[236]Michel Léon-Kindberg, 'Le Sentiment du Déjà Vu,'Revue de Psychiatrie, April 1903, No. 4.[237]G. Ballet, 'Un Cas de Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Neurologique, 1904, p. 1221.[238]Dugas, 'Observations sur des Erreurs "Formelles" de la Mémoire',Revue Philosophique, July 1908;ib.June 1910. Dugas makes no reference to Janet, nor to my paper on Hypnagogic Paramnesia, but his statement of the matter to some extent combines and harmonises those of the two earlier writers.[239]P. Janet, 'A Propos du Déjà Vu,'Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, July-August 1905.[240]H. Bergson, 'Le Souvenir du Présent et la Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Philosophique, December 1908. It should be remarked that, except in the attempt to explain why paramnesia is not normally habitual, Bergson's paper is based on the ideas or suggestions of previous writers.[241]Before the appearance of my paper, as already mentioned, Anjel had emphasised the significance of fatigue in the production of paramnesia (Archiv für Psychiatrie, Bd. viii. pp. 57et seq.). His theory, indeed (only known to me through brief summaries)—according to which the pseudo-reminiscence is due to the tardy apprehension by the fatigued mind of a sensation which is thus degraded to the level of a reproduced impression—seems practically identical with that which I independently reached in the light of hypnagogic phenomena.[242]I disregard those theories which invoke histological explanations, as by some peculiar disposition of the neurons. Such explanations are as much outside the psychologist's sphere as the old-fashioned explanations by reference to God and the Devil. A known physiological or pathological process may, indeed, quite properly be recognised by the psychologist; such, for instance, as the disturbance of the heart associated with some dreams. Even minute changes in the brain, when they have been properly determined by the histologist, may be effectively invoked by the psychologist if they seem to supply an exact physical correlative to his own findings. But for the psychologist to go outside his own field, and invent a purely fanciful and arbitrary neuronic scheme to suit a psychic process, explains nothing. It is merely child's play. The stuff that the psychologist works with must be psychical, just as the stuff of the physicist's work must be physical.[243]Certain phases of waking psychic life are, however, closely related to dreaming. This is obviously the case as regards day-dreaming or reverie. (Seee.g.Janet,Névroses et Idées Fixes, vol. i. pp. 390-6.) It would also appear that wit is the result of a process analogous to that fusion of incompatible elements which we have found to prevail in dreams. Our dreams are sometimes full of usually ineffective wit; I could easily quote dreams in illustration. (Freud has, from his point of view, studied the analogy between wit and dreaming inDer Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.)[244]In more recent times Moreau of Tours, especially, argued (Du Haschich et de l'Aliénation Mentale, 1845) thathaschisch-intoxication is insanity, and that insanity is a waking dream.[245]In insane subjects a dream not uncommonly forms the starting point of a delusion, and many illustrative examples could be brought forward.[246]Marro,La Pubertà, pp. 286-92.[247]Freud,Die Traumdeutung, p. 13. Elsewhere (p. 135) Freud remarks: 'The deeper we go in the analysis of dreams the more frequently we come across traces of childish experience which form a latent source of dreams.' The same point had been previously emphasised by Sully, 'The Dream as a Revelation,'Fortnightly Review, March 1893.[248]C. M. Giessler,Die Physiologischen Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge, ch. iv.[249]Jewell, who gives illustrations in evidence, concludes (American Journal of Psychology, January 1905, pp. 25-8) that 'the confusion of dreams with real life is almost universal with children, and quite common among adolescents and adults.'[250]Hans Gross, the distinguished criminologist, refers (Kriminalpsychologie, p. 672) to two cases of children who brought criminal charges which were apparently based on dreams. Gross mentions that this may often be suspected when the child says nothing at the time, and shows no excitement or depression until a day or two after the date of the alleged event. For confusion of dream with reality, see also Gross,Gesammelte Kriminalistische Aufsätze, vol. ii. p. 174.[251]Thus Rachilde (Mme. Vallette) writes that as a young girl her dreams were so vivid that 'I would often ask myself if I had not an existence in two forms: my waking personality and my dreaming personality. Sometimes I was deceived and imagined that my real life was dreams.' She instinctively began to write at the age of twelve, and it was by completing her dreams that she became a novelist (Chabaneix,Le Subconscient, p. 49). George Sand's early day-dreams, of which she gives so interesting an account (Histoire de ma Vie, part III. ch. viii), developed around the central figure of Corambé, first seen in a real dream. Corambé was, at the same time, a divine being, to whom she erected an altar. So that of the child it may be said, as Lucretius said of primitive man, that the gods first appear in dreams.