Chapter XVIII: Introduction (8)

Human motives are either constructive or adaptive. The former are associated with conscious reasoning and will, the latter with emotional repressions. The former represent aspirations and are much higher than they seem, since every man has an ideal--"getting out the best that is in himself." He is a "lover of the best" and will die for and live for mere ideas and abstractions like patriotism. He is assumed to be free because he voluntarily creates, and is as free as anything in the Universe; and he is free because he can choose. But where there is freedom there must be clashing and compromise and repression. Among repressed subjects are prejudices and superstitions, which, while irrational, unconsciously affect our conscious motives.

Man has feelings of humanity and brotherhood but has also the feeling of separate individuality which comes from the egoism of the young child. The instincts also come into play in the conflict between duty to others and love of self. No one, however good, can escape this conflict.

The old teaching as exemplified in philosophy and religion is based on a study of man at his best, man in the abstract. This is incomplete because it cannot promote such feelings as sympathy and understanding among men. Something has always been needed to supplement it and this is found in psychoanalysis in which conditions are reversed.

Religion the author regards as an existence which is in harmony with that of the "universe-personality." If we have the attributes we give to the Deity as reason, love (disinterested) and will, we should seek this harmony. The "world of sense" is antagonistic to this conception, in that it leads us to reject all other than sense knowledge. Our notions of love, honor, power, justice cannot spring from the sense-world. We must look beyond the latter--a mere illusion--to find the true, immutable. Mind cannot be evolved from life but must pre-exist. God and man must be conceived in the same way--both represent a totality of expressions of world will, both create and persist in their creations. Man must be regarded as creating his thoughts and acts, even his own body. Every portion of the universe is responsible for every other portion. Man, though ever changing, represents a "self consciously unified person" and therefore feels responsible for all he has ever done or ever will do. Freud himself, as the author states, never cared to generalize on the subject of psychoanalysis.

The book proceeds with a general outline of psychoanalysis which need not be reproduced here. The subject of sexual repression, so far from being exaggerated by Freud, is completely borne out by centuries of teaching by the Church that all sexual matters must be repressed, because they proceed solely from the flesh, the material world. As we have seen, however, the author with others--both Freudians and non-Freudians--makes the libido a form of creative energy, which attitude lifts it above the purely material plane. Complete suppression of anything which will not down is regarded as unwise hygiene of the soul, and the results of psychoanalysis, both as to cause and cure of neurotic disturbances, amply sustain this view. A man's unbidden thoughts are part of him and must be acknowledged.

Psychoanalysis cannot be employed upon a number of subjects at once. It lies between physician and patient, teacher and pupil. The unconscious but active motive must be brought under the conscious will. The fantastic world of childhood must be re-created. The teacher, dealing with childhood has an advantage over the physician who applies his analysis to adults.

The child should be encouraged to show all that is in him, and at the same time must learn to regard himself less as an individual and more as a social unit. He should do things which divert him from himself.

In psychoanalysis an act is nothing, a tendency everything. The latter must be changed. In analysis of one's self one must avoid all tendency to self depreciation, since all must make mistakes. One should also distrust in himself whatever savors of emotional excess.

There is no radical difference between the neurotic and sound subject in respect to the presence of unreasonable fears, compulsions and obsessions. Stress of circumstances causes even the normal man to show objectionable traits. Mental disease-phenomena, like physical, indicate natural reactions, or "attempts at repair" such as are found in the organic and even inorganic worlds.

Treatment by psychoanalysis represents an education--the removal of inhibitions which are fixations or arrests.

The fifth chapter is in a way a resume of what the author had previously said. He also seeks to reduce his teachings to a tabulation. The rationalisation or adaptation of life progresses in proportion as the individual is mature, but here maturity is by no means equivalent to age. The process also is active in the immature child.

A subject is usually quite unaware of his fixations and explains the results of his internal conflicts by false reasoning. Rationalisation in this connection becomes a bad habit.

All motives are creative. The act is not the result of the immediate motive but of all those which preceded it. The final act throws no light on the original motives.

In speaking of certain adults as children who never grew up, we are referring to a much larger class than is commonly understood. All who attain mature years with fixations are to be regarded as children. All individualists belong here unless their individualism is merely a stepping stone to altruism. Indeed, we see in all men a desire to place themselves on a pinnacle. This craving seeks expression in a thousand acts. Even if outgrown it may assert itself in times of stress. It is of benefit at times when individuals espouse just but unpopular causes. What we ordinarily call courage involves self assertion but a higher courage is involved in refraining from certain things.

All individuals also have occasional cravings to get away from responsibility and back to rest and pleasure. We long to get back to a theoretical state of childhood, as the infant longs to return to his mother's body.

For a number of reasons this not a work to be criticized. The author does not mean to be dogmatic. His dicta, while they may have the ipse dixit flavor, are not meant to be axioms. The creative energy of the mind can formulate these dicta and they must clash with the convictions of others. It is easy to deride the method as a method, but we must judge it by its results. In Emerson's hands it became a profound stimulus to thought to people of quite dissimilar mental makeup. In like manner the author's work will prove of the highest suggestive value to the reader, and especially the materialistic reader. But aside from the general character of the book we must not forget that it has a very definite object, to wit, to elevate psychoanalysis to the highest planes of philosophical speculation and to remove the prejudices of those who profess to go to the other extreme and see in it only the slime of the pit. The author's attempt to bring it in unison with the eternal verities is deserving of the highest commendation and illustrates his deep faith in the nobility of this new resource for understanding the spiritual side of man. L. PIERCE CLARK, M. D.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: VOL. I, THE ORIGINAL NATURE OF MAN VOL. II, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING. By Edward L. Thorndike. Published by Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1913.

