Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Nietzsche · en
=Dream and Civilization.=--The function of the brain which is most
encroached upon in slumber is the memory; not that it is wholly
suspended, but it is reduced to a state of imperfection as, in primitive
ages of mankind, was probably the case with everyone, whether waking or
sleeping. Uncontrolled and entangled as it is, it perpetually confuses
things as a result of the most trifling similarities, yet in the same
mental confusion and lack of control the nations invented their
mythologies, while nowadays travelers habitually observe how prone the
savage is to forgetfulness, how his mind, after the least exertion of
memory, begins to wander and lose itself until finally he utters
falsehood and nonsense from sheer exhaustion. Yet, in dreams, we all
resemble this savage. Inadequacy of distinction and error of comparison
are the basis of the preposterous things we do and say in dreams, so
that when we clearly recall a dream we are startled that so much idiocy
lurks within us. The absolute distinctness of all dream-images, due to
implicit faith in their substantial reality, recalls the conditions in
which earlier mankind were placed, for whom hallucinations had
extraordinary vividness, entire communities and even entire nations
laboring simultaneously under them. Therefore: in sleep and in dream we
make the pilgrimage of early mankind over again.
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=Logic of the Dream.=--During sleep the nervous system, through various
inner provocatives, is in constant agitation. Almost all the organs act
independently and vigorously. The blood circulates rapidly. The posture
of the sleeper compresses some portions of the body. The coverlets
influence the sensations in different ways. The stomach carries on the
digestive process and acts upon other organs thereby. The intestines are
in motion. The position of the head induces unaccustomed action. The
feet, shoeless, no longer pressing the ground, are the occasion of other
sensations of novelty, as is, indeed, the changed garb of the entire
body. All these things, following the bustle and change of the day,
result, through their novelty, in a movement throughout the entire
system that extends even to the brain functions. Thus there are a
hundred circumstances to induce perplexity in the mind, a questioning as
to the cause of this excitation. Now, the dream is a _seeking and
presenting of reasons_ for these excitations of feeling, of the supposed
reasons, that is to say. Thus, for example, whoever has his feet bound
with two threads will probably dream that a pair of serpents are coiled
about his feet. This is at first a hypothesis, then a belief with an
accompanying imaginative picture and the argument: "these snakes must be
the _causa_ of those sensations which I, the sleeper, now have." So
reasons the mind of the sleeper. The conditions precedent, as thus
conjectured, become, owing to the excitation of the fancy, present
realities. Everyone knows from experience how a dreamer will transform