What at first sight seems to be a trifle is a grey wall which
hides a great palace. The significance of the dream is not so much held
in the dream itself as in that substratum of it which has not passed the
threshold and which analysis alone can bring to light.'
'We only dream of things that are worth while.' That is the point at
which many of us are no longer able to follow Freud. That dreams of the
type studied by Freud do actually occur may be accepted; it may even be
considered proved. But to assert that all dreams must be made to fit
into this one formula is to make far too large a demand. As regards the
presentative element in dreams--the element that is based on actual
sensory stimulation--it is in most cases unreasonable to invoke Freud's
formula at all. If, when I am asleep, the actual song of a bird causes me
to dream that I am at a concert, that picture may be regarded as a natural
symbol of the actual sensation, and it is unreasonable to expect that
psycho-analysis could reveal any hidden personal reason why the symbol
should take the form of a concert. And, if so, then Freud's formula fails
to hold good for phenomena which cover one of the two main divisions of
dreams, even on a superficial classification, and perhaps enter into all
dreams.
But even if we take dreams of the remaining or representative class--the
dreams made up of images not directly dependent on actual sensation--we
still have to maintain a cautious attitude. A very large proportion of the
dreams in this class seem to be, so far as the personal life is concerned,
in no sense 'worth while.' It would, indeed, be surprising if they were.
It seems to be fairly clear that in sleep, as certainly in the hypnagogic
state, attention is diminished, and apperceptive power weakened. That
alone seems to involve a relaxation of the tension by which we will and
desire our personal ends. At the same time, by no longer concentrating our
psychic activities at the focus of desire it enables indifferent images to
enter more easily the field of sleeping consciousness. It might even be
argued that the activity of desire, when it manifests itself in sleep and
follows the course indicated by Freud, corresponds to a special form of
sleep in which attention and apperception, though in modified forms, are
more active than in ordinary sleep.[154] Such dreams seem to occur with
special frequency, or in more definitely marked forms, in the neurotic and
especially the hysterical, and if it is true that the hysterical are to
some extent asleep even when they are awake, it may also be said that they
are to some extent awake even when they are asleep. Freud certainly holds,
probably with truth, that there is no fundamental distinction between
normal people and psychoneurotic people, and that there is, for instance,
as Ferenczi says, emphasising this point, 'a streak of hysterical
disposition in everybody.' Freud has, indeed, made interesting analytic
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