Studies in dreams

Front matter

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Foreword

I have been asked by the dreamer of these dreams to add a foreword of my own. I do not know that I can add anything that will contribute to their interest, whether in the way of discussion, criticism, or interpretation. The author of the book modestly makes no claim to be a scientific explorer but only to be a recorder of her own dream experiences, who has been impelled ' ' to stray a little beyond the province" assigned and "to attempt some partial explanation of the riddles that are met with. " But the reader, I am sure, will find that she has scarcely done herself justice in this diffident attitude, for the accurate recording of observations accurately made is the basis of science and requires the development and possession of no common talent. Such observations are of much more scientific value than a number of inadequate theories — inadequate because based upon only a selected or limited group of facts. Moreover, these pages are rich in sound comments and discussions of the recorded phenomena, which are suggestive of new problems and points of view, and the author offers us particularly a well-considered new theory of the mechanism of dreams. A considerable number of the observations recorded must be regarded as additions to our knowledge and viii FOREWORD

as new data for an adequate interpretation of the mechanism of dreams. Besides the recording of her own experiences, Mrs. Arnold-Forster sets before herself as her main task that of finding out "by experiment and careful observation all that we can learn about the working of the various mental faculties in the dream state" — reason, memory, will, imagination. As the parts played by these mental processes obviously bear upon the various theories which have been proposed for the explanation of dreams, the results of the author's study of her own dreams must be regarded as an original contribution to the subject. The interesting theory which she proposes (Chapter IX) is one that deserves careful consideration. The unprejudiced reader who has not already accepted one of the current theories of dreams will be attracted by the diffidence and freedom from dogmatism of the author, and will study these pages with greater open-mindedness from knowing that she is thoroughly versed in the mass of literature on dreams which has accumulated in recent years, and has tested the theories in the light of her own observations. Mrs, Arnold-Forster, therefore, is no amateur. I venture to think, however, that most professional psychologists will not share the "respect and natural awe" which, with charming modesty, she avows for the "vast library of books" in which are embodied the results of the so-called scientific investigations which have been stimulated by the present-day medical interest in dreams. More likely they look upon such "scien-

FOREWORD ix

tific" results as — pipe dreams or cigarette dreams. The quality of the interest of the reader in this book will undoubtedly be largely determined by his previous attitude of mind towards dreams and their interpretation. If he has a closed mind, has already committed himself towards some theory of dream mechanism — and I fear many students of present-day psychology already have — if he thinks he already knows it all, his interest may be hypercritically modified by the limitation of the task which the author has set before herself. I am not sure that this contribution has not gained by this limitation. We have theories in plenty of the mechanisms by which dreams are excited and worked out by some or other part of the mind, but none is wholly satisfactory, none, at least, is universally applicable to all dreams. We have physiological theories and psychological theories : we have theories making use of unconscious processes and conscious processes, of symbolisms, and double-faced Janus-like processes — an underlying latent and a manifest conscious process: and we have theories of naughty and disguised wishes, and a watchful prude of a censor that spoils all the fun of dreaming and lets us fulfil our concealed wishes only on condition we don't know we have what we want, and therefore can't consciously enjoy forbidden fruit even in dreams: and we have theories of haphazard and " trial and error" processes, and many more. But all are theories, and nothing is proven fact. Some, nevertheless, work out very well with certain dreams, and then, when x FOREWORD

we try to apply them to other dreams, they won't work. No universally applicable theory has yet been invented. I do not know why any one theory of dream mechanism should be true for all dreams : as well hold that the mechanism of all conscious thought is the same ; that, for instance, because some of our problems are solved subconsciously, all are; that, because some of our antipathies, some likes and dislikes, some fears and some kinds of behaviour are determined by hidden subconscious motives, all are ; or, conversely, that because many or most problems are solved consciously, all are ; or that, because many motives stand out blatantly in the broad daylight of consciousness, none are hidden in the subconscious; or that, because most behaviour is determined by conscious intent or feeling, all is ; or, again, because some actions are instinctive and determined by inherited mechanisms, that all behaviour is determined by such performed instincts; and, conversely, that, because most behaviour is due to acquired dispositions, all is due to such mechanisms; and so on.