[252]'In sleep,' says Sully (Fortnightly Review, March 1893), 'we have a reversion to a more primitive type of experience.' 'Dreaming,' says Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 219), 'may be viewed as a reversion to a more primitive type of thought.'[253]This tendency is notably represented by Durkheim ('Origines de la Pensée Religieuse,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909) and Crawley (The Idea of the Soul, 1909).[254]Hill Tout,Journal, Anthropological Institute, January-June 1905, p. 143; Sidney Hartland, in his presidential address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, in 1906, emphasised the significance of dreams in Shamanism, and Sir Everard im Thurn, in hisAmong the Indians of Guiana, shows how practically real are dreams to the savage mind.[255]See,e.g., as regards the American Indians, Thornton Parker in theOpen Court, May 1901.[256]Leviathan, part I. ch. ii.[257]Laistner,Das Rätsel der Sphinx, 1889, vol. 1. p. xiii. While Laistner was chiefly concerned with the exploration of the religious myths, he pointed out that epics and fairy-tales (Amor and Psyche, the stories of the Nibelung and Baldur, etc.) may be similarly explained. It seems probable that his investigations received a stimulus in the earlier experiments of J. Boerner (Das Alpdrücken, 1855) on the production of nightmare. Laistner has had many followers, notable C. Ruths (Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome, 1898), who argues (pp. 415-46) that the old Greek myths had their chief root in dream phenomena, in delirium, and in the visions aroused in some persons by hearing music, while he considers that many fabulous monsters and dragons have arisen from the combinations seen in dreams. We know that the Greeks, who were such great myth-makers, much occupied themselves in lying in wait for dreams, and in oneiromancy and necromancy (e.g., Bouché-Leclercq,Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, vol. 1. Bk. ii. ch. i. pp. 277-329). In this way alone it is doubtless true that, as Jewell says, 'dreams have had a great effect upon the history of the world.'[258]For evidence regarding the high esteem in which many of the greatest Greek and Latin Fathers held dreams as divine revelations, seee.g., Sully, Art. 'Dreams,'Encyclopædia Britannica.[259]There is still a natural tendency in the uninstructed mind to identify spontaneous visual phenomena with Heaven. 'When I gets to bed,' said an aged and superannuated dustman to Vanderkiste (The Dens of London, p. 14), 'I says my prayers, and I puts my hands afore my eyes—so [covering his face with his hands]; well, I sees such beautiful things, sparkles like, all afloating about, and I wished to ax yer, sir, if that ain't a something of Heaven, sir.'[260]This was the only traceable element in the dream. The dreamer was accustomed to look at her watch on awaking in the morning, and, if it was seven or later, not to go to sleep again.[261]Freud, 'Der Dichter und das Phantasieren' (1908), in second series of hisSammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre;K. Abraham,Traum und Mythus(1909); and O. Rank,Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden(1909), both published in theSchriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, edited by Freud.[262]Synesius refers to conversations with sheep in dreams, and he was probably the first to suggest that such dream phenomena may be the origin of fables in which animals speak. The dog and the cat, as we should expect, seem most frequently to speak in the dreams of civilised people. Thus I dreamed that I had a conversation with a cat who spoke with fair clearness and sense, though the whole of her sentences were not intelligible. I was not surprised at this relative lack of intelligibility, but neither was I surprised at her speaking at all. I have also encountered a talking parrot whose speech was more relevant than that of most talking parrots; this somewhat surprised me. In legends a wider range of animals are able to speak, no doubt because the primitive legend-makers were familiar with a wider range of animal life. How natural it is to the uninstructed mind to treat animals like human beings is well shown by the experiences of Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, who writes (The World I Live in, p. 147): 'After my education began, the world which came within my reach was all alive.... It was two years before I could be made to believe that my dogs did not understand what I said, and I always apologised to them when I ran into or stepped on them.'[263]Journal of Mental Science, January 1909, p. 16.[264]'Images and thoughts,' he said, 'possess a power in and of themselves independent of that act of the judgment or understanding by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality correspondent to them. Such is the ordinary state of the mind in dreams.... Add to this a voluntary lending of the will to this suspension of one of its own operations, and you have the true theory of stage illusion.'[265]Quoted by Paul Delior,Remy de Gourmont et son Œuvre, p. 14.