One might even think of reducing the phenomenon of dreaming to that of
memory, and of regarding the dream as the manifestation of an activity
of reproduction which does not rest even at night, and which is an end
in itself. Views like those expressed by Pilcz[51] would corroborate
this, according to which intimate relations are demonstrable between the
time of dreaming and the contents of the dream from the fact that the
impressions reproduced by the dream in sound sleep belong to the
remotest past while those reproduced towards morning are of recent
origin. But such a conception is rendered improbable from the outset by
the manner of the dream’s behaviour towards the material to be
remembered. Strümpell[66] justly calls our attention to the fact that
repetitions of experiences do not occur in the dream. To be sure the
dream makes an effort in that direction, but the next link is wanting,
or appears in changed form, or it is replaced by something entirely
novel. The dream shows only fragments of reproduction; this is so often
the rule that it admits of theoretical application. Still there are
exceptions in which the dream repeats an episode as thoroughly as our
memory would in its waking state. Delbœuf tells of one of his university
colleagues who in his dream repeated, with all its details, a dangerous
wagon ride in which he escaped accident as if by miracle. Miss
Calkins[12] mentions two dreams, the contents of which exactly
reproduced incidents from the day before, and I shall later take
occasion to report an example which came to my notice, showing a
childish experience which returned unchanged in a dream.[F]
(_c_) _Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources._—What is meant by dream stimuli
and dream sources may be explained by referring to the popular saying,
“Dreams come from the stomach.” This notion conceals a theory which
conceives the dream as a result of a disturbance of sleep. We should not
have dreamed if some disturbing element had not arisen in sleep, and the
dream is the reaction from this disturbance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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