The fact is, Mrs. Arnold-Forster hits the nail on the head when she says "there are dreams and dreams, and we must get rid of the assumption that they all resemble each other.* ' This assumption is a very common one : in particular it is often assumed that a dream implies incongruity, or incoherence, or the grotesque, or logical anarchy. Dreams, as the author stresses, may not only exhibit orderly imagination, and reasoning, and memory, and other quali-

FOREWORD xi

ties of the mind, but this imagination, reasoning and memory may be highly constructive, ingeniously inventive, and produce imaginings or romances comparable in structure and sequence of ideas to stories of fiction or real life evolved by the same waking mind. This seems to be particularly the case with the dreams of the author, who therefore delights in her dream life and finds an enchanting recreation therein after the cares of the day, as the lover of novels, who reads into the wee hours of the night, finds refreshment from the strain of the day's work. Mr. Greenwood (quoted by Mrs. Arnold-Forster) finds his dreams of the same high imaginative order and takes the same enjoyment in the dreaming of them: and so have many others.

What is still needed, as the author has pointed outj is systematic and accurate recording of their dreams by many persons, and the correlation of the phenomena with identical phenomena occurring in certain other states of the waking mental life. If this were done, we should be surprised to find what a great variety of forms and structure dreams have, how greatly they differ in type, and in the mental processes involved. "We thus should have the material from which we could safely construct theories of mechanisms that would satisfy the different types. After the collection of this varied material, we could then begin, with greater safety, to analyse and interpret. In some we should find symbolism, in others none; in some repressed wishes, in others unrepressed wishes, or fears, doubts, and scruples;

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in some sex urgings, in others the urgings of one or more of the other various innate instincts which are the prime movers of human behaviour ; in some the solution of problems which have baffled our waking consciousness, in others the mere illogical fantasies of a weak, dissociated extract of our mental selves; in some the reproduction of memories, and living over again in realistic form previous actual experiences, in others imaginary episodes or apparent super-knowledge constructed out of previous information; in some incongruous, grotesque phantasmagoria in cinema-like scenes, in others romances or well-constructed fantasies requiring for their invention a large system of thought and an intelligence and imagination comparable to the waking self -consciousness. And in some we should find that the dream, as in waking life, is only the manifested expression of deeper-lying subconscious processes; and in some, probably in most, that it is just what it appears to be — nothing more.

The drawback to such collections, apart from the rareness of the capacity to remember and record accurately, would be, I fear, the dullness of reading them. The emotional tones which give the pleasure or induce the anguish of the dream in the dreamer cannot be reproduced in a verbal record ; nor do they always correspond to the dream action or images, and hence no description can reproduce them. They are integral elements of the personal self which contributes them. The study of dream collections would appeal only to the psychologist, and then only

FOREWORD xiii

to one specially interested in such mental phenomena. Every one, we can safely say, is not endowed with the gift of imagination to dream such delightful romances, tales of adventure, and fantasies in general as the gifted dreamer of these dreams, who finds in her nightly pilgrimages ''into the enchanted country that lies beyond" a release from the toil of the day and compensation for "the sad and anxious waking hours" that "life brings to all of us." Undoubtedly, as the author tells us, this dream imagination has been cultivated, and can be cultivated and directed, to a certain extent, by any one who has the persistence and desire. But a natively endowed and cultured imagination is probably essential as a prerequisite for romance of a high order, as it is for analogous feats by the waking self. We see what is practically the same phenomenon manifested in waking life, not by that system of thought called the "self" or self -consciousness, but by a shuntedorT, dissociated system which has gained its liberty and acquired independent activity.

