FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]The subdued quality of the light in normal dreaming—the usual absence of sunshine and generally even of colour—has long been noted. 'We never dream of being in the sunshine,' says Henry Dircks (Lancet, 11th June 1870, p. 863), though too absolutely; 'light and shade form no requisite elements.... The liveliest and most impressive dream is, in reality, a true night scene, very dubiously lighted up, and in which the nearest objects are those which we principally observe and which most interest us.'[2]As some writers give a rather special meaning to the word 'consciousness,' I may say that I simply mean by it (as defined by Baldwin and Stout in theDictionary of Philosophy and Psychology) 'the distinctive character of whatever may be called mental life,' or, as Professor Stratton puts it, in defence of this broad definition (Psychological Bulletin, April 1906), 'consciousness designates the common and generic feature of our psychic acts.' Dreaming then becomes, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'conscious process during sleep.' It should be added that there is much uncertainty about any definition of consciousness. Bode ('Some Recent Definitions of Consciousness,'Psychological Review, July 1908) thinks it 'a matter for legitimate doubt' whether any definition of consciousness can be adequate, and Mercier (art. 'Consciousness' in Tuke'sDictionary of Psychological Medicine) boldly proclaims—quite justly, I think—that 'consciousness is not susceptible of definition,' for we can never go behind it or outside it. That we have to admit various kinds, or at all events various degrees, of consciousness will become clear in our discussion of dreaming.[3]By 'subconscious' is meant, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'not clearly recognised in a present state of consciousness, yet entering into the development of subsequent states of consciousness.' Some psychologists strongly dislike the word 'subconscious.' They are even disposed to argue that there is no subconscious mind, and that before and after the stage of 'awareness,' psychic facts only exist as 'dispositions of brain cells.' The psychologist, however, as such, has no concern with brain cells which belong to the histologist. When we occupy ourselves with dreams we realise at every step that it is possible for psychic states to exist and to affect our 'awareness,' while at the same time they are not immediately within the sphere of that 'awareness.' Psychic states of this kind seem most properly termed 'subconscious,' that is to say slightly, partially, or imperfectly conscious. Any objection to so precise and convenient a term for a real phenomenon seems, indeed, to belong to the sphere of personal idiosyncrasy into which we have perhaps no right to intrude.[4]Foucault,Le Rêve, 1906.[5]Foucault,op. cit., ch. iv.[6]Foucault,op. cit., p. 49.[7]This occasionally retrospective character of dreams has long been known, and was referred to by the writer of an article on 'Dreams and Dreaming' in theLancetfor 24th November 1877.[8]The old French case (quoted by Macnish) of a woman, with a portion of her skull removed, whose brain bulged out during dreams but was motionless in dreamless sleep, as well as the more recent similar case known to Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 233), supports the belief that the psychic activity which is not manifested in rememberable dreams is probably at the most of a very shadowy character. Even during waking life psychic activity often falls to a very low ebb; Beaunis, who has investigated this question ('Comment Fonctionne mon Cerveau,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909), describes a condition which he names 'psychic twilight' and regards as frequently occurring.[9]Lucretius long ago referred to the significance of this fact (lib. iv. vv. 988-994), and he stated that the hallucination persisted for a time even after the dog had awakened. I have never myself been able to see any trace of such hypnagogic hallucination or delusion in dogs who awake from dreams, though I have frequently looked for it; it always seems to me that the dog who seemingly awakes from a dream of hunting grasps the fireside facts of life around him immediately and easily.[10]This classification of the sources of dreams has, however, been generally accepted for little more than a century. At an earlier period it was not usually believed to cover the whole ground. Thus Des Laurens (A. Laurentius) in the sixteenth century, in his treatise on the Disease of Melancholy (insanity), says that there are three kinds of dreams: (1) of Nature (i.e.due to external causes); (2) of the mind (i.e.based on memories); and, above both these classes, (3) dreams from God and the devil.[11]M. W. Calkins, 'Statistics of Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, April 1893.[12]The simile of the kaleidoscope for the most elementary process of dreaming has often suggested itself. Thus in an article on dreaming in theLancet(24th November 1877) we read: 'The combinations are new, but the materials are old, some recent, many remote and forgotten.... The turn of the kaleidoscope is instantaneous and any new idea thrown into the field, perhaps in the act of turning, becomes an integral part of the picture.'[13]Foucault,Le Rêve, p. 182.[14]This is in accordance with the view of Wundt, who attributes this multiplication of imagery to the retinal element.[15]Baron Charles Mourre, 'La Volonté dans le Rêve,'Revue Philosophique, May 1903.[16]Ribot,Psychologie de l'Attention, 1889, chs. i. and ii.[17]Maine de Biran, perhaps the earliest accurate introspective observer of dreaming, noted the absence of all voluntary active attention. Beaunis regards attention as possible in dreams, but fails to distinguish between different kinds of attention.[18]B. Leroy, 'Nature des Hallucinations,'Revue Philosophique, June 1907. As regards the importance of the absence of voluntary attention in the production of visual images, it may be remarked that even the after-image of a bright object in waking life is much more vivid when it occurs in a state of inattention and distraction. I noticed this phenomenon some years ago, especially when studying mescal, and in recent years it has been recorded by J. H. Hyslop (Psychological Review, May 1903).[19]We must be cautious in assuming that such imagery is purely retinal. Scripture ('Cerebral light,'Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. v., 1899) argues that even the so-called 'retinal light' or 'eigenlicht' is cerebral, not retinal at all, since it is single and not double, and differs from after-images, which are displaced by pressure on eyeball. This view is perhaps too extreme in the opposite direction.[20]For a full and interesting study of these, see S. J. Franz, 'After-images' (Monograph Supplements toPsychological Review, vol. iii., No. 2, June 1899). He agrees with those who regard after-images as entirely retinal in origin.[21]See Havelock Ellis, 'A New Artificial Paradise,'Contemporary Review, January 1898;ib.'Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant,'Popular Science Monthly, May 1902.[22]G. E. Partridge, however ('Reverie,'Pedagogical Seminary, April 1898), has investigated hypnagogic phenomena in 826 children. They were asked to describe what they saw at night with closed eyes before falling asleep. Among these children 58·5 per cent. of those aged from thirteen to sixteen saw things at night in this way; of those aged six the proportion was higher, 64·2 per cent. There seemed to be a maximum at about the age of ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age. Stars were most frequently mentioned, being spoken of by 151 children, colours by 145, people and faces 77, animals 31, scenes of the day 21, flowers and fruit 18, pictures 15, God and angels 13. Partridge calls these phenomena hypnagogic; while, however, the hypnagogic visions of adults may well be a relic of children's visions, the latter have much greater range and vitality, for they are not confined to the moment before sleep, and the child sometimes has a certain amount of control over them. E. Guyon has studied hypnagogic and allied visions in children in his Paris thesis,Sur les Hallucinations Hypnagogiques, 1903. He believes that children always find them terrifying. That, however, is far from being the case and is merely due to a pre-occupation with morbid cases, which naturally attract most attention. (This is also illustrated by the examples given by Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,'American Journal of Psychology, 1897, pp. 186et seq.) The visions of the healthy child are not terrifying, and he accepts them in a completely matter-of-course way. He is no more puzzled or troubled by his waking dreams than by his sleeping dreams.[23]The earliest detailed, though not typical, description of this phenomenon I have met with is by Dr. Simon Forman, the astrologer, in his entertainingAutobiography, written in 1600. He says that, as a child of six, 'So soon as he was always laid down to sleep he should see in visions always many mighty mountains and hills come rolling against him, as though they would overrun him and fall on him and bruise him, yet he got up always to the top of them and with much ado went over them. Then should he see many great waters like to drown him, boiling and raging against him as though they would swallow him up, yet he thought he did overpass them. And these dreams and visions he had every night continually for three or four years' space.' He believed they were sent him by God to signify the troubles of his later years. De Quincey accurately described the phenomenon in 1821, in hisConfessions of an English Opium-Eater:'I know not whether my reader is aware, that many children, perhaps most, have a power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts of phantoms: in some, that power is simply a mechanic affection of the eye; others have a voluntary or a semi-voluntary power to dismiss or to summon them, or, as a child once said to me when I questioned him on this matter, "I can tell them to go and they go; but sometimes they come, when I don't tell them to come."' E. H. Clarke (Visions, 1878, pp. 212-216) discussed the ability of children to see visions, and pointed out the element of will in this ability. It seems unusual for auditory impressions to intrude, though J. A. Symonds (biography by Horatio Brown, vol. i. p. 7), in describing his own night-terrors as a child, speaks of phantasmal voices which blended with the caterwauling of cats on the roof.