Autobiographical note 18 страница

Of the three characteristics of memory in dreams enumerated at the beginning of this chapter, one - the preference for non-essential material in the content of dreams - has been satisfactorily cleared up by being traced back to dream-distortion. We have been able to confirm the existence of the other two - the emphasis upon recent and upon infantile material - but we have not been able to account for them on the basis of the motives that lead to dreaming. These two characteristics inclusion of both recent and infantile material, whose explanation and appreciation remain to be discovered, must be kept in mind. Their proper place must be looked for elsewhere - either in the psychology of the state of sleep or in the discussion of the structure of the mental apparatus upon which we shall later embark, after we have learnt that the interpretation of dreams is like a window through which we can get a glimpse of the interior of that apparatus.

There is, however, another inference following from these last dream-analyses to which I will draw attention at once. Dreams frequently seem to have more than one meaning. Not only, as our examples have shown, may they include several wish-fulfilments one alongside the other; but a succession of meanings or wish-fulfilments may be superimposed on one another, the bottom one being the fulfilment of a wish dating from earliest childhood. And here again the question arises whether it might not be more correct to assert that this occurs ‘invariably’ rather than ‘frequently.’¹

¹ [Footnote added 1914:] The fact that the meanings of dreams are arranged in superimposed layers is one of the most delicate, though also one of the most interesting, problems of dream-interpretation. Anyone who forgets this possibility will easily go astray and be led into making untenable assertions upon the nature of dreams. Yet it is still a fact that far too few investigations have been made into this matter. Hitherto the only thorough piece of research has been Otto Rank’s into the fairly regular stratification of symbols in dreams provoked by pressure of the bladder.

(C)THE SOMATIC SOURCES OF DREAMS

If one tries to interest an educated layman in the problem of dreams and, with that end in view, asks him what in his opinion are the sources from which they arise, one finds as a rule that he feels confident of possessing the answer to this part of the question. He thinks at once of the effects produced on the construction of dreams by digestive disturbances or difficulties - ‘dreams come from indigestion’ -, by postures accidentally assumed by the body and by other small incidents during sleep. It never seems to occur to him that when all these factors have been taken into account anything is left over that needs explaining.

I have already discussed at length in the opening chapter (Section C) the part assigned by scientific writers to somatic sources of stimulation in the formation of dreams; so that here I need only recall the results of that enquiry. We found that three different kinds of somatic sources of stimulation were distinguished: objective sensory stimuli arising from external objects, internal states of excitation of the sense organs having only a subjective basis, and somatic stimuli derived from the interior of the body. We noticed moreover that the authorities were inclined to push into the background, or to exclude entirely, any possible psychical sources of dreams, as compared with these somatic stimuli (cf. p. 552). In our examination of the claims made on behalf of somatic sources of stimulation we arrived at the following conclusions. The significance of objective excitations of the sense organs (consisting partly of chance stimuli during sleep and partly of excitations such as cannot fail to impinge even upon a sleeping mind) is established from numerous observations and has been experimentally confirmed (cf. p. 538). The part played by subjective sensory excitations seems to be demonstrated by the recurrence in dreams of hypnagogic sensory images (cf. p. 543 f.

). And lastly it appears that, though it is impossible to prove that the images and ideas occurring in our dreams can be traced back to internal somatic stimuli to the extent to which this has been asserted to be the case, nevertheless this origin finds support in the universally recognized influence exercised upon our dreams by states of excitation in our digestive, urinary and sexual organs.

It would appear, then, that ‘nervous stimulation’ and ‘somatic stimulation’ are the somatic sources of dreams - that is to say, according to many writers, their sole source.

On the other hand, we have already found a number of doubts expressed, which seemed to imply a criticism, not indeed of the correctness, but of the adequacy of the theory of somatic stimulation.