Such a system is commonly called subconscious, but it is subconscious only because the "self" is still awake. Let the ' ' self " go to sleep, or be put to sleep by some hypnotic or other device, and the shuntedofr" system, escaping from its subterranean prison, is now dominant, is indeed a self, free to romance as it pleases. But before, while still shut-up, or perhaps it were better expressed shut-out, of the awareness of the self -consciousness, it was free to indulge in imaginings without much restraint, much as the xiv FOREWORD

prisoners confined and forgotten in the French Bastille were free to indulge their imagination in romances thongh other liberty was denied them. I have quite a collection of written romances, written by a subconscious self while within its own Bastille, and songs and music and the invention of a strange new logistic language have not failed to find a mode of expression. True subconscious dreams they are, fabricated by a newly constellated mental system that was reconstructed out of the self-conscious or personal system — out of the jetsam and flotsam of conscious experiences; the discarded, or forgotten, or repressed memories, wishes, ideas, and imaginings.

I am unable to see that such a system and its fabrications differ in principle from the "Dream Mind," as Mrs. Arnold-Forster aptly calls it, and its fabrications. Both may, and at times do, have their own respective subconscious processes butting in, modifying or determining their dreams.

Furthermore, both kinds of dreams can be cultivated, directed, and to a large extent controlled. (Mrs. Arnold-Forster has shown how she has learned to "control" her own dreams, and I may add to hers the testimony of experimentally controlled dreams in one of my subjects by suggestion even to the extent of directing the theme of the dream.) 1 Simple commonplace subconscious writings, the vaporings of the ouija board, the so-called trance state and the fabrications of spiritualistic "mediums" may be,

i "The Unconscious," The Macmillan Co., p. 197.

FOREWORD xv

and generally are, nothing more than ' ' subconscious " day-dreams, manifestations of subconscious memories identical in principle with normal nocturnal dreams. These subconscious dreams, it is well known, can be cultivated ; which means that out of almost any material of the mind — memories, emotional impulses and instincts, acquired dispositions, etc. — a self-functioning system can be constellated and educated into a subconscious system manifesting itself in day-dreams. It is common experience that the more such manifestations are practised and encouraged to become a habit, the more readily they occur and the more highly developed becomes the intelligence of the system.

I mention this as only one illustration of the data which can be obtained from abnormal and experimental psychology, for the understanding of dream processes. I doubt if there is a single phenomenon observed in dreams, or peculiarity of the work of the dream mind, that is not also to be found in other conditions than sleep. I mean conditions, whether artificially produced or the abnormal resultant of intrinsic psychological processes, where the mind is dissociated as it is in sleep. By correlating dream phenomena with analogous phenomena found in these other conditions and studying the mechanisms and essential characteristics of the abnormal and artificial groups, particularly by the experimental method, we can obtain an insight into and understanding of the normal dream mind. The study of abnormal psychology — including its variant proxvi FOREWORD

duced by artifice — has thrown more light on the workings of the normal mind than all the centuries of academic studies of the latter.

Mrs. Arnold-Forster directs attention to certain characteristics of memory and imagination in dreams (Chapter V). The former is remarkable for the wealth and distinctness of detail with which former scenes and experiences are reproduced; indeed, it may be, visualised with a vividness equal to reality. Even momentary experiences which originally were merely fugitive impressions, casually attended to, may reappear in wonderful detail and distinctness as the material of dreams.

This feat of memory is not peculiar to dreams, but may be correlated with the same phenomenon manifested by the trance mind and other dissociated states of consciousness. 1 In "crystal visions" we have it in a more or less isolated form. Likewise the heightening of the imagination and its freedom from the restrictions of time and space, which Mrs. Arnold-Forster interestingly dwells upon, find their analogues in dissociated states of mind other than sleep. It would be easy to cite examples of the daydreamer or trance-dreamer in whose fantasies "distance is annihilated" and centuries passed over in the twinkling of an eye. As in normal dreams, the soul may seem to leave the body and hover in space or be transported to another sphere — celestial or cosmic.

In similar fashion I might point out that in such

i "The Unconscious," Section II.