In the first three chapters of Vol. I Professor Thorndike introduces what he calls the 'original tendencies' of man. These are the simpler and what have often been called the 'instinctive', or 'innate' forms of behaviour. And they are here taken as innate, in contradistinction to learned; as the inherited dispositions on which the character of the adult is built. In Chapters IV to X, inclusive, these original tendencies are enumerated and described. This is a valuable, although somewhat unordered, inventory of the more elementary human activities. A wholesome step is taken in replacing the terms 'pleasure' and 'pain' (subjective categories supposed from time immemorial to account for many sorts of reaction and to be the basis of the learning process) by the more objective terms 'satisfiers' and 'annoyers'. The author inclines away from the common idea that very young individuals exhibit random or diffuse activities

A curiously baffling and admirably sceptical chapter on the Emotions (XI) is followed by a largely destructive chapter on Consciousness, Learning, and Remembering, in which Prof. Thorndike is in point of literary style almost at his worst; and in some cases incoherent (e.g. p. 185, middle). The chapters on the Anatomy and Physiology, on the Source, on the Order and Dates of Appearance and Disappearance, and on the Value and Use of Original Tendencies seem to the reviewer inconclusive and uninspired. There are shrewd and interesting remarks here and there, particularly those of a destructive intent, which the older reader will appreciate; while on the whole he will wonder whether the author has, in these last four chapters, any other than the whimsical aim of producing bedlam in the minds of his younger readers.

Vol. II is a long treatise of 452 pages on the faculty of Learning. The author would probably reject the suggestion that he is dealing with his subject in the spirit of the faculty psychology. Learning, he would say, is an empirical fact, which he is simply describing. So also, however, the 'faculties' are empirical phenomena--attention, memory, and all the rest. The question is, do Prof. Thorndike and others like minded analyze the phenomena in a way that reveals their mechanism, or in the unfruitful manner of the faculty psychology? Is, for instance, the mind an aggregate of the following "functions that have been, or might be, studied:--Ability to spell cat, ability to spell, knowledge that Rt 289 equals 17, ability to read English, knowledge of telegraphy,. . . . ability to give the opposites of good, up, day, and night, . . . . fear and avoidance of snakes, misery at being scorned," etc., etc. (p. 59)? To the reviewer it appears that these 'functions' are cross-sections of the mental life which reveal NOTHING of the mind's real mechanism. This way, surely, lie the maximum of pedantry and the minimum of scientific insight. The volume as a whole may be recommended to those who wish to ascertain to what extent academic psychology of to-day is still dominated by the spirit of faculty psychology. E. B. HOLT.

SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS. By H. Addington Bruce. Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1915. Pp. vii, 219.

This book constitutes the third volume of the "Mind and Health" Series. In it the author has given an admirable and clear summary of the recent psycho-pathological work on sleep and sleeplessness. He begins by a discussion of the nature of sleep and considering the difficulties involved in making such a discussion clear to the average reader, the author has done remarkably well in summarizing the technical work along this line. He then passes to the problem of dreams and the part played by the unconscious mechanism involved in dreaming, laying particular and justifiable stress upon the point, that when problems are solved or adjusted in dreams, they have always been previously solved by a kind of unconscious incubation during the waking moments. The chapters on the disorders of sleep and the causes of sleeplessness are brief but comprehensive, while in the discussion of sleeplessness important stress is laid on the mental elements involved in every case of insomnia. A strong plea is made for the psycho-therapeutic rather than the pharmacologica, treatment of the disorders of sleep. On the whole the book is clearly written and can be recommended to those who wish a brief and at the same time comprehensive account of the modern theories of sleep and its disorders. ISADOR H. CORIAT.

A CORRECTION. To the Editor of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

I wish to call your attention to the fact that the quotation attributed to me on p. 135 in the June-July issue of your Journal is a misrepresentation of what I actually said. Due to an oversight on the part of the publishers of the A. M. A. Journal, the stenographer's notes of the A. M. A. meeting were not submitted to the members of the Section for examination and correction. The Editor of the A. M. A Journal regretted this fact and the discussion of my paper "The Conception of Homosexuality," from which this quotation was taken, was published in corrected form in the Transactions of the Section of Nervous and Mental Diseases (1913) of the A. M. A. A. A. BRILL

BOOKS RECEIVED

PATHOLOGICAL LYING, ACCUSATION AND SWINDLING. By William Healy and Mary Tenney Healy. Pp. 278 Plus x and Indexes. Little, Brown & Co., 1915.

THE CRIMINAL IMBECILE. By Henry Herbert Goddard. Pp. 154 Plus vii & Index. The MacMillan Co., 1915. $1.50.

CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT. By Joseph Jastrow. Pp. 596 Plus xviii. D. Appleton & Co., 1915. $2.50 net.

A SURGEON'S PHILOSOPHY. By Robert T. Morris, M. D. Pp. 575 Doubleday, Page & Co. $2.00 net.

BACKWARD CHILDREN. By Arthur Holmes. Pp. 247. Bobbs, Merrill. $1.00 net.

A MECHANISTIC VIEW OF WAR AND PEACE. By George W. Crile. Pp. 105 Plus xii. The MacMillan Co. $1.25.

THE JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS[*]

WITH A THEORY TO EXPLAIN THE DREAM-PROCESS AS APPERCEPTIVE TRIAL-AND-ERROR.

