Freud - Complete Works (99 page)

The Interpretation Of Dreams

591

   The material with which
dream-imagination accomplishes its artistic work is principally,
according to Scherner, provided by the organic somatic stimuli
which are so obscure during the daytime. (See above,
p. 544 ff.
) Thus the excessively
fantastic hypothesis put forward by Scherner and the perhaps unduly
sober doctrines of Wundt and other physiologists, which are poles
asunder in other respects, are entirely at one in regard to their
theory of the sources and instigators of dreams. According to the
physiological view, however, the mental reaction to the internal
somatic stimuli is exhausted with the provoking of certain ideas
appropriate to the stimuli; these ideas give rise to others along
associative lines and at this point the course of psychical events
in dreams seems to be at an end. According to Scherner, on the
other hand, the somatic stimuli do no more than provide the mind
with material of which it can make use for its imaginative
purposes. The formation of dreams only begins, in Scherner’s
eyes, at the point which the other writers regard as its end.

   What dream-imagination does to
the somatic stimuli cannot, of course, be regarded as serving any
useful purpose. It plays about with them and pictures the organic
sources, from which the stimuli of the dream in question have
arisen, in some kind of plastic symbolism. Scherner is of the
opinion - though here Volkelt and others refuse to follow him -
that dream imagination has one particular favourite way of
representing the organism as a whole: namely as a house.
Fortunately, however, it does not seem to be restricted to this one
method of representation On the other hand, it may make use of a
whole row of houses to indicate a single organ; for instance, a
very long street of houses may represent a stimulus from the
intestines. Again, separate portions of a house may stand for
separate portions of the body; thus, in a dream caused by a
headache, the head may be represented by the ceiling of a room
covered with disgusting, toad-like spiders.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

592

   Leaving this house-symbolism on
one side, any number of other kinds of things may be used to
represent the parts of the body from which the stimulus to the
dream has arisen. ‘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. A dream caused by
stimuli arising from the male sexual organs may cause the dreamer
to find the top part of a clarinet in the street or the mouth-piece
of a tobacco-pipe, or again, a piece of fur. Here the clarinet and
the tobacco-pipe represent the approximate shape of the male organ,
while the fur stands for the pubic hair. In the case of a sexual
dream in a woman, the narrow space where the thighs come together
may be represented by a narrow courtyard surrounded by houses,
while the vagina may be symbolized by a soft, slippery and very
narrow foot-path leading across the yard, along which the dreamer
has to pass, in order, perhaps, to take a gentleman a
letter.’ (Ibid., 34.) It is of special importance that, at
the end of dreams with a somatic stimulus, such as these, the dream
imagination often throws aside its veil, as it were, by openly
revealing the organ concerned or its function. Thus a dream
‘with a dental stimulus’ usually ends by the dreamer
picturing himself pulling a tooth out of his mouth.

   Dream-imagination may, however,
not merely direct its attention to the
form
of the
stimulating organ; it may equally well symbolize the substance
contained in that organ. In this way, a dream with an intestinal
stimulus may lead the dreamer along muddy streets, or one with a
urinary stimulus may lead him to a foaming stream. Or the stimulus
as such, the nature of the excitement it produces, or the object it
desires, may be symbolically represented. Or the dream-ego may
enter into concrete relations with the symbols of its own state;
for instance, in the case of painful stimuli the dreamer may engage
in a desperate struggle with fierce dogs or savage bulls, or a
woman in a sexual dream may find herself pursued by a naked man.
Quite apart from the wealth of the means that it employs, the
symbolizing activity of the imagination remains the central force
in every dream. The task of penetrating more deeply into the nature
of this imagination and of finding a place for it in a system of
philosophical thought is attempted by Volkelt in the pages of his
book. But, though it is well and feelingly written, it remains
excessively hard to understand for anyone whose early education has
not prepared him for a sympathetic grasp of the conceptual
constructions of philosophy.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

593

   There is no utilitarian function
attached to Scherner’s symbolizing imagination. The mind
plays in its sleep with the stimuli that impinge upon it. One might
almost suspect that it plays with them mischievously. But I might
also be asked whether my detailed examination of Scherner’s
theory of dreams can serve any utilitarian purpose, since its
arbitrary character and its disobedience to all the rules of
research seem only too obvious. By way of rejoinder, I might
register a protest against the arrogance which would dismiss
Scherner’s theory unexamined. His theory is built upon the
impression made by his dreams upon a man who considered them with
the greatest attention and seems to have had a great personal gift
for investigating the obscure things of the mind. Moreover it deals
with a subject that for thousands of years has been regarded by
mankind as enigmatic, no doubt, but also as important in itself and
its implications - a subject to the elucidation of which exact
science, on its own admission, has contributed little apart from an
attempt (in direct opposition to popular feeling) to deny it any
meaning or significance. And finally it may honestly be said that
in attempting to explain dreams it is not easy to avoid being
fantastic. Ganglion cells can be fantastic too. The passage which I
quoted on
p. 584
from a sober and
exact investigator like Binz, and which describes the way in which
the dawn of awakening steals over the mass of sleeping cells in the
cerebral cortex, is no less fantastic - and no less improbably -
than Scherner’s attempts at interpretation. I hope to be able
to show that behind the latter there is an element of reality,
though it has only been vaguely perceived and lacks the attribute
of universality which should characterize a theory of dreams.
Meanwhile the contrast between Scherner’s theory and the
medical one will show us the extremes between which explanations of
dream-life doubtfully oscillate to this very day.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

594

(H)

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DREAMS AND MENTAL
DISEASES

   When we speak of the relation of
dreams to mental disorders we may have three things in mind: (1)
aetiological and clinical connections, as when a dream represents a
psychotic state, or introduces it, or is left over from it; (2)
modifications to which dream-life is subject in cases of mental
disease; and (3) intrinsic connections between dreams and
psychoses, analogies pointing to their being essentially akin .
These numerous relations between the two groups of phenomena were a
favourite topic among medical writers in earlier times and have
become so once again to-day, as is shown by the bibliographies of
the subject collected by Spitta, Radestock, Maury and
Tissié. Quite recently Sante de Sanctis has turned his
attention to this subject.¹ It will be enough for the purpose
of my thesis if I do no more than touch upon this important
question.