FOREWORD xvii

states are found the analogues of other dream phenomena, such as symbolisms, the solution of problems — mathematical and personal — literary manifestations of creative imagination, ascribed by Eobert Louis Stevenson to his "Brownies" somewhere beneath or outside the dream mind, the doubling of the conscious self (manifested by the activity of a second consciousness, or the " Guide" in the author's dreams — Chapter XIII), defence reactions, visions, and other hallucinations.

So, though normal dreams are of value for the light they throw on the phenomena of abnormal psychology, still more the manifold and varied data of the latter, the larger field and subject to experimentation, give an understanding of the former. This is the reverse of the point of view of the Freudian psychology. The latter subjects itself to the errors and fallacies necessarily arising from the acceptation of, and dogmatic adherence to, a theory which is true of only particular types of dreams, and therefore limited in its applications.

Not the least interesting as well as novel of the dream phenomena recorded by the author are those of "dream control" and flying dreams. The fact that Mrs. Arnold-Forster has succeeded in controlling her dreams, at least to the extent of prohibiting unpleasant dreams, and teaching herself to fly, will be a novel contribution to most students. Both phenomena have interesting corollaries: the former 'involves the implication of the principles of doubling of consciousness and the "censor," and the xviii FOREWORD

latter of dissociation of all sensory impressions including what is known as coenesthesia, or the organic sensations streaming from the viscera and other parts of the body. At least so flying dreams can be explained. If we assume that all such sensations are completely dissociated from the dream mind, so that the latter become pure thought and images (for there is evidence that during ordinary sleep such impressions are still received), we have a mental condition suitable for the creative imagination to fabricate the illusion of flying, untrammelled by any conflict with sensory impressions of reality. Mrs. Arnold-Forster, herself, has apparently experienced such a dream without the flying illusion, judging from her description (p. 151). Such complete dissociation of all consciousness of the body finds its analogue, as I have observed, in a waking dissociated state, in which the subject describes herself as just " thought in space" without a body.

Given such a dissociation, it would theoretically only require a creative imagination with vivid imagery to fabricate the illusions or hallucinations of objective flying. The mind is capable of creating almost any kind of hallucination even to the extent of shaking hands with an imaginary ' ' spirit, ' ' provided it is not contradicted by the conflicting awareness of reality.

It is insisted by those who hold certain theories regarding the mechanism of dreams, particularly by the school of psycho-analysts, that their theories are ''purely inductive, being built up" (as a brilliant

FOREWORD xix

expounder writes) "step by step on the basis of actual experiences without the introduction of any a priori speculative hypotheses." Conceding this, and disregarding the fact that many of the alleged facts of experience are actually not facts but interpretations of facts, it still remains true that the same can be said for contending theories. Each is an inductively reached conclusion. The explanation of such differing theories is that each is based on different facts of experience. All theories as well as hypotheses of science hold good only until newly discovered facts require reconsideration and new explanations. Thus the older theories of atoms and the ultimate nature of matter held good until the discovery of new facts required a re-examination of the theories and a new formulation of conceptions in terms of electrons and electricity. And so with the biological theories which in consequence of the discoveries of Darwin and Mendel had to be chucked overboard or recast.

The claim for any theory of dreams based on its having been preached inductively cannot be very impressive. Mrs. Arnold-Forster brings to our attention types of dreams which she finds herself unable to fit in with present-day fashionable theories. It is interesting to note that after subjecting her dreams to self psycho-analysis she fails to find that they substantiate the Freudian theory that all dreams are symbolic, and still more "that they are all symbols of repressed desire" — and particularly sex wishes. "Without denying the occurrence of xx FOREWORD

symbolism, according to her interpretation this symbolism is for the most part "of a simple and direct nature relating the dream to some mood that I have experienced, or some problem that I have met with, and it is often fairly easy to trace this idea which the dream represents in an allegorical form. In this modified sense it seems evident that many dreams are symbolical/ '

Mrs. Arnold-Forster, as a student of Freud and his followers and thoroughly grounded in the Freudian literature, recognises that the true psycho-analyst would not be content with such an interpretation; and that, according to the Freudian theory, it is impossible to be one's own psycho-analyst because of the self-censorship exerted by the mind against such revelations — shall we say against facing oneself and the hidden truths of self. For my part I am much more impressed by Mrs. Arnold- Forster 's simple interpretations of her dreams (of which she gives illustrations), perhaps because they fit in with my own studies, than I am with those interpretations to which they are exposed by the Freudian theory (as the author of these dreams fully realises). Surely the wider and more intensive our experience the more must we sympathise with the plea expressed in these pages "for the exercise of sober judgment and common sense in our study of this subject and the conclusions we form."