[*] A paper read at Columbia University, April 19, 1915, at a Joint Meeting of the New York Branch of the American Psychological Association and the New York Academy of Sciences, Section of Anthropology and Psychology.

Copyright 1916, by Richard G. Badger. All Rights Reserved.

LYDIARD H. HORTON

HISTORICALLY speaking, dreams have always been credited with meanings; but, in a given case, the psychologist must ask, how far does the accredited meaning represent the mere fancy of the interpreted and how far does it mirror actual conditions in the dreamer's mind. To seek aught beyond these is but idle divination. For of all dreams it is true, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "that the reason for them is always latent in the individual." "Things are significant enough, Heaven knows;" he exclaims, "but the seer of the sign,--where is he?"[1]

Not till the last year of the nineteenth century, did an answer come; it was Sigmund Freud's work, "The Interpretation of Dreams," which said, in effect, "Here am I, in Vienna."[2]

THE FREUDIAN PRETENSIONS

"In the following pages," he begins, "I shall prove that there exists a psychological technique by which dreams may be interpreted and that upon the application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic activities of the waking state."

The sweeping character of this pretension has not been justified. The demonstration has succeeded only with that large class of dreams in which there happens to be a trend of infantile reminiscence and of disguised sexual phantasy. It fails to reveal the inner nature of other kinds of dreams or the modus operandi of dreaming as a process of thinking. And while it is asserted by the publishers of the English[3] edition that the main contentions of his book have never been refuted, the fact is that his thesis has not been accepted by the representatives of scientific psychology, as a solution of the problem.

The exponents of Freudian interpretations today are medical men associated with the practice of so-called "Psychoanalysis;" which means that they are more concerned to apply Freud's ideas for the treatment of nervous ailments than to cultivate pure psychology. An examination of the methods they exemplify in individual practice and in the large literature of the psycho-analytic movement shows sufficient reason, in my view, why the psycho-analytic theory of dreams should still be greeted with skepticism. Psycho-analysts tell us that repugnance for the subject-matter has delayed acceptance of their essentially sexual interpretations. But there is also a resistance based on sound logical criticism. Judged by this standard, Freud's theory appears dangerously inaccurate and needs revision.

THE TWO SCHOOLS OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

Dr. C. G. Jung, formerly a pupil and literal follower of Freud, is attempting to reform psycho-analytic doctrine from within the fold.[4] Incidentally, he tells us that there is nothing essentially novel about the technique of investigating the dream in Psycho-analysis. It copies the methods of historical and literary criticism and consists in collecting all the data possible about each item of the dream. These are then called the dream material. What seems to me novel and characteristic is the psycho-analytic method of working up this material into an interpretation by a process of inference. Freud and Jung are today no longer in agreement as to the details of this process.[6] Speaking of the interpretations of these authorities, on the basis of extended investigations of dreams on my own part, I must say that their methods do not seem to be as rigorous, as is required today in the investigation of literary and historical problems, nor capable of bearing comparison with experimental psychology.

It must be acknowledged, however, that Freud has infinitely refined the guesses of earlier generations of thinkers as to the relationship of sleep-fancies to the waking life. He has conferred startling precision upon the general proposition of Goethe "that these whimsical pictures, inasmuch as they originate from us, may well have an analogy with our whole life and fate." And he has certainly vindicated in practice that dictum of Emerson: "A skilful man reads dreams for his self-knowledge."[1] But he has formulated no open-sesame, as psycho-analysts proclaim.

When it comes to the use of symbols, the Viennese professor parts company with the Concord philosopher. The latter, as we know, decried the mystical conception of fixed symbolism in any domain. But Freud, although theoretically agreed, falls victim in practice to the fascinations of the dream-book cipher method which he has condemned. The adjective Freudian is now justly a by-word, among psychopathologists, for a stereotyped habit of reducing each item of a dream to some cryptic allusion or roundabout reference to the primitive demands of the infantile and sexual life. Freud's fertility in such interpretations has led one of our best-known experimental psychologists to say, in mingled admiration and impatience: "His utterances are those of a poet, not of a scientist."

JUNG'S COURAGEOUS RECANTATION

As spokesman of the Zurich group of psycho-analysts, Dr. Jung has lately protested against these arbitrary translations, which he calls Freud's "reductive method."[6] In formulating a more scientific method of his own, which he calls the "constructive method," Jung reveals a change of views so extensive as to suggest, on several points, almost a conversion to the ideas that Dr. Morton Prince expressed in 1910, as to the insecurity of the psycho-analytic ideas of symbolism.[7] At that time, Jung valiantly defended the Freudian preference for stereotyped meanings as against the Principian idea of highly variable meanings.[8] Now, in going to the other extreme from Freud's cipher-like method, Jung has succumbed to the attractions of that other popular method, equally decried by his former master: the symbolical method of Joseph and Daniel.[9] But at least he has bravely called in question views which he once espoused with exaggerated positiveness.

Jung's principal amendment to the Freudian dream-analysis consists in subjecting the literal implications of the established Freudian symbols, such as snakes and staircases, to a further, more allegorical mode of treatment in which the sexual meaning is greatly altered. The evidence, which Freudians continually find in dreams, for a pre-occupation concerning infantile and sexual needs[10] is explained away, as merely incidental reviewing of past experiences, in the attempt to solve problems of the future by analogy with the past. In other ways also Jung alters his views, notably by following Prince in explaining the dream on a broad biological foundation, viewing it as part and parcel of the individual's life-struggle. Yet it is difficult to see wherein the so-called constructive method really applies, to the concrete dream, those biological conceptions of which it makes ostentation. The practical consideration of telling the patient what is good for him, and of keeping sexuality in the background seems to dominate the technique.[6] The interpretations are no more accurate than before. There is not much to choose between the reductive and the constructive method from the standpoint of the application of logic.