[266]Thus even Leonardo da Vinci (Solmi,Frammenti, p. 285) acknowledged the benefit which he had gained by gazing at clouds or at mud-bespattered walls; and recommended the practice to other artists, for thereby, he says, they will receive suggestions for landscapes, battlepieces, 'and infinite things,' which they may bring to perfection. He compared this to the possibility of hearing words in the sounds of bells. Some other distinguished artists have adopted somewhat similar practices which are fundamentally the child's habit of seeing pictures in the fire.[267]Thus Tennyson (Memoir, by his son, vol. i. p. 320) was subject from boyhood to a kind of waking trance. 'This has generally come upon me,' he wrote, 'through repeating my own name two or three times to myself silently.' (It thus seems to have been a sort of auto-hypnotisation.) In this state, individuality seemed to dissolve, he said, and he found in it a proof that the extinction of personality by death would not involve loss of life, but rather a fuller life. We are so easily convinced in these matters![268]Seee.g., De Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 314; Arturo Morselli, 'Dei Sogni nei Genii,'La Cultura, 1899.[269]Thus I once planned in a dream a paper on the Progress of Psychology, which seemed to me on awakening to present a quite workable though not notably brilliant scheme.[270]Sante de Sanctis, however (I Sogni, p. 369), reproduces a dream poem of twelve lines.[271]See note in J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge'sPoetical Works, p. 592.[272]Tartini composed the sonata—a noble and beautiful work which still survives—at the age of twenty-one. In old age he told Lalande the astronomer (as the latter relates in hisVoyage d'un Français en Italie, 1765, vol. ix. p. 55) that he had had a dream in which he sold his soul to the Devil, and it occurred to him in his dream to hand his fiddle to the Devil to see what he could do with it. 'But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flights of my imagination. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away, and I awoke. Seizing my violin I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the "Devil's Sonata," was the best I ever wrote, but how far below the one I had heard in my dream!' The dream, it will be seen, was of a fairly common type, and to Tartini's excitable temperament it served as a stimulus to his finest energies. But the real 'Devil's Sonata' was hopelessly lost. (See the articles on Tartini in Fetis,Biographic Universelle des Musiciens, and Grove'sDictionary of Music and Musicians.)[273]Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, has written some interesting chapters on her dreams inThe World I Live in. For the most part it would seem that the dream life of the blind (which has been studied by, among others, Jastrow,Fact and Fable in Psychology, pp. 337et seq.) is not usually rich or vivid.[274]Seee.g., Marie de Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 313.[275]This aspect of dreaming has been set forth by Bergson (Revue Philosophique, December 1908, p. 574). 'The dream state,' he remarks, 'is the substratum of our normal state. Nothing is added in waking life; on the contrary, waking life is obtained by the limitation, concentration, and tension of that diffuse psychological life which is the life of dreaming. The perception and the memory which we find in dreaming are, in a sense, more natural than those of waking life: consciousness is then amused in perceiving for the sake of perceiving, and in remembering for the sake of remembering, without care for life, that is to say for the accomplishment of actions. To be awake is to eliminate, to choose, to concentrate the totality of the diffused life of dreaming to a point, to a practical problem. To be awake is to will; cease to will, detach yourself from life, become disinterested: in so doing you pass from the waking ego to the dreaming ego, which is lesstense, but moreextendedthan the other.'[276]Pepys,Diary, 2nd April 1664.
[236]Michel Léon-Kindberg, 'Le Sentiment du Déjà Vu,'Revue de Psychiatrie, April 1903, No. 4.
[236]Michel Léon-Kindberg, 'Le Sentiment du Déjà Vu,'Revue de Psychiatrie, April 1903, No. 4.
[237]G. Ballet, 'Un Cas de Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Neurologique, 1904, p. 1221.
[237]G. Ballet, 'Un Cas de Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Neurologique, 1904, p. 1221.
[238]Dugas, 'Observations sur des Erreurs "Formelles" de la Mémoire',Revue Philosophique, July 1908;ib.June 1910. Dugas makes no reference to Janet, nor to my paper on Hypnagogic Paramnesia, but his statement of the matter to some extent combines and harmonises those of the two earlier writers.
[238]Dugas, 'Observations sur des Erreurs "Formelles" de la Mémoire',Revue Philosophique, July 1908;ib.June 1910. Dugas makes no reference to Janet, nor to my paper on Hypnagogic Paramnesia, but his statement of the matter to some extent combines and harmonises those of the two earlier writers.
[239]P. Janet, 'A Propos du Déjà Vu,'Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, July-August 1905.
[239]P. Janet, 'A Propos du Déjà Vu,'Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, July-August 1905.
[240]H. Bergson, 'Le Souvenir du Présent et la Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Philosophique, December 1908. It should be remarked that, except in the attempt to explain why paramnesia is not normally habitual, Bergson's paper is based on the ideas or suggestions of previous writers.