However secure the supporters of this theory might feel in its factual basis - especially as far as accidental and external nervous stimuli are concerned, since these can be traced in the content of dreams without any trouble at all - not one of them could fail to perceive that it is impossible to attribute the wealth of ideational material in dreams to external nervous stimuli alone. Miss Mary Whiton Calkins (1893, 312) examined her own and another person’s dreams for six weeks with this question in mind. She found that in only 13.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent of them respectively was it possible to trace the element of external sense-perception; while only two cases in the collection were derivable from organic sensations. Here we have statistical confirmation of what I had been led to suspect from a hasty survey of my own experiences.

It has often been proposed to separate off ‘dreams due to nervous stimulation’ from other forms of dreams as a sub-species that has been thoroughly investigated. Thus Spitta divides dreams into ‘dreams due to nervous stimulation’ and ‘dreams due to association’. This solution was, however, bound to remain unsatisfactory so long as it was impossible to demonstrate the link between the somatic sources of a dream and its ideational content. Thus, in addition to the first objection - the insufficient frequency of external sources of stimulation - there was a second one - the insufficient explanation of dreams afforded by such sources. We have a right to expect the supporters of this theory to give us explanations of two points; first, why it is that the external stimulus of a dream is not perceived in its true character but is invariably misunderstood (Cf. the alarm-clock dreams on p. 541 f.); and secondly, why it is that the reaction of the perceiving mind to these misunderstood stimuli should lead to results of such unpredictable variety.

By way of answer to these questions, Strümpell (1877, 108 f.) tells us that, because the mind is withdrawn from the external world during sleep, it is unable to give a correct interpretation of objective sensory stimuli and is obliged to construct illusions on the basis of what is in many respects an indeterminate impression. To quote his own words: ‘As soon as a sensation or complex of sensations or a feeling or a psychical process of any kind arises in the mind during sleep as a result of an external or internal nervous stimulus and is perceived by the mind, that process calls up sensory images from the circle of experiences left over in the mind from the waking state - that is to say, earlier perceptions - which are either bare or accompanied by their appropriate psychical values. The process surrounds itself, as it were, with a larger or smaller number of images of this kind and through them the impression derived from the nervous stimulus acquires its psychical value. We speak here (just as we usually do in the case of waking behaviour) of the sleeping mind "interpreting" the impressions made by the nervous stimulus. The outcome of this interpretation is what we describe as a "dream due to nervous stimulation", that is, a dream whose components are determined by a nervous stimulus producing its psychical effects in the mind according to the laws of reproduction.’

Wundt is saying something essentially identical with this theory when he asserts that the ideas occurring in dreams are derived, for the most part at least, from sensory stimuli, including especially coenaesthetic sensations, and are for that reason mainly imaginative illusions and probably only to a small extent pure mnemic ideas intensified into hallucinations. Strümpell (1877, 84) has hit upon an apt simile for the relation which subsists on this theory between the contents of a dream and its stimuli, when he writes that ‘it is as though the ten fingers of a man who knows nothing of music were wandering over the keys of a piano’. Thus a dream is not, on this view, a mental phenomenon based on psychical motives, but the outcome of a physiological stimulus which is expressed in psychical symptoms because the apparatus upon which the stimulus impinges is capable of no other form of expression. A similar presupposition also underlies, for instance, the famous analogy by means of which Meynert attempted to explain obsessive ideas: the analogy of a clock-face on which certain figures stand out by being more prominently embossed than the rest.