THE SUPPOSED LANGUAGE OF DREAMS

These reductions and constructions of the psychoanalytic schools appear to be rather favorite ways of guessing than rival scientific methods. Unquestionably, they must achieve a gratifying number of hits under the easygoing conditions of the psycho-analytic seance. This is obviously satisfactory to medical practice; but the danger to psychological theory lies in the temptation to overvalue the particular technique that seems to bring about such successes. For instance, Freud and Jung, finding it convenient to assume that the dreamer is attempting to express his latent thoughts by the use of metaphors and figures of speech, have unfortunately come to regard the behavior of the Unconscious Mind as if it were employing a secret archaic code or language of dreams. According to Freud, its symbols have very concrete meanings; Jung, more liberal, says they are only very general. But both authors seem to abuse the language-analogy as a guidance in dream interpretation. That is why psycho-analytic method today suggests not only the free play of poetic invention, but the license of mystical speculation.

If there is any present point in Emerson's remark that "Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and occasional symbol for an universal one," then, in speaking to the psycho-analyst, the psychologist should echo Emerson further, and say: "Let us have a little algebra instead of this trite rhetoric-- universal signs instead of these village symbols--and we shall both be gainers."[11]

The reason we shall need a little algebra, as it were, is that many psycho-analysts have fallen into confused ways of regarding their signs and significations.

Consider, for example, the reputed signs of the birth-phantasy, as listed by Freud:[12]

"A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with passing through narrow spaces or with staying in the water, are based upon fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's womb and about the act of birth." . . . Again, "There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which the emphasis is laid upon the assurance, 'I have been there before.' In this case the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can be asserted with such certainty of no other locality that one has 'been there before.' "

(What we should infer from the waking illusion of familiarity, which, Emerson said "almost every person confesses"--on this basis--is too absurd to contemplate.)

Statements like these, though far from syllogistic in form, are virtually general propositions or laws to the effect that all dreams having the designated earmarks or manifest content, possess additionally and necessarily certain specified qualities in the latent content--in this case, the meaning of birth-phantasy.[13]

Freud and Jung have stood sponsors for many such seemingly far-fetched interpretations. How do they come to be so sure of their ground?

EXAMINATION OF THE LANGUAGE-ANALOGY[14]

Let A represent the idea in the latent content and C the corresponding "symbol" in the manifest content. Suppose that in a number of cases a correlation is observed between A, the antecedent latent idea, and C, its consequent or sequential manifestation in the dream-consciousness. Thereafter, the observer comes to interpret the re-appearance of C in a dream narrative as a sign of the presence of the affiliated idea A, in the latent content. And, as Thomas Hobbes phrased the matter in 1651, the oftener they have been observed in like connection, the less uncertain is the sign.[15] Now this is precisely the way we come to recognize the verbal signs of our mother-tongue. And our confidence that a given speech C' is significant of a meaning A', in the speaker's intent, is arrived at by relying upon, if not consciously formulating, just such a causal connection. Where an existing language is concerned, this is a perfectly legitimate tooling of thought. But in applying such inferences to a supposititious language of dreams, psycho-analysts are begging the question, as well as running into other kinds of fallacy as to the powers of the Unconscious.

The meanings and significations of dream-items are not so simply made out as in language. For one cannot readily make sure that the relationship or affiliation between A and C has been observed in its purity; there is an uncertainty coming from the possible interposition of a variable factor, which may have vitiated the observation, as Alfred Sidgwick points out in his "Application of Logic."[10] So let us well consider the basis of any inference of meaning in dreams, and how far the language-analogy applies.

THE SOURCES OF MEANING

Fundamentally, every dream, yours or mine, consists of certain more or less clearly remembered images or ideas; and these are secondarily derived from some mental disposition previously or coetaneously acting in the background, as it were: i. e., persisting through its residual subliminal nervous dispositions. This anterior phenomenon is properly called the primary idea or image; the other, which appears (supraliminally) in the dream is called the secondary image or idea. The dream is thus made up of collocations and combinations of secondary images, to which is usually added a filling-in of fancy which may be called tertiary ideas: required, to find the primary ideas and so, the relation of one idea to another--which is the measure of "meaning."

Each secondary or tertiary image, in the absence of any immediate stimulus to account for it, may usually be traced back into a primary train of thought left unfinished during the day. This is the conception of the perseveration of the unadjusted, stated in 1891 by Delage, in giving his theory of dreams.[17] Its history runs back to Thomas Hobbes; and it has been amplified lately by Professor Woodworth, to whom I am indebted for unusually clean-cut illustrations of the applicability of the theory to dream-life. The principle is a most important contribution to the study of meaning in dreams.

More specifically, Prince, through his text-book on "The Unconscious," is the exponent of the idea that the elements of meaning reside in the primary ideas and must be sought there by highly specific investigations in the given case: "the meaning is in the fringe of thought." The meaning of a supraliminal image must be discovered in its relation to the subliminal ideas clustering around it. This implies studying by association-tests what James called the psychic overtones, and what Prince has, in his teaching, called the unconscious settings-of-ideas, which determine meaning.[18] Care must be taken to find the real determinants, and to set aside spurious dream material--which is not always facilitated by the psycho-analytic methods.

