The Interpretation of Dreams · Sigmund Freud
THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
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.
The most original and most far-reaching attempt to explain the dream as a special activity of the mind, which can freely display itself only in the sleeping state, was the one undertaken by Scherner[58] in 1861. Scherner’s book, written in a heavy and bombastic style, inspired by an almost intoxicated enthusiasm for the subject, which must repel us unless it can carry us away with it, places so many difficulties in the way of an analysis that we gladly resort to the clearer and shorter description in which the philosopher Volkelt[72] presents Scherner’s theories: “From the mystic conglomerations and from all the gorgeous and magnificent billows there indeed flashes and irradiates an ominous light of sense, but the path of the philosopher does not thereby become clearer.” Such is the criticism of Scherner’s description from one of his own adherents.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.