However popular the theory of the somatic stimulation of dreams may have become and however attractive it may seem, its weak point is easily displayed. Every somatic dream stimulus which requires the sleeping mental apparatus to interpret it by the construction of an illusion may give rise to an unlimited number of such attempts at interpretation - that is to say, it may be represented in the content of the dream by an immense variety of ideas.¹ But the theory put forward by Strümpell and Wundt is incapable of producing any motive governing the relation between an external stimulus and the dream-idea chosen for its interpretation - is incapable, that is, of explaining what Lipps (1883, 170) describes as the ‘remarkable choice often made’ by these stimuli ‘in the course of their productive activity’. Objections have further been raised against the presupposition upon which the whole theory of illusion is based - the presupposition that the sleeping mind is incapable of recognizing the true nature of objective sensory stimuli. Burdach, the physiologist, showed us long ago that even in sleep the mind is very well able to interpret correctly the sense impressions that reach it and to react in accordance with that correct interpretation; for he recalled the fact that particular sense impressions which seem important to the sleeper can be excepted from the general neglect to which such impressions are subjected during sleep (as in the case of a nursing mother or wet-nurse and her charge), and that a sleeper is much more certain to be woken by the sound of his own name than by any indifferent auditory impression - all of which implies that the mind distinguishes between sensations during sleep (cf. p. 562). Burdach went on to infer from these observations that what we must presume during the state of sleep is not an incapacity to interpret sensory stimuli but a lack of interest in them. The same arguments which were used by Burdach in 1830 were brought forward once more without any modifications by Lipps in 1883 in his criticism of the theory of somatic stimulation. Thus the mind seems to behave like the sleeper in the anecdote. When someone asked him if he was asleep, he replied ‘No’. But when his questioner went on to say; ‘Then lend me ten florins’, he took refuge in a subterfuge and replied: ‘I’m asleep.’

¹ [Footnote added 1914]: Mourly Vold has produced a two-volume work containing detailed and precise reports of a series of experimentally produced dreams. I should recommend a study of this work to anyone who wishes to convince himself of how little light is thrown on the content of individual dreams by the conditions of the experiments described in it and of how little help in general is afforded by such experiments towards an understanding of the problems of dreams.

The inadequacy of the theory of the somatic stimulation of dreams can be demonstrated in other ways. Observation shows that external stimuli do not necessarily compel me to dream, even though such stimuli appear in the content of my dream when and if I do dream. Supposing, let us say, that I am subjected to a tactile stimulus while I am asleep. A variety of different reactions are then open to me. I may disregard it, and when I wake up I may find, for instance, that my leg is uncovered or that there is some pressure on my arm; pathology provides very numerous instances in which various powerfully exciting sensory and motor stimuli can remain without effect during sleep. Or again, I may be aware of the sensation in my sleep - I may be aware of it, as one might say, ‘through’ my sleep -(which is what happens as a rule in the case of painful stimuli) but without my weaving the pain into a dream. And thirdly, I may react to the stimulus by waking up so as to get rid of it.¹ It is only as a fourth possibility that the nervous stimulus may cause me to dream. Yet the other possibilities are realized at least as frequently as this last one of constructing a dream. And this could not happen unless the motive for dreaming lay elsewhere than in somatic sources of stimulation.

Certain other writers - Scherner and Volkelt, the philosopher, who adopted Scherner’s views - formed a just estimate of the gaps which I have here indicated in the explanation of dreams as being due to somatic stimulation. These writers attempted to define more precisely the mental activities which lead to the production of such variegated dream-images from the somatic stimuli; in other words, they sought to regard dreaming once again as something essentially mental - as a psychical activity. Scherner did not merely depict the psychical characteristics unfolded in the production of dreams in terms charged with poetic feeling and glowing with life; he believed, too, that he had discovered the principle according to which the mind deals with the stimuli presented to it. On his view, the dream-work, when the imagination is set free from the shackles of daytime, seeks to give a symbolic representation of the nature of the organ from which the stimulus arises and of the nature of the stimulus itself. Thus he provides a kind of ‘dream-book’ to serve as a guide to the interpretation of dreams, which makes it possible to deduce from the dream-images inferences as to the somatic feelings, the state of the organs and the character of the stimuli concerned. ‘Thus the image of a cat expresses a state of angry ill-temper, and the image of a smooth and lightly-coloured loaf of bread stands for physical nudity.’ The human body as a whole is pictured by the dream-imagination as a house and the separate organs of the body by portions of a house. In ‘dreams with a dental stimulus’, an entrance-hall with a high, vaulted roof corresponds to the oral cavity and a staircase to the descent from the throat to the oesophagus. ‘In dreams due to headaches, the top of the head is represented by the ceiling of a room covered with disgusting, toad-like spiders.’ A variety of such symbols are employed by dreams to represent the same organ. ‘Thus the breathing lung will be symbolically represented by a blazing furnace, with flames roaring with a sound like the passage of air; the heart will be represented by hollow boxes or baskets, the bladder by round, bag-shaped objects or, more generally, by hollow ones.’ ‘It is of special importance that at the end of a dream the organ concerned or its function is often openly revealed, and as a rule in relation to the dreamer’s own body. Thus a dream with a dental stimulus usually ends by the dreamer picturing himself pulling a tooth out of his mouth.’