   As regards the clinical and
aetiological connections between dreams and psychoses, the
following observations may be given as samples. Hohnbaum, quoted by
Krauss, reports that a first outbreak of delusional insanity often
originates in an anxious or terrifying dream, and that the dominant
idea is connected with the dream. Sante de Sanctis brings forward
similar observations in cases of paranoia and declares that in some
of these the dream was the ‘vraie cause déterminante
de la folie’. The psychosis, says de Sanctis, may come to
life at a single blow with the appearance of the operative dream
which brings the delusional material to light; or it may develop
slowly in a series of further dreams, which have still to overcome
a certain amount of doubt. In one of his cases the significant
dream was followed by mild hysterical attacks and later by a
condition of anxious melancholia. Férée (quoted by
Tissié, 1898) reports a dream which resulted in a hysterical
paralysis. In these instances the dreams are represented as the
aetiology of the mental disorder; but we should be doing equal
justice to the facts if we said that the mental disorder made its
first appearance in dream-life, that it first broke through in a
dream. In some further examples the pathological symptoms are
contained in dream-life, or the psychosis is limited to dream-life.
Thus Thomayer (1897) draws attention to certain anxiety-dreams
which he thinks should be regarded as equivalents of epileptic
fits. Allison (quoted by Radestock, 1879) has described a
‘nocturnal insanity’, in which the patient appears
completely healthy during the day but is regularly subject at night
to hallucinations, fits of frenzy, etc. Similar observations are
reported by de Sanctis (a dream of an alcoholic patient which was
equivalent to a paranoia, and which represented voices accusing his
wife of unfaithfulness) and Tissié. The latter (1898) gives
copious recent examples in which acts of a pathological nature,
such as conduct based on delusional premises and obsessive
impulses, were derived from dreams. Guislain describes a case in
which sleep was replaced by an intermittent insanity.

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1914:] Among later
writers who deal with these relations are Féré,
Ideler, Lasègue, Pichon, Régis, Vespa, Giessler,
Kazowsky, Pachantoni, etc.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

595

   There can be no doubt that
alongside of the psychology of dreams physicians will some day have
to turn their attention to a
psychopathology
of dreams.

   In cases of recovery from mental
diseases it can often be quite clearly observed that, while
functioning is normal during the day, dream-life is still under the
influence of the psychosis. According to Krauss (1859, 270),
Gregory first drew attention to this fact. Macario, quoted by
Tissié, describes how a manic patient, a week after his
complete recovery was still subject in his dreams to the flight of
ideas and the violent passions which were characteristic of his
illness.

   Very little research has hitherto
been carried out into the modifications occurring in dream-life
during chronic psychoses. On the other hand, attention was long ago
directed to the underlying kinship between dreams and mental
disorders, exhibited in the wide measure of agreement between their
manifestations. Maury (1854, 124) tells us that Cabanis (1802) was
the first to remark on them, and after him Lélut, J. Moreau
(1855) and, in particular, Maine de Biran the philosopher. No doubt
the comparison goes back still earlier. Radestock (1879, 217)
introduces the chapter in which he deals with it by a number of
quotations drawing an analogy between dreams and madness. Kant
writes somewhere: ‘The madman is a waking dreamer.’
Krauss (1859, 270) declares that ‘insanity is a dream dreamt
while the senses are awake’. Schopenhauer calls dreams a
brief madness and madness a long dream. Hagen describes delirium as
dream-life induced not by sleep but by illness. Wundt writes:
‘We ourselves, in fact, can experience in dreams almost all
the phenomena to be met with in insane asylums.’

   Spitta (1882, 199), in much the
same way as Maury (1854), enumerates as follows the different
points of agreement which constitute the basis for this comparison:
‘(1) Self-consciousness is suspended or at least retarded,
which results in a lack of insight into the nature of the
condition, with consequent inability to feel surprise and loss of
moral consciousness. (2) Perception by the sense organs is
modified: being diminished in dreams but as a rule greatly
increased in insanity. (3) Interconnection of ideas occurs
exclusively according to the laws of association and reproduction;
ideas thus fall into sequences automatically and there is a
consequent lack of proportion in the relation between ideas
(exaggerations and illusions). All this leads to (4) an alteration
or in some cases a reversal of personality and occasionally of
character traits (perverse conduct).’

   Radestock (1879, 219) adds a few
more features - analogies between the
material
in the two
cases: ‘The majority of hallucinations and illusions occur in
the region of the senses of sight and hearing and of coenaesthesia.
As in the case of dreams, the senses of smell and taste provide the
fewest elements. - Both in patients suffering from fever and in
dreamers memories arise from the remote past; both sleeping and
sick men recollect things which waking and healthy men seem to have
forgotten.’ The analogy between dreams and psychoses is only
fully appreciated when it is seen to extend to the details of
expressive movement and to particular characteristics of facial
expression.