[240]H. Bergson, 'Le Souvenir du Présent et la Fausse Reconnaissance,'Revue Philosophique, December 1908. It should be remarked that, except in the attempt to explain why paramnesia is not normally habitual, Bergson's paper is based on the ideas or suggestions of previous writers.
[241]Before the appearance of my paper, as already mentioned, Anjel had emphasised the significance of fatigue in the production of paramnesia (Archiv für Psychiatrie, Bd. viii. pp. 57et seq.). His theory, indeed (only known to me through brief summaries)—according to which the pseudo-reminiscence is due to the tardy apprehension by the fatigued mind of a sensation which is thus degraded to the level of a reproduced impression—seems practically identical with that which I independently reached in the light of hypnagogic phenomena.
[241]Before the appearance of my paper, as already mentioned, Anjel had emphasised the significance of fatigue in the production of paramnesia (Archiv für Psychiatrie, Bd. viii. pp. 57et seq.). His theory, indeed (only known to me through brief summaries)—according to which the pseudo-reminiscence is due to the tardy apprehension by the fatigued mind of a sensation which is thus degraded to the level of a reproduced impression—seems practically identical with that which I independently reached in the light of hypnagogic phenomena.
[242]I disregard those theories which invoke histological explanations, as by some peculiar disposition of the neurons. Such explanations are as much outside the psychologist's sphere as the old-fashioned explanations by reference to God and the Devil. A known physiological or pathological process may, indeed, quite properly be recognised by the psychologist; such, for instance, as the disturbance of the heart associated with some dreams. Even minute changes in the brain, when they have been properly determined by the histologist, may be effectively invoked by the psychologist if they seem to supply an exact physical correlative to his own findings. But for the psychologist to go outside his own field, and invent a purely fanciful and arbitrary neuronic scheme to suit a psychic process, explains nothing. It is merely child's play. The stuff that the psychologist works with must be psychical, just as the stuff of the physicist's work must be physical.
[242]I disregard those theories which invoke histological explanations, as by some peculiar disposition of the neurons. Such explanations are as much outside the psychologist's sphere as the old-fashioned explanations by reference to God and the Devil. A known physiological or pathological process may, indeed, quite properly be recognised by the psychologist; such, for instance, as the disturbance of the heart associated with some dreams. Even minute changes in the brain, when they have been properly determined by the histologist, may be effectively invoked by the psychologist if they seem to supply an exact physical correlative to his own findings. But for the psychologist to go outside his own field, and invent a purely fanciful and arbitrary neuronic scheme to suit a psychic process, explains nothing. It is merely child's play. The stuff that the psychologist works with must be psychical, just as the stuff of the physicist's work must be physical.
[243]Certain phases of waking psychic life are, however, closely related to dreaming. This is obviously the case as regards day-dreaming or reverie. (Seee.g.Janet,Névroses et Idées Fixes, vol. i. pp. 390-6.) It would also appear that wit is the result of a process analogous to that fusion of incompatible elements which we have found to prevail in dreams. Our dreams are sometimes full of usually ineffective wit; I could easily quote dreams in illustration. (Freud has, from his point of view, studied the analogy between wit and dreaming inDer Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.)
[243]Certain phases of waking psychic life are, however, closely related to dreaming. This is obviously the case as regards day-dreaming or reverie. (Seee.g.Janet,Névroses et Idées Fixes, vol. i. pp. 390-6.) It would also appear that wit is the result of a process analogous to that fusion of incompatible elements which we have found to prevail in dreams. Our dreams are sometimes full of usually ineffective wit; I could easily quote dreams in illustration. (Freud has, from his point of view, studied the analogy between wit and dreaming inDer Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.)
[244]In more recent times Moreau of Tours, especially, argued (Du Haschich et de l'Aliénation Mentale, 1845) thathaschisch-intoxication is insanity, and that insanity is a waking dream.
[244]In more recent times Moreau of Tours, especially, argued (Du Haschich et de l'Aliénation Mentale, 1845) thathaschisch-intoxication is insanity, and that insanity is a waking dream.
[245]In insane subjects a dream not uncommonly forms the starting point of a delusion, and many illustrative examples could be brought forward.
[245]In insane subjects a dream not uncommonly forms the starting point of a delusion, and many illustrative examples could be brought forward.
[246]Marro,La Pubertà, pp. 286-92.
[246]Marro,La Pubertà, pp. 286-92.
[247]Freud,Die Traumdeutung, p. 13. Elsewhere (p. 135) Freud remarks: 'The deeper we go in the analysis of dreams the more frequently we come across traces of childish experience which form a latent source of dreams.' The same point had been previously emphasised by Sully, 'The Dream as a Revelation,'Fortnightly Review, March 1893.