[24]'From being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures,' Hobbes says after referring to the after-images of the sun (Leviathan, part i., ch. 2), 'a man shall in the dark (though awake) have the images of lines and angles before his eyes: which kind of fancy hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men's discourse.'[25]Baillarger, 'De l'Influence de l'Etat Intermédiaire à la veille et au sommeil sur la Production et la Marche des Hallucinations,'Annales Médico-Psychologiques, vol. v., 1845.[26]Maury,Le Sommeil et les Rêves, 1861, pp. 50-77. Good descriptions of hypnagogic imagery are given by Greenwood,Imagination and Dreams, pp. 16-18, and Ladd, 'The Psychology of Visual Dreams,'Mind, 1892. See also Sante di Sanctis,I Sogni, pp. 337et seq.[27]This is the explanation offered by, for example, Delage (Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, vol. cxxxvi., No. 12, pp. 731et seq.). It is accepted by Guyon and others. Delage insists on the retinal element since he finds that hypnagogic images follow the movements of the eye.[28]Similarly, under chloroform, Elmer Jones found that vision is at first stimulated.[29]G. H. Savage, 'Dreams: Normal and Morbid,'St. Thomas's Hospital Gazette, February 1908.[30]British Medical Journal, 11th May 1907. The actual hallucinations of the insane are usually coloured normally. Head, however, finds (Brain, 1901, p. 353) that the waking visual hallucinations sometimes associated with visceral disease are always white, black, or grey, and never coloured or even tinted.[31]The transformation of birds into human beings seems peculiarly common in dreams. I have referred to this point elsewhere (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. i. 3rd ed., p. 193). It is an interesting and doubtless significant fact that the same transformation is accepted in the myths of primitive peoples. Thus, according to H. H. Bancroft (Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i. p. 93), a pantomime dance of the Aleuts represents the transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter.[32]It is noteworthy that this marked tendency in dreams to discover analogies, although doubtless a tendency of primitive thought, is also a progressive tendency. 'The conquests of science,' says Sageret ('L'Analogie Scientifique,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909), 'are the conquests of analogy.'[33]Maury,Le Sommeil et les Rêves, p. 115.[34]Kraepelin, 'Ueber Sprachstörungen im Träume,'Psychologische Arbeiten, Bd. v., 1906, pp. 1-104; cf. Lombard, 'Glossolalie,'Archives de Psychologie, July 1907.[35]This is confirmed by the fact that under chloroform anaesthesia hearing is the first sense to be lost and vision the last (Elmer Jones, 'The Waning of Consciousness under Chloroform,'Psychological Review, January 1909).[36]It may be recalled as not without significance that the formation of new words is fairly common among young children; see,e.g., an interesting correspondence inNature, 26th March and 9th April 1891.[37]It can scarcely be derived from the unfamiliar wordchalizah, the Hebrew name for the levirate.[38]Thus I have rarely ever attempted parody when awake, but once when at Montserrat, with thoughts far from humorous fields, I dreamed of making a parody (I am not quite clear of what) apparently suggested by the goose-pond in the cloisters of Barcelona Cathedral.[39]This point of view has been specially developed by Freud,Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.[40]It may be noted that somewhat similar doggerel verse is sometimes made by the insane; see,e.g.,Journal of Mental Science, April 1907, p. 284.[41]There was no known origin for this dream, and the wordbourdonhad no conscious associations for my mind; I was not even definitely aware that it is used in a musical sense.[42]Freud brings together (Traumdeutung, pp. 38et seq.) some of the different opinions regarding reasoning in dreams.[43]'Reasoning,' says Binet (La Psychologie du Raisonnement, 1886, p. 10), speaking without reference to dreaming, but in words that are exactly applicable to it, 'is an organisation of images determined by the properties of the images alone; it suffices for the images to be put in presence and they become organised; reason follows with the certainty of a reflex.'[44]H. R. Marshall,Instinct and Reason;ib.'Reason a Mode of Instinct,'Psychological Review, March 1899.[45]Some of the most methodically absurd examples of dreaming logic cannot be effectively brought forward, as they are so personal that they require much explanation to make them intelligible.[46]Delacroix ('Sur la Structure Logique du Rêve,'Revue de Metaphysique, November 1904), in opposition to Leroy and Tobolowska, goes so far as to say that 'the sense of the dream, the interpretation of the image, is given in the image, before the image, if one may say so; we are not concerned with a mere procession of images without internal connection, but are introduced into a pre-established organisation; wholes are decomposed and not separate elements united.' We have to remember that in dream life as in waking life the action is twofold; in either world when our psychic activity is of low intensity we combine external images into a fairly objective picture; when psychic activity is intense external images are subdued and controlled by that activity.[47]A somewhat similar mistaken self-detachment may even occur momentarily in the waking condition. Thus Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 137) refers to the 'lapse of consciousness' of a lady student who, while absorbed in her work, heard outside the door the shuffling of rubber heels such as she herself wore, and said 'There goes——,' naming herself. That delusion was no doubt due to the eruption of a dream-like state of distraction. As regards the visual phantasm of the self (which has sometimes been seen by men of very distinguished intellectual power) it may be noted that it is favoured by the conditions of dream life. Our dream imagery is all pictural, sometimes even to dream consciousness, and to see oneself in the picture is, therefore, not so very much more remarkable than it is in waking life to come upon oneself among a bundle of photographs.[48]As regards the significance of snakes in dreams, it may be remarked that the followers of Freud regard them as being, in the dreams of women, as they are in the speech and myths of primitive peoples, erotic symbols (e.g.Karl Abraham,Traum und Mythus, 1909, p. 19). It must be remembered, however, that this erotic symbolism is but a small part of the emotional interest aroused by snakes which are an extremely common source of fear, especially in the young. Seee.g.Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,'American Journal of Psychology, 1897, pp. 205et seq.[49]It may even occur that a person partly wakes up, perceives what is going on around him, converses about it, falls asleep again, and imagines in the morning that the whole episode was a dream. Hammond, who also denies that we can dream we are dreaming, gives a case in illustration (Treatise on Insanity, p. 190).[50]The vision of the dream world we thus attain corresponds exactly to the philosophy of life set forth by Jules de Gaultier, perhaps the most subtle and original of living thinkers; according to Gaultier the psychic improvisation which has created the spectacle of the world has, as it were, sworn 'never to recognise itself beneath the masks it has assumed, in order to retain the joy of an unending play of the unforeseen.'[51]Dissociation may be defined as a condition in which, in the words of Tannery (Revue Philosophique, October 1898), 'the various organisms of the brain which in the waking state accomplish distinct functions with satisfactory agreement are, on the contrary, in a state of semi-independence.' There is, in Greenwood's words (Imagination in Dreams, p. 41), a 'loosening of mental bonds,' corresponding to the relaxation of muscular tension which also occurs before going to sleep.[52]Edmund Parish,Hallucinations and Illusions: A Study of the Fallacies of Perception(Contemporary Science Series), 1897. It is significant to observe that in hysteria, which may be regarded as presenting a condition somewhat analogous to sleep, dissociation also occurs. 'Hysteria,' says Janet (The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907, p. 332), one of the greatest authorities, 'is a form of mental depression characterised by the retraction of the field of personal consciousness and a tendency to the dissociation and emancipation of the system of ideas and functions that constitute personality.'[53]The theories of attention are lucidly and concisely set forth by Nayrac, 'Le Processus et le Mécanisme de l'Attention,'Revue Scientifique, 7th April 1906.[54]G. F. Stout,Analytic Psychology, vol. ii. p. 112. In theDictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, again, Stout and Baldwin define apperception as 'the process of attention in so far as it involves interaction between the presentation of the object attended to, on the one hand, and the total preceding conscious content, together with pre-formed mental dispositions, on the other hand.'[55]A very similar state of things occurs in some forms of insanity, especially in the less profound states of mental confusion, when, as Bolton remarks ('Amentia and Dementia,'Journal of Mental Science, July 1906, p. 445), we find 'certain associated remnants of former experience combined into a sequence according to the normal laws of mental association.'[56]Although I reached this conclusion independently, as a result of the analysis of dream experiences, I find that it was set forth at a much earlier period by Wundt. 