In order to show that one should not assume meanings by rule of thumb, without investigations of this kind, Prince has demonstrated a case in which typical phallic symbols, in a phobia of bells and towers, had acquired their emotional meanings, not through sexual analogies, as Freudians would suppose, but through actual contiguity-experience with church bells and belfry, quite apart from sexual matters.[18] Similarly, snakes, sticks, circles do not necessarily carry the sexual meanings assumed by psycho-analysts, who are over-influenced by the language-analogy.

DECISIVE VALUE OF CONTEXT AND APPERCEPTION MASS

To Freudians such statements seem paradoxical, to say the least; but the simple fact is that never is it correct to assume, as they do, a transcendental connection between a symbol C and a signification A, as if the Unconscious Mind disposed of ready-made symbols of its own. Barring words used in their proper sense, and similar borrowings from waking habit, the so-called symbols in dreams are essentially impromptu fabrications, in which the association is not a direct causal connection between A and C, but a mediate association involving a third element, which psycho-analysts usually leave out of account.

An element of this kind, overlooked in the formulation of a supposedly simple connection between cause A and effect C, is labeled Hidden Z, by Alfred Sedgwick. The Hidden Z in this case is what James calls the topic-of-thought, Ebbinghaus the set-of-the-mind, and others apperception-mass. In rhetoric it is familiar as context. It has an important place in thought and speech. For example, when I utter the phrase--Pas de lieu Rhone qne nous--the idea obtained is different according to whether your language apperception-mass is set for French or for English. It may have happened that while I was uttering the French nonsense phrase you were hearing it as the English saying. Similarly, the traveler in Egypt may correctly apperceive the meaning of architectural forms of temples as phallic; whereas it would be manifestly out of context to do so in connection with churchly edifices of the Gothic type, which do not represent the generative powers of nature, as do the former.

Conversely, the Freudian disciple may apperceive, in error, a sexual meaning in a dream, when the dreamer's mind contained no reference to this topic. Hence, the interpreter must make sure that his own apperception-mass is attuned to that of the dreamer in the given case. That is, one must be free from apperceptive bias. One must reject all hastily formed causal laws to the effect that C is the sign of A in every case. Otherwise absurd conclusions must result, as in Freud's theory of the birth-phantasies. For the same "symbol" may proceed from entirely different significations according to the set-of-the-mind or apperception-mass. The following analogy of Ebbinghaus puts the matter clearly: "When a train enters a large station there are many paths over which it might pass; but its actual path depends on the position which was given to the switches immediately before the train's arrival."[19] That is why one needs to detect, experimentally, the dream material that really represents the set-of-the-mind, and thence the significant relations called MEANING.

In this connection, I published a year ago the dream of a child of six, containing seemingly typical phallic symbols.[20] Not one of them could be correlated with a sexual context; but every one was concretely shown to have reached its position in the dream through the influence of an entirely different set-of-the-mind. It is, therefore, not safe to assume stereotyped meanings in dreams.

METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

There are three reasons why psycho-analysts do not more often encounter this variable element, this Hidden Z. First, such dreams as they elect to deal with, are mostly sexual. Second, they do not apply the methods of individual differences which have been made so familiar and so useful by Professor Cattell in this country.[*] Thirdly, their type of culture leads them to study the dream extensively rather than intensively and all the while in apparent disregard of those conceptions of physiological psychology which we now associate with the work of Wundt, of Ladd and of Woodworth, and with the psychopathology of Prince.

[*] The writer's present psychophysiological theory of dreams was first broached in public, at a series of meetings on the subject of Individual Differences, held in honor of Professor Cattell, at Columbia University, in the Department of Psychology, in April, 1914.

To be sure, Jung's recent utterances before the Psycho-Medical Society of London, demonstrate his dissatisfaction with the Freudian conception of the dream; but he is still far from those studies of specific mental and nervous dispositions to which psychology has slowly come, and for which we now have a tool in the shape of Prince's conception of the neurogram. In psycho-analytic work a more vague use of "dream material" is preferred and it is only by good luck that the real settings-of-ideas come into account. Jung, no less than Freud, has forgotten that philosophy has become mechanistic since Descartes'[21] famous year of 1637, and Jung would throw us back to the early seventeenth century, with his energic conception of the Libido, or the Ur-libido, now called Horme and sometimes merely elan vital. And this, fifty years after Herbert Spencer's tremendous emphasis on specific studies in reflex-action![22]

Fontenelle, the wittiest of Cartesians, writing in 1686, gives us a classic tableau of this sort of speculative temper. [23] He pictures worthies like Pythagoras, Heraclitus; Empedocles, as being invited to witness Lulli's opera "Phaeton," at the Paris Odeon. In characteristic fashion, each in turn tries to explain the spectacular aerial flight of the actor in the title-role, from the floor of the stage to the ceiling. One says, that Phaeton is able to fly by the potency of certain numbers of which he is composed; another, that a secret virtue carries him aloft; still another, that Phaeton travels through the air because he abhors to leave a vacuum in the upper corner of the stage; and so on, with a hundred and one speculations which, as Fontenelle remarks, should have ruined the reputation of antiquity. Finally, he pictures Descartes coming along and saying: "This actor is able to rise from the floor because he hangs by a cord, at the other end of which is a counterpoise, heavier than he, which is descending." This is mechanistic . . . If Freud and Jung had been of the party, can it be doubted that the one would have ascribed Phaeton's aviation to a wish-fulfilment of the flying-dream type, derived from a reminiscence of erotic motion-pleasure[24] in childhood, or that Jung, for his part, would have said Phaeton was levitated by the energic force of a sublimation of the Ur-Libido, alias elan vital, alias Horme!