[247]Freud,Die Traumdeutung, p. 13. Elsewhere (p. 135) Freud remarks: 'The deeper we go in the analysis of dreams the more frequently we come across traces of childish experience which form a latent source of dreams.' The same point had been previously emphasised by Sully, 'The Dream as a Revelation,'Fortnightly Review, March 1893.
[248]C. M. Giessler,Die Physiologischen Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge, ch. iv.
[248]C. M. Giessler,Die Physiologischen Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge, ch. iv.
[249]Jewell, who gives illustrations in evidence, concludes (American Journal of Psychology, January 1905, pp. 25-8) that 'the confusion of dreams with real life is almost universal with children, and quite common among adolescents and adults.'
[249]Jewell, who gives illustrations in evidence, concludes (American Journal of Psychology, January 1905, pp. 25-8) that 'the confusion of dreams with real life is almost universal with children, and quite common among adolescents and adults.'
[250]Hans Gross, the distinguished criminologist, refers (Kriminalpsychologie, p. 672) to two cases of children who brought criminal charges which were apparently based on dreams. Gross mentions that this may often be suspected when the child says nothing at the time, and shows no excitement or depression until a day or two after the date of the alleged event. For confusion of dream with reality, see also Gross,Gesammelte Kriminalistische Aufsätze, vol. ii. p. 174.
[250]Hans Gross, the distinguished criminologist, refers (Kriminalpsychologie, p. 672) to two cases of children who brought criminal charges which were apparently based on dreams. Gross mentions that this may often be suspected when the child says nothing at the time, and shows no excitement or depression until a day or two after the date of the alleged event. For confusion of dream with reality, see also Gross,Gesammelte Kriminalistische Aufsätze, vol. ii. p. 174.
[251]Thus Rachilde (Mme. Vallette) writes that as a young girl her dreams were so vivid that 'I would often ask myself if I had not an existence in two forms: my waking personality and my dreaming personality. Sometimes I was deceived and imagined that my real life was dreams.' She instinctively began to write at the age of twelve, and it was by completing her dreams that she became a novelist (Chabaneix,Le Subconscient, p. 49). George Sand's early day-dreams, of which she gives so interesting an account (Histoire de ma Vie, part III. ch. viii), developed around the central figure of Corambé, first seen in a real dream. Corambé was, at the same time, a divine being, to whom she erected an altar. So that of the child it may be said, as Lucretius said of primitive man, that the gods first appear in dreams.
[251]Thus Rachilde (Mme. Vallette) writes that as a young girl her dreams were so vivid that 'I would often ask myself if I had not an existence in two forms: my waking personality and my dreaming personality. Sometimes I was deceived and imagined that my real life was dreams.' She instinctively began to write at the age of twelve, and it was by completing her dreams that she became a novelist (Chabaneix,Le Subconscient, p. 49). George Sand's early day-dreams, of which she gives so interesting an account (Histoire de ma Vie, part III. ch. viii), developed around the central figure of Corambé, first seen in a real dream. Corambé was, at the same time, a divine being, to whom she erected an altar. So that of the child it may be said, as Lucretius said of primitive man, that the gods first appear in dreams.
[252]'In sleep,' says Sully (Fortnightly Review, March 1893), 'we have a reversion to a more primitive type of experience.' 'Dreaming,' says Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 219), 'may be viewed as a reversion to a more primitive type of thought.'
[252]'In sleep,' says Sully (Fortnightly Review, March 1893), 'we have a reversion to a more primitive type of experience.' 'Dreaming,' says Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 219), 'may be viewed as a reversion to a more primitive type of thought.'
[253]This tendency is notably represented by Durkheim ('Origines de la Pensée Religieuse,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909) and Crawley (The Idea of the Soul, 1909).
[253]This tendency is notably represented by Durkheim ('Origines de la Pensée Religieuse,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909) and Crawley (The Idea of the Soul, 1909).
[254]Hill Tout,Journal, Anthropological Institute, January-June 1905, p. 143; Sidney Hartland, in his presidential address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, in 1906, emphasised the significance of dreams in Shamanism, and Sir Everard im Thurn, in hisAmong the Indians of Guiana, shows how practically real are dreams to the savage mind.
[254]Hill Tout,Journal, Anthropological Institute, January-June 1905, p. 143; Sidney Hartland, in his presidential address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, in 1906, emphasised the significance of dreams in Shamanism, and Sir Everard im Thurn, in hisAmong the Indians of Guiana, shows how practically real are dreams to the savage mind.
[255]See,e.g., as regards the American Indians, Thornton Parker in theOpen Court, May 1901.
[255]See,e.g., as regards the American Indians, Thornton Parker in theOpen Court, May 1901.