To those engaged in the study of the purely psychological problems involved in dreams, the author's conception of the mental mechanisms by which

FOREWORD xxi

dreams are constructed will be of interest (Chapter IX). Mrs. Arnold-Forster proposes an explanation of dream construction which is as ingenious as it is simple. The mechanism is that of association of ideas with the co-operation of the imagination. Illustrations of how this mechanism works are given in two specific dreams recorded. The apparent incoherence and inconsecutiveness of many dreams is attributed to the failure of memory after waking to recall the connecting links necessary to make the dream coherent. In dream building, if I understand the theory correctly, one idea calls up another by successive association — free association, unhampered by critical and discriminating judgment, which in the normal process of thinking rejects those associated ideas which are not acceptable or germane to the subject in hand. The dream imagination, then seizes upon certain elements in the associated idea, intensifies and objectifies them in imagery by which, for instance, objects are vividly visualised. Thus, in one dream, a winding path in a landscape suggests by association a railroad, which is at once visualised also in the landscape. The two crossing each other suggests a railroad crossing, which is in turn visualised ; then follows the idea of danger from a possible approaching train, and, presto ! the sound of such an onrushing train is heard; and so on, one association calling up another to be vividly represented in images and worked by imagination into a connected story, the images suggesting thoughts and vice versa. The whole is very much like the process xxii FOREWORD

of certain types of thinking carried on when awake by day, ' ' only at night the imagination is not fettered by the discipline which restrains our wandering thoughts from following too eagerly in the random track of every chance thought or suggestion. The imagination in sleep, unchecked in this way, can devote itself to perfecting each successive image that arises, giving life and reality to each in turn, metamorphosing them often, and constantly adding new facts and fresh touches to the pictures which are its creation."

It is curious and may be interesting to note that Mrs. Arnold-Forster's theory is supported by the testimony of a co-conscious personality which I had occasion to study. It is well known that a number of cases, in which a secondary co-conscious personality claimed to be awake while the principal personality was dreaming, have been observed. In the Beauchamp case the co-conscious personality, observing the dreams as they occurred, testified that during sleep sensory stimuli (sounds, the touch of the bed-clothes, etc.) are received and " 'make sensory images or impressions in the same way as in the daytime. ' These weave themselves into dreams, but they also recall memories of what she has seen and heard and read, in fact everything that she has ever been conscious of, so that in this way they arouse connected dreams." 1

This theory of the dream mechanism which Mrs. Arnold-Forster proposes will probably be regarded

i "The Dissociation of a Personality," p. 329.

FOREWORD xxiii

by psychologists as one of the most important of the contributions contained in her book. It is, as she points out, in entire opposition to the Freudian conception, leaving ' ' entirely out of account the sort of hidden meaning that the psycho-analyst finds in dreams," as well as the symbolism and unconscious sex wishes. In other passages, however, the author fully recognises that there may be dreams, especially those of morbid persons, to which the Freudian theory applies. She has only to do with her own experiences. I, for one, am strongly inclined to believe that her theory is a sound interpretation at least of a certain type of dream, and may, perhaps, govern the majority of dreams. Probably Mrs. Arnold-Forster will agree that in other types less emphasis should be placed on the associative process and more on the creative imagination as contrasted with what, perhaps, I may call the passive imagination, the slave of associated ideas: the creative imagination thinks out, reasons, foresees, arranges and composes according to a conceived plan, and is not the slave of associated ideas.

