Kitabı oku: «The Interpretation of Dreams / Толкование сновидений», sayfa 9

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 Scherner⁵⁸ in 1861. Scherner̕s 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 Volkelt⁷² presents Scherner̕s 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 Scherner̕s description from one of his own adherents.

Scherner does not belong to those authors who allow the mind to take along its undiminished capacities into the dream life. He indeed explains how in the dream the centrality and the spontaneous energy of the ego are enervated, how cognition, feeling, will, and imagination become changed through this decentralisation, and how no true mental character, but only the nature of a mechanism, belongs to the remnants of these psychic forces. But instead, the activity of the mind designated as phantasy, freed from all rational domination and hence completely uncontrolled, rises in the dream to absolute supremacy. To be sure, it takes the last building stones from the memory of the waking state, but it builds with them constructions as different from the structures of the waking state as day and night. It shows itself in the dream not only reproductive, but productive. Its peculiarities give to the dream life its strange character. It shows a preference for the unlimited, exaggerated, and prodigious, but because freed from the impeding thought categories, it gains a greater flexibility and agility and new pleasure; it is extremely sensitive to the delicate emotional stimuli of the mind and to the agitating affects, and it rapidly recasts the inner life into the outer plastic clearness. The dream phantasy lacks the language of ideas; what it wishes to say, it must clearly depict; and as the idea now acts strongly, it depicts it with the richness, force, and immensity of the mode in question. Its language, however simple it may be, thus becomes circumstantial, cumbersome, and heavy. Clearness of language is rendered especially difficult by the fact that it shows a dislike for expressing an object by its own picture, but prefers a strange picture, if the latter can only express that moment of the object which it wishes to describe. This is the symbolising activity of the phantasy… It is, moreover, of great significance that the dream phantasy copies objects not in detail, but only in outline and even this in the broadest manner. Its paintings, therefore, appear ingeniously light and graceful. The dream phantasy, however, does not stop at the mere representation of the object, but is impelled from within to mingle with the object more or less of the dream ego, and in this way to produce an action. The visual dream,e. g., depicts gold coins in the street; the dreamer picks them up, rejoices, and carries them away.

According to Scherner, the material upon which the dream phantasy exerts its artistic activity is preponderately that of the organic sensory stimuli which are so obscure during the day (comp. p. 29); hence the phantastic theory of Scherner, and the perhaps over-sober theories of Wundt and other physiologists, though otherwise diametrically opposed, agree perfectly in their assumption of the dream sources and dream excitants. But whereas, according to the physiological theory, the psychic reaction to the inner physical stimuli becomes exhausted with the awakening of any ideas suitable to these stimuli, these ideas then by way of association calling to their aid other ideas, and with this stage the chain of psychic processes seeming to terminate according to Scherner, the physical stimuli only supply the psychic force with a material which it may render subservient to its phantastic intentions. For Scherner the formation of the dream only commences where in the conception of others it comes to an end.

The treatment of the physical stimuli by the dream phantasy surely cannot be considered purposeful. The phantasy plays a tantalising game with them, and represents the organic source which gives origin to the stimuli in the correspondent dream, in any plastic symbolism. Indeed Scherner holds the opinion, not shared by Volkelt and others, that the dream phantasy has a certain favourite representation for the entire organism; this representation would be thehouse. Fortunately, however, it does not seem to limit itself in its presentation to this material; it may also conversely employ a whole series of houses to designate a single organ, e. g., very long rows of houses for the intestinal excitation. On other occasions particular parts of the house actually represent particular parts of the body, as e. g., in the headache-dream, the ceiling of the room (which the dream sees covered with disgusting reptile-like spiders) represents the head.

Quite irrespective of the house symbolism, any other suitable object may be employed for the representation of these parts of the body which excite the dream. “Thus the breathing lungs find their symbol in the flaming stove with its gaseous roaring, the heart in hollow boxes and baskets, the bladder in round, bag-shaped, or simply hollowed objects. The male dream of sexual excitement makes the dreamer find in the street the upper portion of a clarinette, next to it the same part of a tobacco pipe, and next to that a piece of fur. The clarinette and tobacco pipe represent the approximate shape of the male sexual organ, while the fur represents the pubic hair. In the female sexual dream the tightness of the closely approximated thighs may be symbolised by a narrow courtyard surrounded by houses, and the vagina by a very narrow, slippery and soft footpath, leading through the courtyard, upon which the dreamer is obliged to walk, in order perhaps to carry a letter to a gentleman” (Volkelt, p. 39). It is particularly noteworthy that at the end of such a physically exciting dream, the phantasy, as it were, unmasks by representing the exciting organ or its function unconcealed. Thus the “tooth-exciting dream” usually ends with the dreamer taking a tooth out of his mouth.

