaming.
2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream a diminution
for the psychic activity, a loosening of the connections, and an
impoverishment in available material. In accordance with these theories,
one must assume for sleep a psychological character entirely different
from the one given by Delbœuf. Sleep extends far beyond the mind—it does
not consist merely in a shutting off of the mind from the outer world;
on the contrary, it penetrates into its mechanism, causing it at times
to become useless. If I may draw a comparison from psychiatrical
material, I may say that the first theories construct the dream like a
paranoia, while the second make it after the model of a dementia or an
amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity paralysed by
sleep comes to expression is by far the favourite among the medical
writers and in the scientific world. As far as one may presuppose a more
general interest in dream interpretation, it may well be designated as
the ruling theory of the dream. It is to be emphasized with what
facility this particular theory escapes the worst rock threatening every
dream interpretation, that is to say, being shipwrecked upon one of the
contrasts embodied in the dream. As this theory considers the dream the
result of a partial waking (or as Herbart’s _Psychology_ of the dream
says, “a gradual, partial, and at the same time very anomalous waking”),
it succeeds in covering the entire series of inferior activities in the
dream which reveal themselves in its absurdities, up to the full
concentration of mental activity, by following a series of states which
become more and more awake until they reach full awakening.
One who finds the psychological mode of expression indispensable, or who
thinks more scientifically, will find this theory of the dream expressed
in the discussion of Binz[4] (p. 43):—
“This state [of numbness], however, gradually approaches its end in the
early morning hours. The accumulated material of fatigue in the albumen
of the brain gradually becomes less. It is gradually decomposed or
carried away by the constantly flowing circulation. Here and there some
masses of cells can be distinguished as awake, while all around
everything still remains in a state of torpidity. _The isolated work of
the individual groups_ now appears before our clouded consciousness,
which lacks the control of other parts of the brain governing the
associations. Hence the pictures created, which mostly correspond to the
objective impressions of the recent past, fit with each other in a wild
and irregular manner. The number of the brain cells set free becomes
constantly greater, the irrationality of the dream constantly less.”
The conception of the dream as an incomplete, partial waking state, or
traces of its influence, can surely be found among all modern
physiologists and philosophers. It is most completely represented by
Maury.[48] It often seems as if this author represented to himself the
state of being awake or asleep in anatomical regions; at any rate it
appears to him that an anatomical province is connected with a definite
psychic function. I may here merely mention that if the theory of
partial waking could be confirmed, there would remain much to be
accomplished in its elaboration.
Naturally a function of the dream cannot be found in this conception of
the dream life. On the contrary, the criticism of the status and
importance of the dream is consistently uttered in this statement of
Binz (p. 357): “All the facts, as we see, urge us to characterise the
dream as a physical process in all cases useless, in many cases even
morbid.”
The expression “physical” in reference to the dream, which owes its
prominence to this author, points in more than one direction. In the
first place, it refers to the etiology of the dream, which was
especially clear to Binz, as he studied the experimental production of
dreams by the administration of poisons. It is certainly in keeping with
this kind of dream theory to ascribe the incitement of the dream
exclusively to somatic origin whenever possible. Presented in the most
extreme form, it reads as follows: After we have put ourselves to sleep
by removing the stimuli, there would be no need and no occasion for
dreaming until morning, when the gradual awakening through the incoming
stimuli would be reflected in the phenomenon of dreaming. But as a
matter of fact, it is not possible to keep sleep free from stimuli; just
as Mephisto complains about the germs of life, so stimuli reach the
sleeper from every side—from without, from within, and even from certain
bodily regions which never give us any concern during the waking state.
Thus sleep is disturbed; the mind is aroused, now by this, now by that
little thing, and functionates for a while with the awakened part only
to be glad to fall asleep again. The dream is a reaction to the stimulus
causing a disturbance of sleep—to be sure, it is a purely superfluous
reaction.
To designate the dream as a physical process, which for all that remains
an activity of the mental organ, has still another sense. It is meant to
dispute the dignity of a psychic process for the dream. The application
to the dream of the very old comparison of the “ten fingers of a
musically ignorant person running over the keyboard of an instrument,”
perhaps best illustrates in what estimation the dream activity has been
held by the representatives of exact science. In this sense it becomes
something entirely untranslatable, for how could the ten fingers of an
unmusical player produce any music?