'Men are accustomed to regard most of the phantasms of dreams as hallucinations,' he writes (Grundzüge der Physiologischer Psychologie, vol. iii.), 'but most dream representations are apparently illusions, initiated by the slight sensory impressions which are never extinguished in sleep.' Weygandt, in his brief but excellent book,Entstehung der Traäme, fully adopts this view, although I scarcely think he is always successful in his attempts to demonstrate it by his own dreams; such demonstration is necessarily often difficult or impossible because, apart from the dream itself, we seldom know what sensory impressions are persisting in our sleep. C. M. Giessler (Die Physiologische Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge, 1896, p. 2), who also proceeds from Wundt, likewise regards dreams as in general the more or less orderly and successive revival of psychic vestiges of waking life, conditioned by inner or outer excitations. Tissié (inLes Rêves, 1898), again, declares that 'dreams of purely psychic origin do not exist,' and Beaunis (American Journal of Psychology, July-October 1903) also believes that all dreams need an internal or external stimulus from the organism.[57]Thus W. S. Monroe ('Mental Elements of Dreams,'Journal of Philosophy, 23rd November 1905) found that in nearly three hundred dreams of fifty-five women students of the Westfield Normal College (Massachusetts), visual imagery appeared in sixty-seven per cent. dreams, auditory in twenty-six per cent., tactile in eight per cent., motor in five per cent., olfactory in a little over one per cent., and gustatory in rather under one per cent. In the results of observation recorded by Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam (American Journal of Psychology, April 1896) the sensory imagery appears in the same order of frequency and approximately in the same proportions.[58]In another case, a sensation of irritation in the palm led to a dream of being scratched by a cat. Guthrie mentions (Clinical Journal, 7th June 1899) that as a child he used to dream of being tortured by savages by being slowly tickled under the arms when unable to move; he sweated much at night, and considers that the tickling thus caused was the source of the dreams.[59]The corresponding sensation of heat can also, of course, be experienced in sleep, alike whether the stimulus comes from the brain or the skin. Thus I dreamed that, not knowing whether some water was hot or cold, I put my finger into it and felt it to be distinctly hot.[60]The ease with which musical sounds can be applied during sleep and the beneficial results on emotional tone have suggested their therapeutic use. Leonard Corning ('The Use of Musical Vibrations before and during Sleep,'Medical Record, 21st January 1899) is regarded as the pioneer in this field.[61]Ch. Ruths,Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome, 1898.[62]Dauriac, 'Des Images Suggérées par l'Audition Musicale,'Revue Philosophique, November 1902.[63]De Rochas has described and reproduced the gestures and dances of his hypnotised subject, Lina, under the influence of music. Ribot (L'Imagination Créatrice, pp. 177et seq., 291et seq.) has discussed the imagery suggested by music and points out that it is most pronounced in non-musical subjects. Fatigue and over-excitement are predisposing conditions in the production of this imagery, as is shown by MacDougall (Psychological Review, September 1898) in his own experience.[64]One is tempted to think that this lightning may have been a symbolistic transformation of lancinating neuralgic pains, magnified, as sensations are apt to be, in sleep.[65]In some experiments by Prof. W. S. Monroe on twenty women students at Westfield Normal School a crushed clove was placed on the tongue for ten successive nights on going to bed. Of 254 dreams reported as following there were seventeen taste dreams and eight smell dreams, and three of these dreams actually involved cloves. The clove also influenced dreams of other classes; thus, as a result of the burning sensation in the mouth, one dreamer imagined that the house was on fire (W. S. Monroe, 'A Study of Taste Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, January 1899). It has indeed been found, by Meunier, specially easy to apply olfactory stimuli during sleep and so improve the emotional tone (R. Meunier, 'A Propos d'onirothérapie,'Archives de Neurologie, March 1910). Meunier found that in his own case tuberose always called out agreeable dreams full of detail, though in another subject the dreams were always unpleasant. In hysterical subjects essence of geranium provoked various agreeable dreams followed by a pleasant emotional tone during the following day.[66]Titchener ('Taste Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, January 1895) records taste dreams by auto-suggestion, and Ribot (Psychology of the Emotions, p. 142) thinks there can be no doubt dreams of both taste and smell can occur without objective source.[67]Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 229) knew a gentleman who dreamed he was in heaven and surrounded by dazzling brilliance, awaking to find that the smouldering fire had flared up. Weygandt dreamed that he was gazing at 'living pictures' illuminated by magnesium light, and awoke to find that the morning sun had just appeared from behind clouds and was flooding the room with light. See also Parish,Hallucinations and Illusions, p. 52.[68]I have discussed erotic dreams in the study of 'Auto-erotism' in the first volume of myStudies in the Psychology of Sex(third edition, revised and enlarged, 1910).[69]K. A. Scherner,Das Leben des Traums, 1861, pp. 187et seq.Volkelt some years later (Die Traum-Phantasie, 1875, p. 74) pointed out the occurrence of somewhat similar vesical symbolisms (including in the case of women a filled knitting-bag) in dream life, though he regarded visions of water as the most usual indication in such dreams. Vesical dreams may, of course, contain other elements; seee.g.an example given by C. J. Jung, 'L'Analyse des Rêves,'L'Année Psychologique, 15th year, 1909, p. 165.[70]A typical dream of this kind, of sufficient importance to be embodied in history, occurred several thousand years ago to Astyages, King of the Medes, and has been recorded by Herodotus (Book 1. ch. 107).[71]In the study of Auto-erotism mentioned in a previous note I have brought forward dreams illustrating some of the points in the text, and have also discussed the analogies and contrasts between vesical and erotic dreams. The fact that nocturnal enuresis is associated with vesical dreams, though referred to by Buchan in hisVenus sine Concubitumore than a century ago, is still little known, but it is obviously a fact of clinical importance.[72]So, for instance, the asthmatic patient of Max Simon (Le Monde des Rêves, p. 40) who, during an attack, dreamed of sweating horses attempting to draw a heavy waggon uphill.[73]Forbes Winslow also recorded cases (Obscure Diseases, pp. 611et seq.), and many examples were brought together by Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, pp. 234et seq.). Vaschide and Piéron discuss the matter and bring forward thirteen cases (La Psychologie du Rêve, pp. 34et seq.). Féré recorded two cases in which dreams were the precursory symptoms of attacks of migraine (Revue de Médecine, 10th February 1903). Various cases, chiefly from the literature of the subject, are brought together by Paul Meunier and Masselon (Les Rêves et leur Interpretation, 1910).[74]Sante de Sanctis,I Sogni, p. 380.[75]The dependence of sleeping imagination on emotion of organic origin was long ago clearly seen and set forth by the acute introspective psychologist, Maine de Biran (Œuvres Inédites, 'Fondements de la Psychologie,' p. 102).[76]Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 206) relates a similar case observed in a girl student.[77]Herbert Wright, who finds that in children night-terrors are apt to be associated with somnambulism, points out that when the somnambulism replaces the night-terrors it leaves no memory behind (British Medical Journal, 19th August 1899, p. 465). An interesting study of movement in normal and morbid sleep has been contributed by Segre ('Contributo alla Conoscenza dei Movimenti del Sonno,'Archivio di Psichiatria, 1907, fasc. 1.).[78]This question is, for instance, asked by F. H. Bradley ('On the Failure of Movement in Dreams,'Mind, 1894, p. 373). The explanation he prefers is that the dream vision is out of relation to the very dimly conscious actual position of the body, so that the information necessary to complete the idea of the movement is wanting. Only as regards the less complicated movements of lips, tongue, or finger, when the motor idea is in harmony with the actual position of the body movements, does movement take place. We have no means of distinguishing the real world from the world of our vision; 'our images thus move naturally to realise themselves in the world of our real limbs. But the world and its arrangement is for the moment out of connection with our ideas, and hence the attempt at motion for the most part must fail.' It is quite true that this conflict is an important factor in dreaming, but it fails to apply to the large number of movements which we dream of actually doing.[79]The action of some drugs produces a state in this respect resembling that which prevails in dreams. 'Under the influence of a large dose of haschisch,' Professor Stout remarks (Analytic Psychology, vol. i. p. 14), 'I found myself totally unable to distinguish between what I actually did and saw, and what I merely thought about.' Not only are the motor and sensory activities relatively dormant, but the central activity is perfectly able, and content, to dispense with their services. 'Thought,' as Jastrow says (Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 386), 'is but more or less successfully suppressed action.'[80]This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked by Freud, (Die Traumdeutung, p. 227), why we do not always dream of inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement, when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement, presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not purely ideatory.