[256]Leviathan, part I. ch. ii.
[256]Leviathan, part I. ch. ii.
[257]Laistner,Das Rätsel der Sphinx, 1889, vol. 1. p. xiii. While Laistner was chiefly concerned with the exploration of the religious myths, he pointed out that epics and fairy-tales (Amor and Psyche, the stories of the Nibelung and Baldur, etc.) may be similarly explained. It seems probable that his investigations received a stimulus in the earlier experiments of J. Boerner (Das Alpdrücken, 1855) on the production of nightmare. Laistner has had many followers, notable C. Ruths (Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome, 1898), who argues (pp. 415-46) that the old Greek myths had their chief root in dream phenomena, in delirium, and in the visions aroused in some persons by hearing music, while he considers that many fabulous monsters and dragons have arisen from the combinations seen in dreams. We know that the Greeks, who were such great myth-makers, much occupied themselves in lying in wait for dreams, and in oneiromancy and necromancy (e.g., Bouché-Leclercq,Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, vol. 1. Bk. ii. ch. i. pp. 277-329). In this way alone it is doubtless true that, as Jewell says, 'dreams have had a great effect upon the history of the world.'
[257]Laistner,Das Rätsel der Sphinx, 1889, vol. 1. p. xiii. While Laistner was chiefly concerned with the exploration of the religious myths, he pointed out that epics and fairy-tales (Amor and Psyche, the stories of the Nibelung and Baldur, etc.) may be similarly explained. It seems probable that his investigations received a stimulus in the earlier experiments of J. Boerner (Das Alpdrücken, 1855) on the production of nightmare. Laistner has had many followers, notable C. Ruths (Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome, 1898), who argues (pp. 415-46) that the old Greek myths had their chief root in dream phenomena, in delirium, and in the visions aroused in some persons by hearing music, while he considers that many fabulous monsters and dragons have arisen from the combinations seen in dreams. We know that the Greeks, who were such great myth-makers, much occupied themselves in lying in wait for dreams, and in oneiromancy and necromancy (e.g., Bouché-Leclercq,Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, vol. 1. Bk. ii. ch. i. pp. 277-329). In this way alone it is doubtless true that, as Jewell says, 'dreams have had a great effect upon the history of the world.'
[258]For evidence regarding the high esteem in which many of the greatest Greek and Latin Fathers held dreams as divine revelations, seee.g., Sully, Art. 'Dreams,'Encyclopædia Britannica.
[258]For evidence regarding the high esteem in which many of the greatest Greek and Latin Fathers held dreams as divine revelations, seee.g., Sully, Art. 'Dreams,'Encyclopædia Britannica.
[259]There is still a natural tendency in the uninstructed mind to identify spontaneous visual phenomena with Heaven. 'When I gets to bed,' said an aged and superannuated dustman to Vanderkiste (The Dens of London, p. 14), 'I says my prayers, and I puts my hands afore my eyes—so [covering his face with his hands]; well, I sees such beautiful things, sparkles like, all afloating about, and I wished to ax yer, sir, if that ain't a something of Heaven, sir.'
[259]There is still a natural tendency in the uninstructed mind to identify spontaneous visual phenomena with Heaven. 'When I gets to bed,' said an aged and superannuated dustman to Vanderkiste (The Dens of London, p. 14), 'I says my prayers, and I puts my hands afore my eyes—so [covering his face with his hands]; well, I sees such beautiful things, sparkles like, all afloating about, and I wished to ax yer, sir, if that ain't a something of Heaven, sir.'
[260]This was the only traceable element in the dream. The dreamer was accustomed to look at her watch on awaking in the morning, and, if it was seven or later, not to go to sleep again.
[260]This was the only traceable element in the dream. The dreamer was accustomed to look at her watch on awaking in the morning, and, if it was seven or later, not to go to sleep again.
[261]Freud, 'Der Dichter und das Phantasieren' (1908), in second series of hisSammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre;K. Abraham,Traum und Mythus(1909); and O. Rank,Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden(1909), both published in theSchriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, edited by Freud.
[261]Freud, 'Der Dichter und das Phantasieren' (1908), in second series of hisSammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre;K. Abraham,Traum und Mythus(1909); and O. Rank,Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden(1909), both published in theSchriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, edited by Freud.