In some of the dreams recorded by the author, flying dreams for instance, it seems to me that the creative imagination is conspicuous and dominates the associative process. Certainly there are dreams, as might be illustrated from my own collection (not personal experiences), in which there is an argument, the end is foreseen and the whole is a wellworked-out story or allegory. No associative process alone could have produced such logical coherence.

xxiv FOREWORD

In such dreams the motivating dispositions which have determined the theme and inspired the creative imagination are another matter and are to be searched for in the antecedent conscious life of the individual.

I am influenced in this notion by what I conceive to be the analogues of night-dreams, namely, the fantasies of other dissociated states — day-dreaming and subconscious dreaming. In these two conditions I have observed dreams substantially indentical with those occurring during sleep, but although associated ideas may have suggested the motives inspiring the theme and otherwise been factors, the creative imagination has worked as it does in the composition of romance. I have already referred to this phenomenon. The fact is that all depends upon that organisation of the dissociated mental systems which is called by Mrs. Arnold-Forster the dream mind, whether functioning when asleep, when awake, or when subconscious. When these systems are so highly organised as to be capable of reason, imagination and will, and when they include the so-called instincts — when, in other words, they constitute an " Intelligence' J — they are capable of working in a way comparable to that of the waking intelligence. But when the senses are eliminated, and when therefore cognition of reality is also eliminated — as in sleep — there is necessarily a corresponding limitation of that adjustment and correlation of thought to reality which is one of the essential qualities of dreams. Undoubtedly the dream mind, like

FOREWORD xxv

all dissociated systems, can be educated into a highly organised intelligence. This seems to have been the case, I venture to think, with the dream mind of the author as well as with that of some of the recorders of dreams cited in this book.

From this point of view there must be as many different types of dreams as there are types of organised mental systems : even the Freudian mechanisms, of winch I believe I have seen examples, 1 should occur.

As Mrs. Arnold-Forster says, "dreams are not all alike, but are as manifold in their nature as are the thoughts and imaginations of men"; and, I may add, dreams vary not only in their nature but also in their mechanisms, just as do the mental systems of human personality, whether they be mutilated and dissociated or unmutilated and complete.

Morton Prince.

Boston, U. S. A.

i "The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. v. No. 6 (1911).

Preface

We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the litigation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. — Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, xi.

The following slight studies dealing with certain dream problems have been written from a series of notes, in which dreams and certain experiments in dreaming have been more or less regularly recorded during a long period of years. If it is asked what they have to offer that is new on a subject on which so much has been already written, the answer must be that we are even now only at the beginning of this study, that many problems concerning dreams and concerning the border state that lies between sleeping and waking are still to be solved, and that some of these have as yet hardly been touched on at all in the literature of dreams. There are many aspects of these questions which can only be very imperfectly dealt with by an unscientific observer whose want of technical knowledge is a grave disadvantage in writing on a subject to which so much learning has been devoted, yet I believe that there is room in this fascinating study not only for the philosopher and the psychologist, but also for the xxviii PREFACE

unlearned but faithful recorder of personal experience. Our dreams are the most individual of all our experiences, and we each approach them from a separate standpoint of our own. Psychology is the science of individual experience, and the facts that are eventually sifted and weighed in its laboratories must first be gathered by humble gleaners in many widely scattered fields.

The plea made in this book that more of us should learn to watch and record accurately the facts of our own dream experience is made, not only because of the constantly increasing value to science of a fuller knowledge of the working of the dream mind, but also because I am sure that those who follow this study and learn to remember more of their own dream life, will find themselves amply rewarded. Life brings to all of us sad and anxious waking hours, and to most men it brings days of monotonous labour ; but to every one, whatever the sorrow or the toil of the day may be, night should bring release. When we enter the country of dreams we are not only liberated from the bondage of labour, but shackles are loosed which by day keep the imagination tied to earth. Only in sleep the imagination is set at liberty and is free to exercise its fullest powers. Sleep which brings us our dreams fulfils the eternal need within us, the need of romance, the need of adventure ; for sleep is the gate which lets us slip through into the enchanted country that lies beyond. We give too little heed to the nightly miracle of our dreams. Long hours are spent by us in dreaming