[1]The subdued quality of the light in normal dreaming—the usual absence of sunshine and generally even of colour—has long been noted. 'We never dream of being in the sunshine,' says Henry Dircks (Lancet, 11th June 1870, p. 863), though too absolutely; 'light and shade form no requisite elements.... The liveliest and most impressive dream is, in reality, a true night scene, very dubiously lighted up, and in which the nearest objects are those which we principally observe and which most interest us.'

[2]As some writers give a rather special meaning to the word 'consciousness,' I may say that I simply mean by it (as defined by Baldwin and Stout in theDictionary of Philosophy and Psychology) 'the distinctive character of whatever may be called mental life,' or, as Professor Stratton puts it, in defence of this broad definition (Psychological Bulletin, April 1906), 'consciousness designates the common and generic feature of our psychic acts.' Dreaming then becomes, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'conscious process during sleep.' It should be added that there is much uncertainty about any definition of consciousness. Bode ('Some Recent Definitions of Consciousness,'Psychological Review, July 1908) thinks it 'a matter for legitimate doubt' whether any definition of consciousness can be adequate, and Mercier (art. 'Consciousness' in Tuke'sDictionary of Psychological Medicine) boldly proclaims—quite justly, I think—that 'consciousness is not susceptible of definition,' for we can never go behind it or outside it. That we have to admit various kinds, or at all events various degrees, of consciousness will become clear in our discussion of dreaming.