* * *

VARIETIES OF DREAM INTERPRETATIONS

Let me illustrate these points of criticism of the psychoanalytic methods, by the analysis of a sample dream; speaking first as the dreamer giving the simple narrative; next as Freud applying the reductive method; then as Jung employing the constructive method; and finally explaining the dream, as I would myself prefer, by the use of what I may call the reconstitutive method. The dream itself, for reasons, that will be obvious, I call the "Scratch-Reflex Dream."

"I was looking down upon a microscope from the right side of the lens-tube, and could see, laid upon the stage, a glass slide. Under the cover-glass, in place of an ordinary specimen, there was supposed to be a new reflex,--one of those discovered by my friend the neurologist, Dr. X., whose scrawly handwriting I recognized on the label. I was anxiously trying to decipher what he had written, and was having the same trouble with it that I had experienced in real life with the record of some of his dreams, which I had interpreted successfully. The handwriting on the label, as I gazed, appeared less and less like script and more like disconnected, scratchy lines or hachures, owing to the formation of lacunae in the inky traces. It became scratchier and scratchier as I wakened. On coming to my senses . . . "

"That is enough," we hear Dr. Freud saying, "It is obvious what kind of reflex-action you have in mind! The word 'slide' is of a punning nature, and in conjunction with the easy moveability of the microscope-barrel suggests a meaning akin to that of dreams of skating and sliding, which are usually sexual. From the standpoint of symbolics, the geometric forms and relative positions of cover-glass and microscope suggest allusions to the generative powers of nature--like the phallicism of the ancient Egyptian religion, whose sacred emblems of sexual objects still confront the explorer and the tourist. Here, the 'stage' of the microscope refers obviously to the theatre, so often the scene of exhibitionistic activities. Your dream represents the male and the female principles in such a manner that it must mean a survival of infantile curiosity related to the mystery of parenthood. Sir, this proves your Libido to have been fixated at the 'voyeur' level."[25]

"Not so fast," says Dr. Jung, while the dreamer remains nonplussed at the foregoing example of the reductive method. "It is not good for the health to overvalue the past, as my colleague does. Nous avons change tout cela, in Zurich. Your curiosity, according to the constructive method, is a demand for satisfaction in new and better ways than those of infancy. I will prove this to be so, by an investigation of the dream material. This Dr. X., what of him and his handwriting?"

The dreamer then explains that Dr. X. had consented to have his dreams analyzed, and that the outcome had been the uncovering of his secret intention to be married; the dreamer also states that Dr. X. had written some very original papers on periosteal reflexes.

"Ah," says Dr. Jung, as it were, making quotations from his own writings, (as indicated in italics) "one has only to hear this dream material in order to understand at once that the dream is not so much the fulfilment of infantile desires as it is the expression of biological duties hitherto neglected because of . . . infantilism.([6]) To be sure these are sexual objects that you are looking at in the dream, as Freud would have it. But your interest in them is not so primitive as it would seem. For do you not, symbolically speaking, 'look down upon' them in your fancy. And moreover, since you are looking at these emblems of parental union 'from the right side,' does it not therefore mean that you are contemplating something legitimate; namely, marriage on your own account-- not exhibitionism on the part of others. One infers you wish to put away childish sex-curiosity and fulfil your destiny as a parent. In this case symbolical value, not concrete value must be attached to the sexual phantasy."

At this point, the dreamer makes free to admit that he is a bachelor, and that he would not be averse to marriage if he could manage to take a wife and at the same time keep up his research work.

"Precisely," Dr. Jung might say, rapidly turning these clues to account, "your interest in future advancement is clearly reflected in your anxiety to decipher the handwriting of Dr. X., with whom you have identified yourself. You desire to emulate his scientific achievements; his published work on reflexes excites your ambition. The handwriting on the label, which perplexes you, is an allusion not only to his authorship but to the difficulties in the way of your own contribution to the science of dream interpretation. By imitating Dr. X's triumph you wish to make your marriage possible. Your Horme or elan vital is pushing you to evolve new and higher forms of the Libido. You are sublimating!"[26]

THE RECONSTITUTIVE METHOD

"No, gentlemen," the dreamer replies at last, "your reductions and your constructions are too easy-going, too conjectural, too much dominated by prepossessions and the 'will to interpret.' The alleged sources or determinants for this dream may or may not have played the parts you assign to them; the mystery of the matter must remain inscrutable. But what your methods, so plausible in effect, certainly do show is how easy it may be to confabulate an explanation that goes no deeper than a phrenological reading of cranial bumps or than a seance in the cabinet of a palmist. Let us turn away from all this and consider what really happened, as by the grace of luck I can bear witness. Permit me to reconstitute the dream as an actual event, by the employment of certain clues which I was about to give when the ready-made symbolism of Dr. Freud was interposed."

OUTLINE OF THE RECONSTITUTION

Inasmuch as the dream is one of my own, I may be permitted to testify that it was unmistakably connected with a scratching sensation at my ear, as I distinctly perceived on awaking. This stimulation proceeded obviously from a mouse, which I had time to observe in close proximity, as it remained perched on the bedclothes, until my own startled movements put it to flight. Tracing the stimulation from this external source, I shall try to maintain the following interpretation:--

First, that the dream is an associative reaction to the sensation of scratching, in the form of evocations of imagery related in experience to this sensory element; and that the dream-process was a part of the perception, or recognition or apperception of the stimulus.