The theory of partial wakefulness has not passed without objection even
in early times. Thus Burdach,[8] in 1830, says: “If we say that the
dream is a partial wakefulness, in the first place, we explain thereby
neither the waking nor the sleeping state; secondly, this expresses
nothing more than that certain forces of the mind are active in the
dream while others are at rest. But such irregularities take place
throughout life....” (p. 483).
Among extant dream theories which consider the dream a “physical”
process, there is one very interesting conception of the dream, first
propounded by Robert[55] in 1866, which is attractive because it assigns
to the dream a function or a useful end. As a basis for this theory,
Robert takes from observation two facts which we have already discussed
in our consideration of the dream material (see p. 13). These facts are:
that one very often dreams about the insignificant impressions of the
day, and that one rarely carries over into the dream the absorbing
interests of the day. Robert asserts as exclusively correct, that things
which have been fully settled never become dream inciters, but only such
things as are incomplete in the mind or touch it fleetingly (p. 11). “We
cannot usually explain our dreams because their causes are to be found
_in sensory impressions of the preceding day which have not attained
sufficient recognition by the dreamer_.” The conditions allowing an
impression to reach the dream are therefore, either that this impression
has been disturbed in its elaboration, or that being too insignificant
it has no claim to such elaboration.
Robert therefore conceives the dream “as a physical process of
elimination which has reached to cognition in the psychic manifestation
of its reaction.” _Dreams are eliminations of thoughts nipped in the
bud._ “A man deprived of the capacity for dreaming would surely in time
become mentally unbalanced, because an immense number of unfinished and
unsolved thoughts and superficial impressions would accumulate in his
brain, under the pressure of which there would be crushed all that
should be incorporated as a finished whole into memory.” The dream acts
as a safety-valve for the overburdened brain. _Dreams possess healing
and unburdening properties_ (p. 32).
It would be a mistake to ask Robert how representation in the dream can
bring about an unburdening of the mind. The author apparently concluded
from those two peculiarities of the dream material that during sleep
such ejection of worthless impressions is effected as a somatic process,
and that dreaming is not a special psychic process but only the
knowledge that we receive of such elimination. To be sure an elimination
is not the only thing that takes place in the mind during sleep. Robert
himself adds that the incitements of the day are also elaborated, and
“what cannot be eliminated from the undigested thought material lying in
the mind becomes connected _by threads of thought borrowed from the
phantasy into a finished whole_, and thus enrolled in the memory as a
harmless phantasy picture” (p. 23).
But it is in his criticism of the dream sources that Robert appears most
bluntly opposed to the ruling theory. Whereas according to the existing
theory there would be no dream if the outer and inner sensory stimuli
did not repeatedly wake the mind, according to Robert the impulse to
dream lies in the mind itself. It lies in the overcharging which demands
discharge, and Robert judges with perfect consistency when he maintains
that the causes determining the dream which depend on the physical state
assume a subordinate rank, and could not incite dreams in a mind
containing no material for dream formation taken from waking
consciousness. It is admitted, however, that the phantasy pictures
originating in the depths of the mind can be influenced by the nervous
stimuli (p. 48). Thus, according to Robert, the dream is not quite so
dependent on the somatic element. To be sure, it is not a psychic
process, and has no place among the psychic processes of the waking
state; it is a nocturnal somatic process in the apparatus devoted to
mental activity, and has a function to perform, viz. to guard this
apparatus against overstraining, or, if the comparison may be changed,
to cleanse the mind.
Another author, Yves Delage,[15] bases his theory on the same
characteristics of the dream, which become clear in the selection of the
dream material, and it is instructive to observe how a slight turn in
the conception of the same things gives a final result of quite
different bearing.
Delage, after having lost through death a person very dear to him, found
from his own experience that we do not dream of what occupies us
intently during the day, or that we begin to dream of it only after it
is overshadowed by other interests of the day. His investigations among
other persons corroborated the universality of this state of affairs.