[3]By 'subconscious' is meant, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'not clearly recognised in a present state of consciousness, yet entering into the development of subsequent states of consciousness.' Some psychologists strongly dislike the word 'subconscious.' They are even disposed to argue that there is no subconscious mind, and that before and after the stage of 'awareness,' psychic facts only exist as 'dispositions of brain cells.' The psychologist, however, as such, has no concern with brain cells which belong to the histologist. When we occupy ourselves with dreams we realise at every step that it is possible for psychic states to exist and to affect our 'awareness,' while at the same time they are not immediately within the sphere of that 'awareness.' Psychic states of this kind seem most properly termed 'subconscious,' that is to say slightly, partially, or imperfectly conscious. Any objection to so precise and convenient a term for a real phenomenon seems, indeed, to belong to the sphere of personal idiosyncrasy into which we have perhaps no right to intrude.

[4]Foucault,Le Rêve, 1906.

[5]Foucault,op. cit., ch. iv.

[6]Foucault,op. cit., p. 49.

[7]This occasionally retrospective character of dreams has long been known, and was referred to by the writer of an article on 'Dreams and Dreaming' in theLancetfor 24th November 1877.

[8]The old French case (quoted by Macnish) of a woman, with a portion of her skull removed, whose brain bulged out during dreams but was motionless in dreamless sleep, as well as the more recent similar case known to Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 233), supports the belief that the psychic activity which is not manifested in rememberable dreams is probably at the most of a very shadowy character. Even during waking life psychic activity often falls to a very low ebb; Beaunis, who has investigated this question ('Comment Fonctionne mon Cerveau,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909), describes a condition which he names 'psychic twilight' and regards as frequently occurring.

[9]Lucretius long ago referred to the significance of this fact (lib. iv. vv. 988-994), and he stated that the hallucination persisted for a time even after the dog had awakened. I have never myself been able to see any trace of such hypnagogic hallucination or delusion in dogs who awake from dreams, though I have frequently looked for it; it always seems to me that the dog who seemingly awakes from a dream of hunting grasps the fireside facts of life around him immediately and easily.

[10]This classification of the sources of dreams has, however, been generally accepted for little more than a century. At an earlier period it was not usually believed to cover the whole ground. Thus Des Laurens (A. Laurentius) in the sixteenth century, in his treatise on the Disease of Melancholy (insanity), says that there are three kinds of dreams: (1) of Nature (i.e.due to external causes); (2) of the mind (i.e.based on memories); and, above both these classes, (3) dreams from God and the devil.

[11]M. W. Calkins, 'Statistics of Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, April 1893.

[12]The simile of the kaleidoscope for the most elementary process of dreaming has often suggested itself. Thus in an article on dreaming in theLancet(24th November 1877) we read: 'The combinations are new, but the materials are old, some recent, many remote and forgotten.... The turn of the kaleidoscope is instantaneous and any new idea thrown into the field, perhaps in the act of turning, becomes an integral part of the picture.'

[13]Foucault,Le Rêve, p. 182.

[14]This is in accordance with the view of Wundt, who attributes this multiplication of imagery to the retinal element.

[15]Baron Charles Mourre, 'La Volonté dans le Rêve,'Revue Philosophique, May 1903.

[16]Ribot,Psychologie de l'Attention, 1889, chs. i. and ii.

[17]Maine de Biran, perhaps the earliest accurate introspective observer of dreaming, noted the absence of all voluntary active attention. Beaunis regards attention as possible in dreams, but fails to distinguish between different kinds of attention.

[18]B. Leroy, 'Nature des Hallucinations,'Revue Philosophique, June 1907. As regards the importance of the absence of voluntary attention in the production of visual images, it may be remarked that even the after-image of a bright object in waking life is much more vivid when it occurs in a state of inattention and distraction. I noticed this phenomenon some years ago, especially when studying mescal, and in recent years it has been recorded by J. H. Hyslop (Psychological Review, May 1903).

[19]We must be cautious in assuming that such imagery is purely retinal. Scripture ('Cerebral light,'Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. v., 1899) argues that even the so-called 'retinal light' or 'eigenlicht' is cerebral, not retinal at all, since it is single and not double, and differs from after-images, which are displaced by pressure on eyeball. This view is perhaps too extreme in the opposite direction.

[20]For a full and interesting study of these, see S. J. Franz, 'After-images' (Monograph Supplements toPsychological Review, vol. iii., No. 2, June 1899). He agrees with those who regard after-images as entirely retinal in origin.

[21]See Havelock Ellis, 'A New Artificial Paradise,'Contemporary Review, January 1898;ib.'Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant,'Popular Science Monthly, May 1902.