Second, that this reaction--let us name it apperception of the stimulus-- took place slowly and imperfectly, owing to the state of sleep, so that the reaction was, to begin with, only remotely relevant to the stimulus, but improved in relevancy with successive evocations, until the mental representation closely approximated the character of the stimulus.

Third, that in and among the secondary images[27] so evoked, incidental processes of thought, tertiary compoundings of these images, were immediately set up; the selection and re-arrangement of these secondary and tertiary features, constituting the revelation of a significant state of mind which had preceded the dream.

Specifically, in addition to the mental response to the external stimulus, there was a phantasy representing an imaginary wish-fulfilment: namely the desire to forsake the study of histology, with the eye-straining search through the microscope, in favor of the study of reflex-action or reflexology.

My contention is that this blended response[28] to a physical and to a psychic cue arose very naturally and simply out of a single context, prepared by events of the night before; and I would show that by comparing the phantasy with this context, it is possible to reconstitute the dream in a way that amounts to a refutation of the two other interpretations, which I have essayed in accordance with the methods of Freud and of Jung, respectively.

THE REAL CONTEXT OF THE DREAM

Our constant consideration should be for the fact, emphasized by William James, that there is "no recall without a cue."[29] Here we have a scratching sensation provoked by a mouse as the immediate and demonstrated cue. The images that followed in serial response, proved upon investigation to have been wholly derived from a certain conversation with Dr. X., the night before. The subject had been reflex-action and especially the scratch-reflex of the guinea-pig[30] as investigated by Sherrington; we had discussed also the attempts of other authors to explain the higher mental functions in terms of reflex-action.([31]) My own preference for such studies as applied to the explanation of dreams had been touched upon. This preference had in turn been contrasted with the fact that I was at the time of the dream called upon to spend much time studying histological specimens through the microscope. Incidentally, I told him that this was bad for my eyes, and likewise, I had complained that his dreams were not written out clearly enough to suit my purpose to study them carefully. Such interest had been aroused in the subject of reflexology, that Dr. X. and I had stayed up late that night discussing it.

A study of the dream in the light of these facts will show how perfectly the dreaming mind appears to have "taken advantage of" them--in reality following cues along the lines of least resistance.

THE DREAM AS A RESPONSE TO A CUE

The Scratch-Reflex dream is then to be reconstituted first of all as a memory-reaction determined by factors of recency, frequency and intensity in the dreamer's experience. The operation of these factors determines the evocation of a specific context or apperception-mass, namely the conversation in question, whose affinity with the external stimulus (scratching) is now made evident. The course of events can be followed so concretely as to permit the logical exclusion of other supposed determinants; confining the explanation as stated. The principle of the parsimony of causes is here applied. I contend that the dream is neither an infantile nor a sexual wish-fulfilment, all plausible analogies to the contrary notwithstanding. Should anyone wish to urge the more remote interpretations which I first manufactured, then the burden of proof rests with him. And no proof is conclusive that rests on mere precedent or on mere reasoning by analogy. The only psychological proof of an interpretation is fundamentally the ability of the interpreter to reconstitute the dream beyond peradventure. This I propose to accomplish more in detail, showing the dream to be a reaction to specific cues, through a process of trial-and-error, and to a limited degree, of trial and success.

TRIAL PERCEPTS

Consider the sequence of events: the dream pictures are all related, at least individually, to the conversation in question: microscope, slide, reflex and "scratchiness" are all so many pictures jig-sawed out from this very context or apperception-mass. The scratching sensation, we must suppose, evoked these pictures serially, in the order stated. If these images were what the psychologist calls "trial percepts," we would expect from them just what we do find, namely, an increasing degree of correspondence (relevancy) between the stimulus-idea and the images, as they appear.[33] Precisely so, the images of microscope, slide, reflex and scratchy handwriting, as they successively come into focus, conform more and more to the nature of the stimulus, until the approximation ends in the idea of an all-absorbing interest in "scratchy" marks. This visual image hardly reaches precision before it becomes translated and transposed to the tactile field of my ear; smoothly, as if it were one magic lantern view dissolving into another. In fine, the presentation of each image in the dream amounts to a groping effort of the dreamer's nervous system to find a proper experiential EQUIVALENT for the arriving stimulus. It is a trial-and-error method of perceiving or apperceiving a stimulus by marshelling associated ideas; in this case they are serially evoked; (what might be called "oniric echelon"); in other cases the trial apperceptions are blended smoothly (oniric fusion) or heaped together in rough-and-tumble fashion, a kind of confusion (conveniently called "oniric entassement") which testifies sufficiently to the failures of the Unconscious t o dispose smoothly of arriving excitations, and so emphasizes; the theory of trial-and-error, as applied to dreams.

APPERCEPTIVE DELAY IN TRIAL-AND-ERROR PROCESS

The delay in arriving at the correct apperception of the stimulus may be referred to as "finding-time" or simply as apperceptive delay. It represents time occupied with the reproduction of erroneous apperceptive images--apperceptive errors. Meanwhile the stimulus-idea, that mental element most closely connected with the original stimulus, is operating somewhere in the brain, determining the evocation of the secondary images that appear in the dream.[33] This wire-pulling is done in the dark; the primary stimulus-idea is not itself imaged, at first; neither is the context or apperception-mass which meets it half-way, that is, becomes conjoined with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, the images that come into the dream are only emerging peaks of a submerged island of memory. What shall emerge is determined by the interplay of stimulus-idea and apperception-mass, below the level of consciousness. (A and Z are working together.)