Delage makes a nice observation of this kind, if it turns out to be
generally true, about the dreaming of newly married people: “S’ils ont
été fortement épris, presque jamais ils n’ont rêve l’un de l’autre avant
le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel; et s’ils ont rêve d’amour c’est
pour être infidèles avec quelque personne indifférente ou odieuse.” But
what does one dream of? Delage recognises that the material occurring in
our dreams consists of fragments and remnants of impressions from the
days preceding and former times. All that appears in our dreams, what at
first we may be inclined to consider creations of the dream life, proves
on more thorough investigation to be unrecognised reproductions,
“souvenir inconscient.” But this presentation material shows a common
character; it originates from impressions which have probably affected
our senses more forcibly than our mind, or from which the attention has
been deflected soon after their appearance. The less conscious, and at
the same time the stronger the impression, the more prospect it has of
playing a part in the next dream.
These are essentially the same two categories of impressions, the
insignificant and the unadjusted, which were emphasized by Robert,[55]
but Delage changes the connection by assuming that these impressions
become the subject of dreams, not because they are indifferent, but
because they are unadjusted. The insignificant impressions, too, are in
a way not fully adjusted; they, too, are from their nature as new
impressions “autant de ressorts tendus,” which will be relaxed during
sleep. Still more entitled to a rôle in the dream than the weak and
almost unnoticed impression is a strong impression which has been
accidentally detained in its elaboration or intentionally repressed. The
psychic energy accumulated during the day through inhibition or
suppression becomes the mainspring of the dream at night.
Unfortunately Delage stops here in his train of thought; he can ascribe
only the smallest part to an independent psychic activity in the dream,
and thus in his dream theory reverts to the ruling doctrine of a partial
sleep of the brain: “En somme le rêve est le produit de la pensée
errante, sans but et sans direction, se fixant successivement sur les
souvenirs, qui ont gardé assez d’intensité pour se placer sur sa route
et l’arrêter au passage, établissant entre eux un lien tantôt faible et
indécis, tantôt plus fort et plus serré, selon que l’activité actuelle
du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil.”
In a third group we may include those dream theories which ascribe to
the dreaming mind the capacity and propensity for a special psychic
activity, which in the waking state it can accomplish either not at all
or only in an imperfect manner. From the activity of these capacities
there usually results a useful function of the dream. The dignity
bestowed upon the dream by older psychological authors falls chiefly in
this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting, in their
place, the assertions of Burdach,[8] by virtue of which the dream “is
the natural activity of the mind, which is not limited by the force of
the individuality, not disturbed by self-consciousness and not directed
by self-determination, but is the state of life of the sensible central
point indulging in free play” (p. 486).
Burdach and others apparently consider this revelling in the free use of
one’s own powers as a state in which the mind refreshes itself and takes
on new strength for the day work, something after the manner of a
vacation holiday. Burdach, therefore, cites with approval the admirable
words in which the poet Novalis lauds the sway of the dream: “The dream
is a bulwark against the regularity and commonness of life, a free
recreation of the fettered phantasy, in which it mixes together all the
pictures of life and interrupts the continued earnestness of grown-up
men with a joyous children’s play. Without the dream we should surely
age earlier, and thus the dream may be considered perhaps not a gift
directly from above, but a delightful task, a friendly companion, on our
pilgrimage to the grave.”
The refreshing and curative activity of the dream is even more
impressively depicted by Purkinje.[53] “The productive dreams in
particular would perform these functions. They are easy plays of the
imagination, which have no connection with the events of the day. The
mind does not wish to continue the tension of the waking life, but to
release it and recuperate from it. It produces, in the first place,
conditions opposed to those of the waking state. It cures sadness
through joy, worry through hope and cheerfully distracting pictures,
hatred through love and friendliness, and fear through courage and
confidence; it calms doubt through conviction and firm belief, and vain
expectations through realisation. Many sore spots in the mind, which the
day keeps continually open, sleep heals by covering them and guarding
against fresh excitement. Upon this the curative effect of time is
partially based.” We all feel that sleep is beneficial to the psychic
life, and the vague surmise of the popular consciousness apparently
cannot be robbed of the notion that the dream is one of the ways in
which sleep distributes its benefits.