[22]G. E. Partridge, however ('Reverie,'Pedagogical Seminary, April 1898), has investigated hypnagogic phenomena in 826 children. They were asked to describe what they saw at night with closed eyes before falling asleep. Among these children 58·5 per cent. of those aged from thirteen to sixteen saw things at night in this way; of those aged six the proportion was higher, 64·2 per cent. There seemed to be a maximum at about the age of ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age. Stars were most frequently mentioned, being spoken of by 151 children, colours by 145, people and faces 77, animals 31, scenes of the day 21, flowers and fruit 18, pictures 15, God and angels 13. Partridge calls these phenomena hypnagogic; while, however, the hypnagogic visions of adults may well be a relic of children's visions, the latter have much greater range and vitality, for they are not confined to the moment before sleep, and the child sometimes has a certain amount of control over them. E. Guyon has studied hypnagogic and allied visions in children in his Paris thesis,Sur les Hallucinations Hypnagogiques, 1903. He believes that children always find them terrifying. That, however, is far from being the case and is merely due to a pre-occupation with morbid cases, which naturally attract most attention. (This is also illustrated by the examples given by Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,'American Journal of Psychology, 1897, pp. 186et seq.) The visions of the healthy child are not terrifying, and he accepts them in a completely matter-of-course way. He is no more puzzled or troubled by his waking dreams than by his sleeping dreams.

[23]The earliest detailed, though not typical, description of this phenomenon I have met with is by Dr. Simon Forman, the astrologer, in his entertainingAutobiography, written in 1600. He says that, as a child of six, 'So soon as he was always laid down to sleep he should see in visions always many mighty mountains and hills come rolling against him, as though they would overrun him and fall on him and bruise him, yet he got up always to the top of them and with much ado went over them. Then should he see many great waters like to drown him, boiling and raging against him as though they would swallow him up, yet he thought he did overpass them. And these dreams and visions he had every night continually for three or four years' space.' He believed they were sent him by God to signify the troubles of his later years. De Quincey accurately described the phenomenon in 1821, in hisConfessions of an English Opium-Eater:'I know not whether my reader is aware, that many children, perhaps most, have a power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts of phantoms: in some, that power is simply a mechanic affection of the eye; others have a voluntary or a semi-voluntary power to dismiss or to summon them, or, as a child once said to me when I questioned him on this matter, "I can tell them to go and they go; but sometimes they come, when I don't tell them to come."' E. H. Clarke (Visions, 1878, pp. 212-216) discussed the ability of children to see visions, and pointed out the element of will in this ability. It seems unusual for auditory impressions to intrude, though J. A. Symonds (biography by Horatio Brown, vol. i. p. 7), in describing his own night-terrors as a child, speaks of phantasmal voices which blended with the caterwauling of cats on the roof.

[24]'From being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures,' Hobbes says after referring to the after-images of the sun (Leviathan, part i., ch. 2), 'a man shall in the dark (though awake) have the images of lines and angles before his eyes: which kind of fancy hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men's discourse.'

[25]Baillarger, 'De l'Influence de l'Etat Intermédiaire à la veille et au sommeil sur la Production et la Marche des Hallucinations,'Annales Médico-Psychologiques, vol. v., 1845.

[26]Maury,Le Sommeil et les Rêves, 1861, pp. 50-77. Good descriptions of hypnagogic imagery are given by Greenwood,Imagination and Dreams, pp. 16-18, and Ladd, 'The Psychology of Visual Dreams,'Mind, 1892. See also Sante di Sanctis,I Sogni, pp. 337et seq.

[27]This is the explanation offered by, for example, Delage (Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, vol. cxxxvi., No. 12, pp. 731et seq.). It is accepted by Guyon and others. Delage insists on the retinal element since he finds that hypnagogic images follow the movements of the eye.

[28]Similarly, under chloroform, Elmer Jones found that vision is at first stimulated.

[29]G. H. Savage, 'Dreams: Normal and Morbid,'St. Thomas's Hospital Gazette, February 1908.

[30]British Medical Journal, 11th May 1907. The actual hallucinations of the insane are usually coloured normally. Head, however, finds (Brain, 1901, p. 353) that the waking visual hallucinations sometimes associated with visceral disease are always white, black, or grey, and never coloured or even tinted.

[31]The transformation of birds into human beings seems peculiarly common in dreams. I have referred to this point elsewhere (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. i. 3rd ed., p. 193). It is an interesting and doubtless significant fact that the same transformation is accepted in the myths of primitive peoples. Thus, according to H. H. Bancroft (Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i. p. 93), a pantomime dance of the Aleuts represents the transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter.

[32]It is noteworthy that this marked tendency in dreams to discover analogies, although doubtless a tendency of primitive thought, is also a progressive tendency. 'The conquests of science,' says Sageret ('L'Analogie Scientifique,'Revue Philosophique, January 1909), 'are the conquests of analogy.'

[33]Maury,Le Sommeil et les Rêves, p. 115.

[34]Kraepelin, 'Ueber Sprachstörungen im Träume,'Psychologische Arbeiten, Bd. v., 1906, pp. 1-104; cf. Lombard, 'Glossolalie,'Archives de Psychologie, July 1907.

[35]This is confirmed by the fact that under chloroform anaesthesia hearing is the first sense to be lost and vision the last (Elmer Jones, 'The Waning of Consciousness under Chloroform,'Psychological Review, January 1909).

[36]It may be recalled as not without significance that the formation of new words is fairly common among young children; see,e.g., an interesting correspondence inNature, 26th March and 9th April 1891.

[37]It can scarcely be derived from the unfamiliar wordchalizah, the Hebrew name for the levirate.

[38]Thus I have rarely ever attempted parody when awake, but once when at Montserrat, with thoughts far from humorous fields, I dreamed of making a parody (I am not quite clear of what) apparently suggested by the goose-pond in the cloisters of Barcelona Cathedral.

[39]This point of view has been specially developed by Freud,Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.

[40]It may be noted that somewhat similar doggerel verse is sometimes made by the insane; see,e.g.,Journal of Mental Science, April 1907, p. 284.

[41]There was no known origin for this dream, and the wordbourdonhad no conscious associations for my mind; I was not even definitely aware that it is used in a musical sense.

[42]Freud brings together (Traumdeutung, pp. 38et seq.) some of the different opinions regarding reasoning in dreams.

[43]'Reasoning,' says Binet (La Psychologie du Raisonnement, 1886, p. 10), speaking without reference to dreaming, but in words that are exactly applicable to it, 'is an organisation of images determined by the properties of the images alone; it suffices for the images to be put in presence and they become organised; reason follows with the certainty of a reflex.'

[44]H. R. Marshall,Instinct and Reason;ib.'Reason a Mode of Instinct,'Psychological Review, March 1899.

[45]Some of the most methodically absurd examples of dreaming logic cannot be effectively brought forward, as they are so personal that they require much explanation to make them intelligible.

