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The Interpretation of Dreams BIBLIOGRAPHY Preface Psychology
CHAPTER ONE: THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF DREAM-PROBLEMS
(UP TO 1900)
In the following pages I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological
technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the
application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a psychological
structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific
place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour
to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of
dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces
whose conflict or cooperation is responsible for our dreams. This done, my
investigation will terminate, as it will have reached the point where the
problem of the dream merges into more comprehensive problems, and to solve these
we must have recourse to material of a different kind.
I shall begin by giving a short account of the views of earlier writers on this
subject, and of the status of the dream-problem in contemporary science; since
in the course of this treatise I shall not often have occasion to refer to
either. In spite of thousands of years of endeavour, little progress has been
made in the scientific understanding of dreams. This fact has been so
universally acknowledged by previous writers on the subject that it seems hardly
necessary to quote individual opinions. The reader will find, in the works
listed at the end of this work, many stimulating observations, and plenty of
interesting material relating to our subject, but little or nothing that
concerns the true nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of its
enigmas. The educated layman, of course, knows even less of the matter.
The conception of the dream that was held in prehistoric ages by primitive
peoples, and the influence which it may have exerted on the formation of their
conceptions of the universe, and of the soul, is a theme of such great interest
that it is only with reluctance that I refrain from dealing with it in these
pages. I will refer the reader to the well-known works of Sir John Lubbock (Lord
Avebury), Herbert Spencer, E. B. Tylor, and other writers; I will only add that
we shall not realize the importance of these problems and speculations until we
have completed the task of dream- interpretation that lies before us.
A reminiscence of the concept of the dream that was held in primitive times
seems to underlie the evaluation of the dream which was current among the
peoples of classical antiquity. * They took it for granted that dreams were
related to the world of the supernatural beings in whom they believed, and that
they brought inspirations from the gods and demons. Moreover, it appeared to
them that dreams must serve a special purpose in respect of the dreamer; that,
as a rule, they predicted the future. The extraordinary variations in the
content of dreams, and in the impressions which they produced on the dreamer,
made it, of course, very difficult to formulate a coherent conception of them,
and necessitated manifold differentiations and group-formations, according to
their value and reliability. The valuation of dreams by the individual
philosophers of antiquity naturally depended on the importance which they were
prepared to attribute to manticism in general.
* The following remarks are based on Buchsenschutz's careful essay, Traum und
Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin 1868).
In the two works of Aristotle in which there is mention of dreams, they are
already regarded as constituting a problem of psychology. We are told that the
dream is not god-sent, that it is not of divine but of demonic origin. For
nature is really demonic, not divine; that is to say, the dream is not a
supernatural revelation, but is subject to the laws of the human spirit, which
has, of course, a kinship with the divine. The dream is defined as the psychic
activity of the sleeper, inasmuch as he is asleep. Aristotle was acquainted with
some of the characteristics of the dream-life; for example, he knew that a dream
converts the slight sensations perceived in sleep into intense sensations ("one
imagines that one is walking through fire, and feels hot, if this or that part
of the body becomes only quite slightly warm"), which led him to conclude that
dreams might easily betray to the physician the first indications of an
incipient physical change which escaped observation during the day. *
* The relationship between dreams and disease is discussed by Hippocrates in a
chapter of his famous work.
As has been said, those writers of antiquity who preceded Aristotle did not
regard the dream as a product of the dreaming psyche, but as an inspiration of
divine origin, and in ancient times the two opposing tendencies which we shall
find throughout the ages in respect of the evaluation of the dream- life were
already perceptible. The ancients distinguished between the true and valuable
dreams which were sent to the dreamer as warnings, or to foretell future events,
and the vain, fraudulent, and empty dreams whose object was to misguide him or
lead him to destruction.
Gruppe * speaks of such a classification of dreams, citing Macrobius and
Artemidorus: "Dreams were divided into two classes; the first class was believed
to be influenced only by the present (or the past), and was unimportant in
respect of the future; it included the enuknia (insomnia), which directly
reproduce a given idea or its opposite; e.g., hunger or its satiation; and the
phantasmata, which elaborate the given idea phantastically, as e.g. the
nightmare, ephialtes. The second class of dreams, on the other hand, was
determinative of the future. To this belonged:
1. Direct prophecies received in the dream (chrematismos, oraculum);
2. the foretelling of a future event (orama, visio);
3. the symbolic dream, which requires interpretation (oneiros, somnium.)
This theory survived for many centuries."
* Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, p. 390.