¹ [Footnote added 1919:] Cf. Landauer (1918) on behaviour during sleep. Anyone can observe persons asleep carrying out actions which obviously have a meaning. A man asleep is not reduced to complete idiocy; on the contrary, he is capable of logical and deliberate acts.

This theory of dream-interpretation cannot be said to have been very favourably received by other writers on the subject. Its main feature seems to be its extravagance; and there has even been hesitation in recognizing such justification as, in my opinion, it can lay claim to. As will have been seen, it involves a revival of dream-interpretation by means of symbolism - the same method that was employed in antiquity, except that the field from which interpretations are collected is restricted within the limits of the human body. Its lack of any technique of interpreting that can be grasped scientifically must greatly narrow the application of Scherner’s theory. It seems to leave the door open to arbitrary interpretations, especially as in its case, too, the same stimulus can be represented in the dream content in a variety of different ways. Thus even Scherner’s disciple, Volkelt, found himself unable to confirm the view that the body was represented by a house. Objections are also bound to arise from the fact that once again the mind is saddled with the dream-work as a useless and aimless function; for, according to the theory we are discussing, the mind is content with making phantasies about the stimulus with which it is occupied, without the remotest hint at anything in the nature of disposing of the stimulus.

There is one particular criticism, however, which is gravely damaging to Scherner’s theory of the symbolization of somatic stimuli. These stimuli are present at all times and it is generally held that the mind is more accessible to them during sleep than when it is awake. It is difficult to understand, then, why the mind does not dream continuously all through the night, and, indeed, dream every night of all the organs. An attempt may be made to avoid this criticism by adding the further condition that in order to arouse dream-activity it is necessary for special excitations to proceed from the eyes, ears, teeth, intestines, etc. But the difficulty then arises of proving the objective nature of such increases of stimulus - which is only possible in a small number of cases. If dreams of flying are a symbolization of the rising and sinking of the lobes of the lungs, then, as Strümpell has already pointed out, either such dreams would have to be much more frequent than they are or it would be necessary to prove an increase in the activity of breathing in the course of them. There is a third possibility, which is the most probable of all, namely that special motives may be temporarily operative which direct the attention to visceral sensations that are uniformly present at all times. This possibility, however, carries us beyond the scope of Scherner’s theory.

The value of the views put forward by Scherner and Volkelt lies in the fact that they draw attention to a number of characteristics of the content of dreams which call for explanation and seem to promise fresh discoveries. It is perfectly true that dreams contain symbolizations of bodily organs and functions, that water in a dream often points to a urinary stimulus, and that the male genitals can be represented by an upright stick or a pillar, and so on. In the case of dreams in which the field of vision is full of movement and bright colours, in contrast to the drabness of other dreams, it is scarcely possible not to interpret them as ‘dreams with a visual stimulus’; nor can one dispute the part played by illusions in the case of dreams characterized by noise and a confusion of voices. Scherner reports a dream of two rows of pretty, fair-haired boys standing opposite each other on a bridge, and of their attacking each other and then going back to their original position, till at last the dreamer saw himself sitting down on a bridge and pulling a long tooth out of his jaw. Similarly Volkelt reports a dream in which two rows of drawers in a cupboard played a part and which once more ended with the dreamer pulling out a tooth. Dream-formations such as these, which are recorded in great numbers by the two authors, forbid our dismissing Scherner’s theory as an idle invention without looking for its kernel of truth. The task, then, that faces us is to find an explanation of another kind for the supposed symbolization of what is alleged to be a dental stimulus.

