These are essentially the same two categories of impressions, the
insignificant and the unadjusted, which were emphasized by Robert,[55]
but Delage changes the connection by assuming that these impressions
become the subject of dreams, not because they are indifferent, but
because they are unadjusted. The insignificant impressions, too, are in
a way not fully adjusted; they, too, are from their nature as new
impressions “autant de ressorts tendus,” which will be relaxed during
sleep. Still more entitled to a rôle in the dream than the weak and
almost unnoticed impression is a strong impression which has been
accidentally detained in its elaboration or intentionally repressed. The
psychic energy accumulated during the day through inhibition or
suppression becomes the mainspring of the dream at night.
Unfortunately Delage stops here in his train of thought; he can ascribe
only the smallest part to an independent psychic activity in the dream,
and thus in his dream theory reverts to the ruling doctrine of a partial
sleep of the brain: “En somme le rêve est le produit de la pensée
errante, sans but et sans direction, se fixant successivement sur les
souvenirs, qui ont gardé assez d’intensité pour se placer sur sa route
et l’arrêter au passage, établissant entre eux un lien tantôt faible et
indécis, tantôt plus fort et plus serré, selon que l’activité actuelle
du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil.”
In a third group we may include those dream theories which ascribe to
the dreaming mind the capacity and propensity for a special psychic
activity, which in the waking state it can accomplish either not at all
or only in an imperfect manner. From the activity of these capacities
there usually results a useful function of the dream. The dignity
bestowed upon the dream by older psychological authors falls chiefly in
this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting, in their
place, the assertions of Burdach,[8] by virtue of which the dream “is
the natural activity of the mind, which is not limited by the force of
the individuality, not disturbed by self-consciousness and not directed
by self-determination, but is the state of life of the sensible central
point indulging in free play” (p. 486).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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