The particular "island of memory" in this case, was an impression of the talk with Dr. X., about histology, reflexology and dream interpretation; it remained subliminal, evidently, except so far as portions of it were raised above the threshold by the reproductive energy of the stimulus of scratching. Necessarily, a process of imageless thought had taken place, whereby the conversation was brought into play as a sub-excited apperception-mass or setting-of-ideas for the stimulus-idea. Furthermore, another process of imageless thought must have taken place whereby the secondary images being raised into consciousness attained to their arrangement as a wish-phantasy, without that preliminary tuning-up which the principal cue (scratching) called forth, on its own account. This remains to be explained.

THE INCIDENTAL WISH-FULFILMENT

The dream, viewed as a mere wish-fulfilment, is plainly a successful allegory. While the action of the principal cue or immediate stimulus had served to evoke the apperception-mass or context out of which this wish-phantasy was constructed, at the same moment, there was an ulterior influence at work, dictating a process of re-arrangement of the secondary images, so as to give expression to my preference for reflexology as against histology. Besides, the ground appears to have already been so well prepared that we can readily explain the absence of evident signs of trial-and-error. For in dreaming that I look away from the microscope and turn with intensive interest to the reflex, I was still only giving effect to a preference which had already attached the emotions of liking and dislike, to these two objects of thought, respectively. The creative fancy in this instance, what Hobbes[34] called the FICTION of the mind, has a very simple task to work upon: achieving the imaginary satisfaction of unadjusted feelings regarding the mental conflict between histology and reflexology. The MICROSCOPE is accordingly reproduced naively with an "endeavor fromward" attached to it, and likewise the REFLEX, with an "endeavor toward" it.[*] Thus is the expression completed of a wish which had been partially outspoken in the conversation with Dr. X.

[*] Hobbes, "Leviathan," Cap. VI: "These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called ENDEAVOUR. This endeavour,. when it is toward something which causes it, is called APPETITE, or DESIRE; . . . And when the endeavour is fromward something, it is generally called AVERSTON. These words appetite and aversion, we have from the Latins, and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So do also the Greek words for the same, which are Horme and Aphorme."

In this connection, I beg leave to suggest that these Greek terms are more usefully applied to dreams and to the passions in general, in their uncomplicated primitive sense, rather than in the new way that Dr. C. G. Jung is suggesting for Horme, as a companion word for Libido or for elan vital. For several years, I have found it useful to employ the coined adjectives hormetic and aphormetic to characterize the tendencies fromward or toward, as exhibited in the association of ideas. For example, in the Scratch Reflex dream, there is shown an aphormetic tendency regarding the microscope and a hormetic tendency regarding the reflex.

While the external physical stimulus (scratching) must be thought of as being represented dynamically somewhere in the arrival platforms of the brain, it is necessary to think of the internal psychic stimulus (or wish) as existing in the form of facilitations, or ready-made connections of ideas and motives, as it were awaiting, in a state of mobilization, the proper signal to discharge into consciousness. The expression of the wish thus became accessory to the apperception of the principal cue. The accessory wish-cue wrought its effect coetaneously, during the apperceptive delay.

Granted the correctness of this explanation, does it not clearly conform to the statement of Emerson that "dreams are the maturation often of opinions not consciously carried out to statements, but whereof we already possessed the elements."[*]

[*] Emerson, R. W., "Lectures and Biographical Sketches," Vol. X, Complete Works, p. 8; Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1904.

THE PERSEVERATION OF THE UNADJUSTED

In the foregoing words of Emerson, there is brought to bear on dreams an energic conception of mind-action similar to that which Hobbes had developed in his Leviathan in 1651. The latter, by analogy with conceptions of mechanical inertia new in his time, had compared the persevering effect of nervous stimuli to the continued agitation of waves of the sea after a storm: "When a body is once in motion, it moveth, unless something else hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, quite extinguish it; and as we see in water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of man, then, when he sees, dreams, et cetera." (Cap. II)

The Delage-Woodworth conception that dreams are due to persevering effects of unadjusted mental elements is not, therefore, entirely novel; but is itself a maturing of opinions which have been more or less loosely entertained by writers on dreams since Hobbes first formulated the modern doctrine of the association of ideas,--not to go back any further. The fertility of the conception of the "perseveration of the unadjusted" has been emphasized in my mind by illustrations obtained by an extended study of the dreams of normal people, and notably, by the agreement of my conclusions with those of Professor Woodworth and of Dr. Morton Prince. And I am led to believe that a development of this conception should harmonize with accepted principles of psychology, normal and abnormal, as formulated in Ladd and Woodworth's text-book, and in Prince's "The Unconscious."

Greater precision must be conferred upon this conception by showing specifically in what ways, and by what associative mechanisms, the persevering and unadjusted stimuli evoke the dream-images. Granting that unadjusted stimuli persist in their effects upon dream life, or in other terms, that primary stimulus-ideas may evoke secondary dream-images, and so on unto the third and fourth "generations;" then, in what manner does the process go on or come to an end? The answer to this question is an eminently practical one, to which Psycho-analysis has already brought the complication of its own still immature formulation of Ab-reaction and of Catharsis.[35] The matter still requires further study. In particular, it is necessary to formulate, through specific examples, a conception which shall be the pendant or complement of the theory of the perseveration of the unadjusted, and which I will call the "resolution of the unadjusted."