Throughout the whole of this discussion of the theory of the somatic sources of dreams I have refrained from making use of the argument based upon my dream-analyses. If it can be proved, by a procedure which other writers have not employed upon their dream-material, that dreams possess a value of their own as psychical acts, that wishes are the motive for their construction and that experiences of the preceding day provide the immediate material for their content, then any other theory of dreams, which neglects so important a procedure of research and accordingly represents dreams as a useless and puzzling psychical reaction to somatic stimuli, stands condemned without there being any necessity for specific criticisms. Otherwise - and this seems highly improbable - there would have to be two quite different kinds of dreaming, one of which has come only under my observation and the other only under that of the earlier authorities. All that remains, therefore, is to find a place in my theory of dreams for the facts upon which the current theory of the somatic stimulation of dreams is based.

We have already taken the first step in this direction by advancing the thesis (see p. 666 f.) that the dream-work is under the necessity of combining into a unity all instigations to dreaming which are active simultaneously. We found that, when two or more experiences capable of creating an impression are left over from the previous day, the wishes derived from them are combined in a single dream, and similarly that the psychically significant impressions and the indifferent experiences from the previous day are brought together in the dream-material, provided always that it is possible to set up communicating ideas between them. Thus a dream appears to be a reaction to everything that is simultaneously present in the sleeping mind as currently active material. So far as we have hitherto analysed the material of dreams, we have seen it as a collection of psychical residues and memory-traces, to which (on account of the preference shown for recent and infantile material) we have been led to attribute a hitherto indefinable quality of being ‘currently active’. We can foresee, then, without any great difficulty, what will happen if fresh material in the form of sensations is added during sleep to these currently active memories. It is once again owing to the fact of their being currently active that these sensory excitations are of importance for the dream; they are united with the other currently active psychical material to furnish what is used for the construction of the dream. To put it another way, stimuli arising during sleep are worked up into a wish-fulfilment the other constituents of which are the familiar psychical ‘day’s residues’. This combination need not occur; as I have already pointed out, there is more than one way of reacting to a somatic stimulus during sleep. When it does occur, it means that it has been possible to find ideational material to serve as the content of the dream of such a sort as to be able to represent both kinds of source of the dream - the somatic and the psychical.

The essential nature of the dream is not altered by the fact of somatic material being added to its psychical sources: a dream remains the fulfilment of a wish, no matter in what way the expression of that wish-fulfilment is determined by the currently active material. I am prepared to leave room at this point for the operation of a number of special factors which can lend a varying importance to external stimuli in relation to dreams. As I picture it, a combination of individual factors, physiological and accidental, produced by the circumstances of the moment, is what determines how a person shall behave in particular cases of comparatively intense objective stimulation during sleep. The habitual or accidental depth of his sleep, taken in conjunction with the intensity of the stimulus, will make it possible in one case for him to suppress the stimulus so that his sleep is not interrupted and in another case will compel him to wake up or will encourage an attempt to overcome the stimulus by weaving it into a dream. In accordance with these various possible combinations, external objective stimuli will find expression in dreams with greater or less frequency in one person than in another. In my own case, since I am an excellent sleeper and obstinately refuse to allow anything to disturb my sleep, it very rarely happens that external causes of excitation find their way into my dreams; whereas psychical motives obviously cause me to dream very easily. In fact I have only noted a single dream in which an objective and painful source of stimulus is recognizable; and it will be most instructive to examine the effect which the external stimulus produced in this particular dream.

I was riding on a grey horse, timidly and awkwardly to begin with, as though I were only reclining upon it. I met one of my colleagues, P., who was sitting high on a horse, dressed in a tweed suit, and who drew my attention to something (probably to my bad seat). I now began to find myself sitting more and more firmly and comfortably on my highly intelligent horse, and noticed that I was feeling quite at home up there. My saddle was a kind of bolster, which completely filled the space between its neck and crupper. In this way I rode straight in between two vans. After riding some distance up the street, I turned round and tried to dismount, first in front of a small open chapel that stood in the street frontage. Then I actually did dismount in front of another chapel that stood near it. My hotel was in the same street; I might have let the horse go to it on its own, but I preferred to lead it there. It was as though I should have felt ashamed to arrive at it on horseback. A hotel ‘boots’ was standing in front of the hotel; he showed me a note of mine that had been found, and laughed at me over it. In the note was written, doubly underlined: ‘No food’ and then another remark (indistinct) such as ‘No work’, together with a vague idea that I was in a strange town in which I was doing no work.