The dream phantasy may, however, not only direct its attention to the shape of the exciting organ, but it may also make the substance contained therein the object of the symbolisation. Thus the dream of intestinal excitement, e. g., may lead us through muddy streets, the bladder-exciting dream to foaming water. Or the stimulus itself, the manner of its excitation, and the object it covets, are represented symbolically, or the dream ego enters into a concrete combination with the symbolisation of its own state, ase. g., when, in the case of painful stimuli, we struggle desperately with vicious dogs or raging bulls, or when in the sexual dream the dreamer sees herself pursued by a naked man. Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration, a symbolising phantastic activity remains as the central force of every dream. Volkelt,⁷² in his finely and fervently written book, next attempted to penetrate further into the character of this phantasy and to assign to the psychical activity thus recognised, its position in a system of philosophical ideas, which, however, remains altogether too difficult of comprehension for any one who is not prepared by previous schooling for the sympathetic comprehension of philosophical modes of thinking.

Scherner connects no useful function with the activity of the symbolising phantasy in dreams. In the dream the psyche plays with the stimuli at its disposal. One might presume that it plays in an improper manner. One might also ask us whether our thorough study of Scherner̕s dream theory, the arbitrariness and deviation of which from the rules of all investigation are only too obvious, can lead to any useful results. It would then be proper for us to forestall the rejection of Scherner̕s theory without examination by saying that this would be too arrogant. This theory is built up on the impression received from his dreams by a man who paid great attention to them, and who would appear to be personally very well fitted to trace obscure psychic occurrences. Furthermore it treats a subject which, for thousands of years, has appeared mysterious to humanity though rich in its contents and relations; and for the elucidation of which stern science, as it confesses itself, has contributed nothing beyond attempting, in entire opposition to popular sentiment, to deny the substance and significance of the object. Finally, let us frankly admit that apparently we cannot avoid the phantastical in our attempts to elucidate the dream. There are also phantastic ganglia cells; the passage cited on p. 63 from a sober and exact investigator like Binz,⁴ which depicts how the aurora of awakening flows along the dormant cell masses of the cerebrum, is not inferior in fancifulness and in improbability to Scherner̕s attempts at interpretation. I hope to be able to demonstrate that there is something actual underlying the latter, though it has only been indistinctly observed and does not possess the character of universality entitling it to the claim of a dream theory. For the present, Scherner̕s theory of the dream, in its contrast to the medical theory, may perhaps lead us to realise between what extremes the explanation of dream life is still unsteadily vacillating.

(h) Relations between the Dream and Mental Diseases. – When we speak of the relation of the dream to mental disturbances, we may think of three different things: (1) Etiological and clinical relations, as when a dream represents or initiates a psychotic condition, or when it leaves such a condition behind it. (2) Changes to which the dream life is subjected in mental diseases. (3) Inner relations between the dream and the psychoses, analogies indicating an intimate relationship. These manifold, relations between the two series of phenomena have been a favourite theme of medical authors in the earlier periods of medical science – and again in recent times – as we learn from the literature on the subject gathered from Spitta,⁶⁴ Radestock,⁵⁴ Maury,⁴⁸ and Tissié.⁶⁸ Sante de Sanctis has lately directed his attention to this relationship. For the purposes of our discussion it will suffice merely to glance at this important subject.

In regard to the clinical and etiological relations between the dream and the psychoses, I will report the following observations as paradigms. Hohnbaum asserts (see Krauss, p. 39), that the first attack of insanity frequently originates in an anxious and terrifying dream, and that the ruling idea has connection with this dream. Sante de Sanctis adduces similar observations in paranoiacs, and declares the dream to be, in some of them, the “vraie cause déterminante de la folie.” The psychosis may come to life all of a sudden with the dream causing and containing the explanation for the mental disturbances, or it may slowly develop through further dreams that have yet to struggle against doubt. In one of de Sanctis̕s cases, the affecting dream was accompanied by light hysterical attacks, which in their turn were followed by an anxious, melancholic state. Féré (cited by Tissié) refers to a dream which caused an hysterical paralysis. Here the dream is offered us as an etiology of mental disturbance, though we equally consider the prevailing conditions when we declare that the mental disturbance shows its first manifestation in dream life, that it has its first outbreak in the dream. In other instances the dream life contained the morbid symptoms, or the psychosis was limited to the dream life. Thus Thomayer⁷⁰ calls attention to anxiety dreams which must be conceived as equivalent to epileptic attacks. Allison has described nocturnal insanity (cited by Radestock), in which the subjects are apparently perfectly well in the day-time, while hallucinations, fits of frenzy, and the like regularly appear at night. De Sanctis and Tissié report similar observations (paranoiac dream-equivalent in an alcoholic, voices accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissié reports abundant observations from recent times in which actions of a pathological character (based on delusions, obsessive impulses) had their origin in dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep was replaced by an intermittent insanity.