[46]Delacroix ('Sur la Structure Logique du Rêve,'Revue de Metaphysique, November 1904), in opposition to Leroy and Tobolowska, goes so far as to say that 'the sense of the dream, the interpretation of the image, is given in the image, before the image, if one may say so; we are not concerned with a mere procession of images without internal connection, but are introduced into a pre-established organisation; wholes are decomposed and not separate elements united.' We have to remember that in dream life as in waking life the action is twofold; in either world when our psychic activity is of low intensity we combine external images into a fairly objective picture; when psychic activity is intense external images are subdued and controlled by that activity.

[47]A somewhat similar mistaken self-detachment may even occur momentarily in the waking condition. Thus Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 137) refers to the 'lapse of consciousness' of a lady student who, while absorbed in her work, heard outside the door the shuffling of rubber heels such as she herself wore, and said 'There goes——,' naming herself. That delusion was no doubt due to the eruption of a dream-like state of distraction. As regards the visual phantasm of the self (which has sometimes been seen by men of very distinguished intellectual power) it may be noted that it is favoured by the conditions of dream life. Our dream imagery is all pictural, sometimes even to dream consciousness, and to see oneself in the picture is, therefore, not so very much more remarkable than it is in waking life to come upon oneself among a bundle of photographs.

[48]As regards the significance of snakes in dreams, it may be remarked that the followers of Freud regard them as being, in the dreams of women, as they are in the speech and myths of primitive peoples, erotic symbols (e.g.Karl Abraham,Traum und Mythus, 1909, p. 19). It must be remembered, however, that this erotic symbolism is but a small part of the emotional interest aroused by snakes which are an extremely common source of fear, especially in the young. Seee.g.Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,'American Journal of Psychology, 1897, pp. 205et seq.

[49]It may even occur that a person partly wakes up, perceives what is going on around him, converses about it, falls asleep again, and imagines in the morning that the whole episode was a dream. Hammond, who also denies that we can dream we are dreaming, gives a case in illustration (Treatise on Insanity, p. 190).

[50]The vision of the dream world we thus attain corresponds exactly to the philosophy of life set forth by Jules de Gaultier, perhaps the most subtle and original of living thinkers; according to Gaultier the psychic improvisation which has created the spectacle of the world has, as it were, sworn 'never to recognise itself beneath the masks it has assumed, in order to retain the joy of an unending play of the unforeseen.'

[51]Dissociation may be defined as a condition in which, in the words of Tannery (Revue Philosophique, October 1898), 'the various organisms of the brain which in the waking state accomplish distinct functions with satisfactory agreement are, on the contrary, in a state of semi-independence.' There is, in Greenwood's words (Imagination in Dreams, p. 41), a 'loosening of mental bonds,' corresponding to the relaxation of muscular tension which also occurs before going to sleep.

[52]Edmund Parish,Hallucinations and Illusions: A Study of the Fallacies of Perception(Contemporary Science Series), 1897. It is significant to observe that in hysteria, which may be regarded as presenting a condition somewhat analogous to sleep, dissociation also occurs. 'Hysteria,' says Janet (The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907, p. 332), one of the greatest authorities, 'is a form of mental depression characterised by the retraction of the field of personal consciousness and a tendency to the dissociation and emancipation of the system of ideas and functions that constitute personality.'

[53]The theories of attention are lucidly and concisely set forth by Nayrac, 'Le Processus et le Mécanisme de l'Attention,'Revue Scientifique, 7th April 1906.

[54]G. F. Stout,Analytic Psychology, vol. ii. p. 112. In theDictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, again, Stout and Baldwin define apperception as 'the process of attention in so far as it involves interaction between the presentation of the object attended to, on the one hand, and the total preceding conscious content, together with pre-formed mental dispositions, on the other hand.'

[55]A very similar state of things occurs in some forms of insanity, especially in the less profound states of mental confusion, when, as Bolton remarks ('Amentia and Dementia,'Journal of Mental Science, July 1906, p. 445), we find 'certain associated remnants of former experience combined into a sequence according to the normal laws of mental association.'

[56]Although I reached this conclusion independently, as a result of the analysis of dream experiences, I find that it was set forth at a much earlier period by Wundt. 'Men are accustomed to regard most of the phantasms of dreams as hallucinations,' he writes (Grundzüge der Physiologischer Psychologie, vol. iii.), 'but most dream representations are apparently illusions, initiated by the slight sensory impressions which are never extinguished in sleep.' Weygandt, in his brief but excellent book,Entstehung der Traäme, fully adopts this view, although I scarcely think he is always successful in his attempts to demonstrate it by his own dreams; such demonstration is necessarily often difficult or impossible because, apart from the dream itself, we seldom know what sensory impressions are persisting in our sleep. C. M. Giessler (Die Physiologische Beziehungen der Traumvorgänge, 1896, p. 2), who also proceeds from Wundt, likewise regards dreams as in general the more or less orderly and successive revival of psychic vestiges of waking life, conditioned by inner or outer excitations. Tissié (inLes Rêves, 1898), again, declares that 'dreams of purely psychic origin do not exist,' and Beaunis (American Journal of Psychology, July-October 1903) also believes that all dreams need an internal or external stimulus from the organism.

[57]Thus W. S. Monroe ('Mental Elements of Dreams,'Journal of Philosophy, 23rd November 1905) found that in nearly three hundred dreams of fifty-five women students of the Westfield Normal College (Massachusetts), visual imagery appeared in sixty-seven per cent. dreams, auditory in twenty-six per cent., tactile in eight per cent., motor in five per cent., olfactory in a little over one per cent., and gustatory in rather under one per cent. In the results of observation recorded by Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam (American Journal of Psychology, April 1896) the sensory imagery appears in the same order of frequency and approximately in the same proportions.

[58]In another case, a sensation of irritation in the palm led to a dream of being scratched by a cat. Guthrie mentions (Clinical Journal, 7th June 1899) that as a child he used to dream of being tortured by savages by being slowly tickled under the arms when unable to move; he sweated much at night, and considers that the tickling thus caused was the source of the dreams.

[59]The corresponding sensation of heat can also, of course, be experienced in sleep, alike whether the stimulus comes from the brain or the skin. Thus I dreamed that, not knowing whether some water was hot or cold, I put my finger into it and felt it to be distinctly hot.

[60]The ease with which musical sounds can be applied during sleep and the beneficial results on emotional tone have suggested their therapeutic use. Leonard Corning ('The Use of Musical Vibrations before and during Sleep,'Medical Record, 21st January 1899) is regarded as the pioneer in this field.