[262]Synesius refers to conversations with sheep in dreams, and he was probably the first to suggest that such dream phenomena may be the origin of fables in which animals speak. The dog and the cat, as we should expect, seem most frequently to speak in the dreams of civilised people. Thus I dreamed that I had a conversation with a cat who spoke with fair clearness and sense, though the whole of her sentences were not intelligible. I was not surprised at this relative lack of intelligibility, but neither was I surprised at her speaking at all. I have also encountered a talking parrot whose speech was more relevant than that of most talking parrots; this somewhat surprised me. In legends a wider range of animals are able to speak, no doubt because the primitive legend-makers were familiar with a wider range of animal life. How natural it is to the uninstructed mind to treat animals like human beings is well shown by the experiences of Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, who writes (The World I Live in, p. 147): 'After my education began, the world which came within my reach was all alive.... It was two years before I could be made to believe that my dogs did not understand what I said, and I always apologised to them when I ran into or stepped on them.'
[262]Synesius refers to conversations with sheep in dreams, and he was probably the first to suggest that such dream phenomena may be the origin of fables in which animals speak. The dog and the cat, as we should expect, seem most frequently to speak in the dreams of civilised people. Thus I dreamed that I had a conversation with a cat who spoke with fair clearness and sense, though the whole of her sentences were not intelligible. I was not surprised at this relative lack of intelligibility, but neither was I surprised at her speaking at all. I have also encountered a talking parrot whose speech was more relevant than that of most talking parrots; this somewhat surprised me. In legends a wider range of animals are able to speak, no doubt because the primitive legend-makers were familiar with a wider range of animal life. How natural it is to the uninstructed mind to treat animals like human beings is well shown by the experiences of Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, who writes (The World I Live in, p. 147): 'After my education began, the world which came within my reach was all alive.... It was two years before I could be made to believe that my dogs did not understand what I said, and I always apologised to them when I ran into or stepped on them.'
[263]Journal of Mental Science, January 1909, p. 16.
[263]Journal of Mental Science, January 1909, p. 16.
[264]'Images and thoughts,' he said, 'possess a power in and of themselves independent of that act of the judgment or understanding by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality correspondent to them. Such is the ordinary state of the mind in dreams.... Add to this a voluntary lending of the will to this suspension of one of its own operations, and you have the true theory of stage illusion.'
[264]'Images and thoughts,' he said, 'possess a power in and of themselves independent of that act of the judgment or understanding by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality correspondent to them. Such is the ordinary state of the mind in dreams.... Add to this a voluntary lending of the will to this suspension of one of its own operations, and you have the true theory of stage illusion.'
[265]Quoted by Paul Delior,Remy de Gourmont et son Œuvre, p. 14.
[265]Quoted by Paul Delior,Remy de Gourmont et son Œuvre, p. 14.
[266]Thus even Leonardo da Vinci (Solmi,Frammenti, p. 285) acknowledged the benefit which he had gained by gazing at clouds or at mud-bespattered walls; and recommended the practice to other artists, for thereby, he says, they will receive suggestions for landscapes, battlepieces, 'and infinite things,' which they may bring to perfection. He compared this to the possibility of hearing words in the sounds of bells. Some other distinguished artists have adopted somewhat similar practices which are fundamentally the child's habit of seeing pictures in the fire.
[266]Thus even Leonardo da Vinci (Solmi,Frammenti, p. 285) acknowledged the benefit which he had gained by gazing at clouds or at mud-bespattered walls; and recommended the practice to other artists, for thereby, he says, they will receive suggestions for landscapes, battlepieces, 'and infinite things,' which they may bring to perfection. He compared this to the possibility of hearing words in the sounds of bells. Some other distinguished artists have adopted somewhat similar practices which are fundamentally the child's habit of seeing pictures in the fire.
[267]Thus Tennyson (Memoir, by his son, vol. i. p. 320) was subject from boyhood to a kind of waking trance. 'This has generally come upon me,' he wrote, 'through repeating my own name two or three times to myself silently.' (It thus seems to have been a sort of auto-hypnotisation.) In this state, individuality seemed to dissolve, he said, and he found in it a proof that the extinction of personality by death would not involve loss of life, but rather a fuller life. We are so easily convinced in these matters!
[267]Thus Tennyson (Memoir, by his son, vol. i. p. 320) was subject from boyhood to a kind of waking trance. 'This has generally come upon me,' he wrote, 'through repeating my own name two or three times to myself silently.' (It thus seems to have been a sort of auto-hypnotisation.) In this state, individuality seemed to dissolve, he said, and he found in it a proof that the extinction of personality by death would not involve loss of life, but rather a fuller life. We are so easily convinced in these matters!
[268]Seee.g., De Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 314; Arturo Morselli, 'Dei Sogni nei Genii,'La Cultura, 1899.
[268]Seee.g., De Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 314; Arturo Morselli, 'Dei Sogni nei Genii,'La Cultura, 1899.