There is hardly any doubt that along with the psychology of the dream, the physician will one day occupy himself with the psychopathology of the dream.

In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is often especially obvious that, while the functions of the day are normal, the dream life may still belong to the psychosis. Gregory is said first to have called attention to such cases (cited by Krauss³⁹). Macario (reported by Tissié) gives account of a maniac who, a week after his complete recovery again experienced in dreams the flight of ideas and the passionate impulses of his disease.

Concerning the changes to which the dream life is subjected in chronic psychotic persons, very few investigations have so far been made. On the other hand, timely attention has been called to the inner relationship between the dream and mental disturbance, which shows itself in an extensive agreement of the manifestations occurring to both. According to Maury,⁴⁷ Cubanis, in his Rapports du physique et du moral, first called attention to this; following him came Lelut, J. Moreau, and more particularly the philosopher Maine de Biran. To be sure, the comparison is still older. Radestock⁵⁴ begins the chapter dealing with this comparison, by giving a collection of expressions showing the analogy between the dream and insanity. Kant somewhere says: “The lunatic is a dreamer in the waking state.” According to Krauss “Insanity is a dream with the senses awake.” Schopenhauer terms the dream a short insanity, and insanity a long dream. Hagen describes the delirium as dream life which has not been caused by sleep but by disease. Wundt, in the Physiological Psychology, declares: “As a matter of fact we may in the dream ourselves live through almost all symptoms which we meet in the insane asylums.”

The specific agreements, on the basis of which such an identification commends itself to the understanding, are enumerated by Spitta.⁶⁴ And indeed, very similarly, by Maury in the following grouping: “(1) Suspension or at least retardation, of self-consciousness, consequent ignorance of the condition as such, and hence incapability of astonishment and lack of moral consciousness. (2) Modified perception of the sensory organs; that is, perception is diminished in the dream and generally enhanced in insanity. (3) Combination of ideas with each other exclusively in accordance with the laws of association and of reproduction, hence automatic formation of groups and for this reason disproportion in the relations between ideas (exaggerations, phantasms). And as a result of all this: (4) Changing or transformation of the personality and at times of the peculiarities of character (perversities).”

Radestock gives some additional features or analogies in the material: “Most hallucinations and illusions are found in the sphere of the senses of sight and hearing and general sensation. As in the dream, the smallest number of elements is supplied by the senses of smell and taste. The fever patient, like the dreamer, is assaulted by reminiscences from the remote past; what the waking and healthy man seems to have forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease.” The analogy between the dream and the psychosis receives its full value only when, like a family resemblance, it is extended to the finer mimicry and to the individual peculiarities of facial expression.

“To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings the dream accords what has been denied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being and happiness; so the insane, too, see the bright pictures of happiness, greatness, sublimity, and riches. The supposed possession of estates and the imaginary fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which have just served as a psychic cause of the insanity, often form the main content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved child, in her delirium experiences maternal joys; the man who has suffered reverses of fortune deems himself immensely wealthy; and the jilted girl pictures herself in the bliss of tender love.”

The above passage from Radestock, an abstract of a keen discussion of Griesinger³¹ (p. 111), reveals with the greatest clearness the wish fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination, common to the dream and the psychosis. (My own investigations have taught me that here the key to a psychological theory of the dream and of the psychosis is to be found.)

“Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment are the main characteristics of the dream and of insanity.” The over-estimation of one̕s own mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober judgment, is found alike both in one and the other, and the rapid course of ideas in the dream corresponds to the flight of ideas in the psychosis. Both are devoid of any measure of time. The dissociation of personality in the dream, which, for instance, distributes one̕s own knowledge between two persons, one of whom, the strange one, corrects in the dream one̕s own ego, fully corresponds to the well-known splitting of personality in hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts expressed by strange voices. Even the constant delusions find their analogy in the stereotyped recurring pathological dreams (rêve obsedant). After recovering from a delirium, patients not infrequently declare that the disease appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream; indeed, they inform us that occasionally, even during the course of their sickness, they have felt that they were only dreaming, just as it frequently happens in the sleeping dream.

Considering all this, it is not surprising that Radestock condenses his own opinion and that of many others into the following: Insanity, an abnormal phenomenon of disease, is to be regarded as an enhancement of the periodically recurring normal dream states” (p. 228).

Krauss³⁹ attempted to base the relationship between the dream and insanity upon the etiology (or rather upon the exciting sources), perhaps making the relationship even more intimate than was possible through the analogy of the phenomena they manifest. According to him, the fundamental element common to both is, as we have learned, the organically determined sensation, the sensation of physical stimuli, the general feeling produced by contributions from all the organs. Cf. Peise, cited by Maury⁴⁸ (p. 60).