The absurdity of the presentation connections appearing in the dream can
hardly be more strongly condemned than it was by Cicero (_De Divin._
II.): “Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari
potest, quod non possimus somniare.”
Fechner[52] says (p. 522): “It is as if the psychological activity were
transferred from the brain of a reasonable being into the brain of a
fool.”
Radestock[35] (p. 145) says: “It seems indeed impossible to recognise in
this absurd action any firm law. Having withdrawn itself from the strict
police of the rational will guiding the waking presentation life, and of
the attention, the dream whirls everything about kaleidoscopically in
mad play.”
Hildebrandt[35] (p. 45) says: “What wonderful jumps the dreamer allows
himself, _e.g._, in his chain of reasoning! With what unconcern he sees
the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down! What ridiculous
contradictions he can tolerate in the orders of nature and society
before things go too far, as we say, and the overstraining of the
nonsense brings an awakening! We often multiply quite unconcernedly:
three times three make twenty; we are not at all surprised when a dog
recites poetry for us, when a dead person walks to his grave, and when a
rock swims on the water; we go in all earnestness by high command to the
duchy of Bernburg or the principality of Lichtenstein in order to
observe the navy of the country, or we allow ourselves to be recruited
as a volunteer by Charles XII. shortly before the battle of Poltawa.”
Binz[4] (p. 33) points to a dream theory resulting from the impressions.
“Among ten dreams nine at least have an absurd content. We unite in them
persons or things which do not bear the slightest relation to one
another. In the next moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the grouping changes,
if possible to one more nonsensical and irrational than before; thus the
changing play of the imperfectly sleeping brain continues until we
awaken, and put our hand to our forehead and ask ourselves whether we
really still possess the faculty of rational imagination and thought.”
Maury[48] (p. 50) finds for the relation of the dream picture to the
waking thoughts, a comparison most impressive for the physician: “La
production de ces images que chez l’homme éveillé fait le plus souvent
naître la volonté, correspond, pour l’intelligence, à ce que cont pour
la motilité certains mouvements que nous offrent la chorée et les
affections paralytiques....” For the rest, he considers the dream “toute
une série de dégradation de la faculté pensant et raisonant” (p. 27).
It is hardly necessary to mention the utterances of the authors which
repeat Maury’s assertion for the individual higher psychic activities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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