It would not be supposed at first sight that this dream originated under the influence, or rather under the compulsion, of a painful stimulus. But for some days before I had been suffering from boils which made every movement a torture; and finally a boil the size of an apple had risen at the base of my scrotum, which caused me the most unbearable pain with every step I took. Feverish lassitude, loss of appetite and the hard work with which I nevertheless carried on - all these had combined with the pain to depress me. I was not properly capable of discharging my medical duties. There was, however, one activity for which, in view of the nature and situation of my complaint, I should certainly have been less fitted than for any other, and that was - riding. And this was precisely the activity in which the dream landed me: it was the most energetic denial of my illness that could possibly be imagined. I cannot in fact ride, nor have I, apart from this, had dreams of riding. I have only sat on a horse once in my life and that was without a saddle, and I did not enjoy it. But in this dream I was riding as though I had no boil on my perineum - or rather because I wanted not to have one. My saddle, to judge from its description, was the poultice which had made it possible for me to fall asleep. Under its assuaging influence I had probably been unaware of my pain during the first hours of sleep. The painful feelings had then announced themselves and sought to wake me; where upon the dream came and said soothingly: ‘No! Go on sleeping! There’s no need to wake up. You haven’t got a boil; for you’re riding on a horse, and it’s quite certain that you couldn’t ride if you had a boil in that particular place.’ And the dream was successful. The pain was silenced, and I went on sleeping.

But the dream was not content with ‘suggesting away’ my boil by obstinately insisting upon an idea that was inconsistent with it and so behaving like the hallucinatory delusion of the mother who had lost her child or the merchant whose losses had robbed him of his fortune.¹ The details of the sensation which was being repudiated and of the picture which was employed in order to repress that sensation also served the dream as a means of connecting other material that was currently active in my mind with the situation in the dream and of giving that material representation. I was riding on a grey horse, whose colour corresponded precisely to the pepper-and-salt colour of the suit my colleague P. was wearing when I had last met him in the country. The cause of my boils had been ascribed to my eating highly-spiced food - an aetiology that was at least preferable to the sugar which might also occur to one in connection with boils. My friend P. liked to ride the high horse over me ever since he had taken over one of my women patients on whom I had pulled off some remarkable feats. (In the dream I began by riding tangentially - like the feat of a trick rider.) But in fact, like the horse in the anecdote of the Sunday horseman, this patient had taken me wherever she felt inclined. Thus the horse acquired the symbolic meaning of a woman patient. (It was highly intelligent in the dream.) ‘I felt quite at home up there’ referred to the position I had occupied in this patient’s house before I was replaced by P. Not long before, one of my few patrons among the leading physicians in this city had remarked to me in connection with this same house: ‘You struck me as being firmly in the saddle there.’ It was a remarkable feat, too, to be able to carry on my psychotherapeutic work for eight or ten hours a day while I was having so much pain. But I knew that I could not go on long with my peculiarly difficult work unless I was in completely sound physical health; and my dream was full of gloomy allusions to the situation in which I should then find myself. (The note which neurasthenics bring with them to show the doctor; no work, no food.) In the course of further interpretation I saw that the dream-work had succeeded in finding a path from the wishful situation of riding to some scenes of quarrelling from my very early childhood which must have occurred between me and a nephew of mine, a year my senior, who was at present living in England. Furthermore, the dream had derived some of its elements from my travels in Italy: the street in the dream was composed of impressions of Verona and Siena. A still deeper interpretation led to sexual dream-thoughts, and I recalled the meaning which references to Italy seem to have had in the dreams of a woman patient who had never visited that lovely country: ‘gen Italien [to Italy]’ - ‘Genitalien [genitals]’; and this was connected, too, with the house in which I had preceded my friend P. as physician, as well as with the situation of my boil.

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