A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
Let us, for the present, give up the idea of finding the meaning of the
dream and try instead to clear a path to a better understanding of the
dream by means of the elements common to all dreams. From the relation
of dreams to the sleeping condition, we concluded that the dream is the
reaction to a sleep-disturbing stimulus. As we have heard, this is the
only point upon which exact experimental psychology can come to our
assistance; it gives us the information that stimuli applied during
sleep appear in the dream. There have been many such investigations
carried out, including that of the above mentioned Mourly Vold. Indeed,
each of us must at some time have been in a position to confirm this
conclusion by means of occasional personal observations. I shall choose
certain older experiments for presentation. Maury had such experiments
made on his own person. He was allowed to smell cologne while dreaming.
He dreamed that he was in Cairo in the shop of Johann Marina Farina, and
therewith were linked further extravagant adventures. Or, he was
slightly pinched in the nape of the neck; he dreamed of having a mustard
plaster applied, and of a doctor who had treated him in childhood. Or, a
drop of water was poured on his forehead. He was then in Italy,
perspired profusely, and drank the white wine of Orvieto.
What strikes us about these experimentally induced dreams we may perhaps
be able to comprehend still more clearly in another series of stimulated
dreams. Three dreams have been recounted by a witty observer,
Hildebrand, all of them reactions to the sound of the alarm clock:
"I go walking one spring morning and saunter through the green fields to
a neighboring village. There I see the inhabitants in gala attire, their
hymn books under their arms, going church-ward in great numbers. To be
sure, this is Sunday, and the early morning service will soon begin. I
decide to attend, but since I am somewhat overheated, decide to cool off
in the cemetery surrounding the church. While I am there reading several
inscriptions, I hear the bell ringer ascend the tower, and now see the
little village church bell which is to give the signal for the beginning
of the service. The bell hangs a good bit longer, then it begins to
swing, and suddenly its strokes sound clear and penetrating, so clear
and penetrating that they make an end of--my sleep. The bell-strokes,
however, come from my alarm clock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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