[269]Thus I once planned in a dream a paper on the Progress of Psychology, which seemed to me on awakening to present a quite workable though not notably brilliant scheme.
[269]Thus I once planned in a dream a paper on the Progress of Psychology, which seemed to me on awakening to present a quite workable though not notably brilliant scheme.
[270]Sante de Sanctis, however (I Sogni, p. 369), reproduces a dream poem of twelve lines.
[270]Sante de Sanctis, however (I Sogni, p. 369), reproduces a dream poem of twelve lines.
[271]See note in J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge'sPoetical Works, p. 592.
[271]See note in J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge'sPoetical Works, p. 592.
[272]Tartini composed the sonata—a noble and beautiful work which still survives—at the age of twenty-one. In old age he told Lalande the astronomer (as the latter relates in hisVoyage d'un Français en Italie, 1765, vol. ix. p. 55) that he had had a dream in which he sold his soul to the Devil, and it occurred to him in his dream to hand his fiddle to the Devil to see what he could do with it. 'But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flights of my imagination. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away, and I awoke. Seizing my violin I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the "Devil's Sonata," was the best I ever wrote, but how far below the one I had heard in my dream!' The dream, it will be seen, was of a fairly common type, and to Tartini's excitable temperament it served as a stimulus to his finest energies. But the real 'Devil's Sonata' was hopelessly lost. (See the articles on Tartini in Fetis,Biographic Universelle des Musiciens, and Grove'sDictionary of Music and Musicians.)
[272]Tartini composed the sonata—a noble and beautiful work which still survives—at the age of twenty-one. In old age he told Lalande the astronomer (as the latter relates in hisVoyage d'un Français en Italie, 1765, vol. ix. p. 55) that he had had a dream in which he sold his soul to the Devil, and it occurred to him in his dream to hand his fiddle to the Devil to see what he could do with it. 'But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flights of my imagination. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away, and I awoke. Seizing my violin I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the "Devil's Sonata," was the best I ever wrote, but how far below the one I had heard in my dream!' The dream, it will be seen, was of a fairly common type, and to Tartini's excitable temperament it served as a stimulus to his finest energies. But the real 'Devil's Sonata' was hopelessly lost. (See the articles on Tartini in Fetis,Biographic Universelle des Musiciens, and Grove'sDictionary of Music and Musicians.)
[273]Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, has written some interesting chapters on her dreams inThe World I Live in. For the most part it would seem that the dream life of the blind (which has been studied by, among others, Jastrow,Fact and Fable in Psychology, pp. 337et seq.) is not usually rich or vivid.
[273]Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, has written some interesting chapters on her dreams inThe World I Live in. For the most part it would seem that the dream life of the blind (which has been studied by, among others, Jastrow,Fact and Fable in Psychology, pp. 337et seq.) is not usually rich or vivid.
[274]Seee.g., Marie de Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 313.
[274]Seee.g., Marie de Manacéïne,Sleep, p. 313.
[275]This aspect of dreaming has been set forth by Bergson (Revue Philosophique, December 1908, p. 574). 'The dream state,' he remarks, 'is the substratum of our normal state. Nothing is added in waking life; on the contrary, waking life is obtained by the limitation, concentration, and tension of that diffuse psychological life which is the life of dreaming. The perception and the memory which we find in dreaming are, in a sense, more natural than those of waking life: consciousness is then amused in perceiving for the sake of perceiving, and in remembering for the sake of remembering, without care for life, that is to say for the accomplishment of actions. To be awake is to eliminate, to choose, to concentrate the totality of the diffused life of dreaming to a point, to a practical problem. To be awake is to will; cease to will, detach yourself from life, become disinterested: in so doing you pass from the waking ego to the dreaming ego, which is lesstense, but moreextendedthan the other.'
[275]This aspect of dreaming has been set forth by Bergson (Revue Philosophique, December 1908, p. 574). 'The dream state,' he remarks, 'is the substratum of our normal state. Nothing is added in waking life; on the contrary, waking life is obtained by the limitation, concentration, and tension of that diffuse psychological life which is the life of dreaming. The perception and the memory which we find in dreaming are, in a sense, more natural than those of waking life: consciousness is then amused in perceiving for the sake of perceiving, and in remembering for the sake of remembering, without care for life, that is to say for the accomplishment of actions. To be awake is to eliminate, to choose, to concentrate the totality of the diffused life of dreaming to a point, to a practical problem. To be awake is to will; cease to will, detach yourself from life, become disinterested: in so doing you pass from the waking ego to the dreaming ego, which is lesstense, but moreextendedthan the other.'
[276]Pepys,Diary, 2nd April 1664.
[276]Pepys,Diary, 2nd April 1664.