(P. 49): “If we wish to reject very decisively any unjust accusation,
especially one that has reference to our intentions and convictions, we
naturally make use of the expression: I should never have dreamed of
such a thing. By this we mean to say, of course, that we consider the
realm of the dream the last and remotest place in which we are to be
held responsible for our thoughts, because there these thoughts are only
loosely and incoherently connected with our real being, so that we
should hardly still consider them as our own; but as we feel impelled
expressly to deny the existence of such thoughts, even in this realm, we
thus at the same time indirectly admit that our justification will not
be complete if it does not reach to that point. And I believe that,
though unconsciously, we here speak the language of truth.”
(P. 52): “No dream thought can be imagined whose first motive has not
already moved through the mind while awake as some wish, desire, or
impulse.” Concerning this original impulse we must say that the dream
has not discovered it—it has only imitated and extended it, it has only
elaborated a bit of historical material which it has found in us, into
dramatic form; it enacts the words of the apostle: He who hates his
brother is a murderer. And whereas, after we awaken and become conscious
of our moral strength, we may smile at the boldly executed structure of
the depraved dream, the original formative material, nevertheless, has
no ridiculous side. One feels responsible for the transgressions of the
dreamer, not for the whole sum, but still for a certain percentage. “In
this sense, which is difficult to impugn, we understand the words of
Christ: Out of the heart come evil thoughts—for we can hardly help being
convinced that every sin committed in the dream brings with it at least
a vague minimum of guilt.”
Hildebrandt thus finds the source of the immorality of dreams in the
germs and indications of evil impulses which pass through our minds
during the day as tempting thoughts, and he sees fit to add these
immoral elements to the moral estimation of the personality. It is the
same thoughts and the same estimation of these thoughts, which, as we
know, have caused devout and holy men of all times to lament that they
are evil sinners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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