[61]Ch. Ruths,Experimental-Untersuchungen über Musikphantome, 1898.

[62]Dauriac, 'Des Images Suggérées par l'Audition Musicale,'Revue Philosophique, November 1902.

[63]De Rochas has described and reproduced the gestures and dances of his hypnotised subject, Lina, under the influence of music. Ribot (L'Imagination Créatrice, pp. 177et seq., 291et seq.) has discussed the imagery suggested by music and points out that it is most pronounced in non-musical subjects. Fatigue and over-excitement are predisposing conditions in the production of this imagery, as is shown by MacDougall (Psychological Review, September 1898) in his own experience.

[64]One is tempted to think that this lightning may have been a symbolistic transformation of lancinating neuralgic pains, magnified, as sensations are apt to be, in sleep.

[65]In some experiments by Prof. W. S. Monroe on twenty women students at Westfield Normal School a crushed clove was placed on the tongue for ten successive nights on going to bed. Of 254 dreams reported as following there were seventeen taste dreams and eight smell dreams, and three of these dreams actually involved cloves. The clove also influenced dreams of other classes; thus, as a result of the burning sensation in the mouth, one dreamer imagined that the house was on fire (W. S. Monroe, 'A Study of Taste Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, January 1899). It has indeed been found, by Meunier, specially easy to apply olfactory stimuli during sleep and so improve the emotional tone (R. Meunier, 'A Propos d'onirothérapie,'Archives de Neurologie, March 1910). Meunier found that in his own case tuberose always called out agreeable dreams full of detail, though in another subject the dreams were always unpleasant. In hysterical subjects essence of geranium provoked various agreeable dreams followed by a pleasant emotional tone during the following day.

[66]Titchener ('Taste Dreams,'American Journal of Psychology, January 1895) records taste dreams by auto-suggestion, and Ribot (Psychology of the Emotions, p. 142) thinks there can be no doubt dreams of both taste and smell can occur without objective source.

[67]Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 229) knew a gentleman who dreamed he was in heaven and surrounded by dazzling brilliance, awaking to find that the smouldering fire had flared up. Weygandt dreamed that he was gazing at 'living pictures' illuminated by magnesium light, and awoke to find that the morning sun had just appeared from behind clouds and was flooding the room with light. See also Parish,Hallucinations and Illusions, p. 52.

[68]I have discussed erotic dreams in the study of 'Auto-erotism' in the first volume of myStudies in the Psychology of Sex(third edition, revised and enlarged, 1910).

[69]K. A. Scherner,Das Leben des Traums, 1861, pp. 187et seq.Volkelt some years later (Die Traum-Phantasie, 1875, p. 74) pointed out the occurrence of somewhat similar vesical symbolisms (including in the case of women a filled knitting-bag) in dream life, though he regarded visions of water as the most usual indication in such dreams. Vesical dreams may, of course, contain other elements; seee.g.an example given by C. J. Jung, 'L'Analyse des Rêves,'L'Année Psychologique, 15th year, 1909, p. 165.

[70]A typical dream of this kind, of sufficient importance to be embodied in history, occurred several thousand years ago to Astyages, King of the Medes, and has been recorded by Herodotus (Book 1. ch. 107).

[71]In the study of Auto-erotism mentioned in a previous note I have brought forward dreams illustrating some of the points in the text, and have also discussed the analogies and contrasts between vesical and erotic dreams. The fact that nocturnal enuresis is associated with vesical dreams, though referred to by Buchan in hisVenus sine Concubitumore than a century ago, is still little known, but it is obviously a fact of clinical importance.

[72]So, for instance, the asthmatic patient of Max Simon (Le Monde des Rêves, p. 40) who, during an attack, dreamed of sweating horses attempting to draw a heavy waggon uphill.

[73]Forbes Winslow also recorded cases (Obscure Diseases, pp. 611et seq.), and many examples were brought together by Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, pp. 234et seq.). Vaschide and Piéron discuss the matter and bring forward thirteen cases (La Psychologie du Rêve, pp. 34et seq.). Féré recorded two cases in which dreams were the precursory symptoms of attacks of migraine (Revue de Médecine, 10th February 1903). Various cases, chiefly from the literature of the subject, are brought together by Paul Meunier and Masselon (Les Rêves et leur Interpretation, 1910).

[74]Sante de Sanctis,I Sogni, p. 380.

[75]The dependence of sleeping imagination on emotion of organic origin was long ago clearly seen and set forth by the acute introspective psychologist, Maine de Biran (Œuvres Inédites, 'Fondements de la Psychologie,' p. 102).

[76]Jastrow (The Subconscious, p. 206) relates a similar case observed in a girl student.

[77]Herbert Wright, who finds that in children night-terrors are apt to be associated with somnambulism, points out that when the somnambulism replaces the night-terrors it leaves no memory behind (British Medical Journal, 19th August 1899, p. 465). An interesting study of movement in normal and morbid sleep has been contributed by Segre ('Contributo alla Conoscenza dei Movimenti del Sonno,'Archivio di Psichiatria, 1907, fasc. 1.).

[78]This question is, for instance, asked by F. H. Bradley ('On the Failure of Movement in Dreams,'Mind, 1894, p. 373). The explanation he prefers is that the dream vision is out of relation to the very dimly conscious actual position of the body, so that the information necessary to complete the idea of the movement is wanting. Only as regards the less complicated movements of lips, tongue, or finger, when the motor idea is in harmony with the actual position of the body movements, does movement take place. We have no means of distinguishing the real world from the world of our vision; 'our images thus move naturally to realise themselves in the world of our real limbs. But the world and its arrangement is for the moment out of connection with our ideas, and hence the attempt at motion for the most part must fail.' It is quite true that this conflict is an important factor in dreaming, but it fails to apply to the large number of movements which we dream of actually doing.

[79]The action of some drugs produces a state in this respect resembling that which prevails in dreams. 'Under the influence of a large dose of haschisch,' Professor Stout remarks (Analytic Psychology, vol. i. p. 14), 'I found myself totally unable to distinguish between what I actually did and saw, and what I merely thought about.' Not only are the motor and sensory activities relatively dormant, but the central activity is perfectly able, and content, to dispense with their services. 'Thought,' as Jastrow says (Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 386), 'is but more or less successfully suppressed action.'

[80]This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked by Freud, (Die Traumdeutung, p. 227), why we do not always dream of inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement, when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement, presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not purely ideatory.

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