Connected with these varying estimations of the dream was the problem of
"dream-interpretation." Dreams in general were expected to yield important
solutions, but not every dream was immediately understood, and it was impossible
to be sure that a certain incomprehensible dream did not really foretell
something of importance, so that an effort was made to replace the
incomprehensible content of the dream by something that should be at once
comprehensible and significant. In later antiquity Artemidorus of Daldis was
regarded as the greatest authority on dream-interpretation. His comprehensive
works must serve to compensate us for the lost works of a similar nature. * The
pre-scientific conception of the dream which obtained among the ancients was, of
course, in perfect keeping with their general conception of the universe, which
was accustomed to project as an external reality that which possessed reality
only in the life of the psyche. Further, it accounted for the main impression
made upon the waking life by the morning memory of the dream; for in this memory
the dream, as compared with the rest of the psychic content, seems to be
something alien, coming, as it were, from another world. It would be an error to
suppose that theory of the supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers even in
our own times; for quite apart from pietistic and mystical writers- who cling,
as they are perfectly justified in doing, to the remnants of the once
predominant realm of the supernatural until these remnants have been swept away
by scientific explanation- we not infrequently find that quite intelligent
persons, who in other respects are averse from anything of a romantic nature, go
so far as to base their religious belief in the existence and co-operation of
superhuman spiritual powers on the inexplicable nature of the phenomena of
dreams (Haffner). The validity ascribed to the dream-life by certain schools of
philosophy- for example, by the school of Schelling- is a distinct reminiscence
of the undisputed belief in the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity;
and for some thinkers the mantic or prophetic power of dreams is still a subject
of debate. This is due to the fact that the explanations attempted by psychology
are too inadequate to cope with the accumulated material, however strongly the
scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be
repudiated.
* For the later history of dream-interpretation in the Middle Ages consult
Diepgen, and the special investigations of M. Forster, Gotthard, and others. The
interpretation of dreams among the Jews has been studied by Amoli, Amram, and
Lowinger, and recently, with reference to the psycho- analytic standpoint, by
Lauer. Details of the Arabic methods of dream- interpretation are furnished by
Drexl, F. Schwarz, and the missionary Tfinkdji. The interpretation of dreams
among the Japanese has been investigated by Miura and Iwaya, among the Chinese
by Secker, and among the Indians by Negelein.
To write strongly the history of our scientific knowledge of the dream- problem
is extremely difficult, because, valuable though this knowledge may be in
certain respects, no real progress in a definite direction is as yet
discernible. No real foundation of verified results has hitherto been
established on which future investigators might continue to build. Every new
author approaches the same problems afresh, and from the very beginning. If I
were to enumerate such authors in chronological order, giving a survey of the
opinions which each has held concerning the problems of the dream, I should be
quite unable to draw a clear and complete picture of the present state of our
knowledge on the subject. I have therefore preferred to base my method of
treatment on themes rather than on authors, and in attempting the solution of
each problem of the dream I shall cite the material found in the literature of
the subject.
But as I have not succeeded in mastering the whole of this literature- for it is
widely dispersed, and interwoven with the literature of other subjects- I must
ask my readers to rest content with my survey as it stands, provided that no
fundamental fact or important point of view has been overlooked.
Until recently most authors have been inclined to deal with the subjects of
sleep and dreams in conjunction, and together with these they have commonly
dealt with analogous conditions of a psycho-pathological nature, and other
dream-like phenomena, such as hallucinations, visions, etc. In recent works, on
the other hand, there has been a tendency to keep more closely to the theme, and
to consider, as a special subject, the separate problems of the dream-life. In
this change I should like to perceive an expression of the growing conviction
that enlightenment and agreement in such obscure matters may be attained only by
a series of detailed investigations. Such a detailed investigation, and one of a
special psychological nature, is expounded in these pages. I have had little
occasion to concern myself with the problem of sleep, as this is essentially a
physiological problem, although the changes in the functional determination of
the psychic apparatus should be included in a description of the sleeping state.
The literature of sleep will therefore not be considered here.
A scientific interest in the phenomena of dreams as such leads us to propound
the following problems, which to a certain extent, interdependent, merge into
one another.
H. The Relation between Dreams and Mental Diseases
G. Dream-Theories and the Function of the Dream
F. The Ethical Sense in Dreams
E. The Psychological Peculiarities of Dreams
D. Why Dreams Are Forgotten After Waking
B. The Material of Dreams- Memory in Dreams
A. The Relation of the Dream to the Waking State
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