Part 16

Let me also point out that the material, that is, the elements out of which this dream was constructed (indicated by the words italicized), was found in the thoughts of the dreamer on the preceding day and particularly just before going to sleep. The first scene of the dream ends with the mother drinking whisky: the second scene represents the father appearing with two sticks of wood. For the sake of simplicity of illustration I will confine myself to the _interpretation_ of this first scene as it will answer our present purposes.

“As to the first scene” (by technical methods of analysis) “a rich collection of memories was obtained. It appeared that on the previous morning the subject had walked with a _poor Jewess_ through the slums, and had passed by some men who had been _drinking_. This led her to think at the time of the lives of these poor people; of the _temptations_ to which they were exposed; of how little we know of this side of life and of its _temptations_. She wondered what the effect of such surroundings, particularly of seeing people _drinking_, would have upon the child of the Jewess. She wondered if such people ought to be condemned if they yielded to drink and other temptations. She thought that she herself would not blame such people if they yielded, and that we ought not to _condemn_ them. Then in the psychoanalysis there came memories of her mother, whose character she admired and who _never condemned any one_. She remembered how her mother, who was an invalid, always had a glass of _whisky_ and water on her table at night, and how the family used to joke her about it. Then came memories again of her husband sending _bottles of whisky_ to her mother; of the latter _drinking_ it at night; of the men whom she had seen in the slums and who had been _drinking_. These, very briefly, were the experiences accompanied by strong feeling tones which were called up as associative memories of this scene of the dream. With these in mind, it is not difficult to construct a logical, though symbolic, meaning of it. In the dream _a_ Jewess (not _the_ Jewess, but a type) is in the act of drinking whisky—in other words, the poor, whom the _Jewess_ represents, yield to the temptation which the dreamer had thought of with considerable intensity of feeling during the day. The dreamer’s own judgment, after considerable cogitation, had been that such people were not to be condemned. Was she right? The dream answers the question, for the Jewess changes in the dream to her mother, for whose judgment she had the utmost respect. Her mother now drinks the whisky as she had actually done in life, a logical justification (in view of her mother’s fine character and liberal opinion) of her own belief, which was somewhat intensely expressed in her thoughts of that morning, a belief in not condemning poor people who yield to such temptations. The dream scene is therefore the symbolical representation and justification of her own belief,[113] and answers the doubts and scruples that beset her mind.”

Whether or not this is the correct interpretation of this dream depends entirely upon whether the true causal factors were found. If through the analysis this was the case, as I believe—namely, the scruple or ethical problem whether poor people who yield to temptation ought to be condemned—then the interpretation given is logically sound and the dream is an answer to the doubts and scruples that beset the dreamer’s mind. But the answer is a pictorial symbolism and therefore requires an intervening subconscious process which induces and finally expresses itself in the symbolism. We may suppose that this process in response to and as a subconscious incubation of the ethical problem took some form like this: “Poor people like the Jewess are not to be condemned for yielding to the temptation (of drinking) for my mother, who was beyond criticism, showed by her life she would not have condemned them.”

This may or may not be the true subconscious process and the correct interpretation of the dream. But it is one possible and logical interpretation based upon the actually found antecedent experiences and associative memories of the dreamer. Now it so happens that this interpretation and that of other dreams[114] which I endeavored to trace to antecedent experiences have been warmly challenged by certain clinicians because the inferred causal factors were not found to be antecedent repressed sexual wishes. It is insisted on theoretical grounds that the content of the dreams plainly indicated that there must have been such wishes and that if these had been found this dream would have been unfolded as a logical symbolical fulfilment of a sexual wish. Which interpretation is correct is inconsequential for our present purpose. The controversy only relates to the universality of the sexual theory of dreams. The point is that this difference in interpretation shows the possibility of error in the determination of the causal factor and the subconscious process by clinical methods. The dream may be logically related to two or more antecedent experiences and we have no criterion of which is the correct one. To insist upon one or the other savors of pure dogmatism.[115] Indeed, the justification for the postulation in a dream of any subconscious process in the last analysis depends upon the soundness of the postulation of the antecedent experience as the causal factor. If this factor falls to the ground the subconscious process falls with it.

The second point to which this discussion leads us is that the latitude of interpretation allowed by the method of analysis has given rise to different views as to the specific character of the subconscious process found in many dreams. According to the theory of Freud, to whose genius we are indebted for the discovery of this process, it is almost always a sexual wish and the dream is always the imaginary, even though cryptic, fulfilment of that wish. On the other hand, as a result of my own studies, if I may venture to lay weight upon them, I have been forced to the conclusion that _a dream may be the symbolical expression of almost any thought_ to which strong emotional tones with their impulsive forces have been linked, particularly anxieties, apprehensions, sorrows, beliefs, wishes, doubts, and scruples, which function subconsciously in the dream. It may be a solution of unsolved problems with which the mind has been occupied,[116] just as in the waking state a mathematical or other problem may be solved subconsciously. In some subjects the problem is particularly apt to be one involving a conflict between opposing impulses, therefore one which has troubled the dreamer.[117]

We have seen that in experimental and spontaneous hallucinatory phenomena, where the causal factor is known, a subconscious process is the essential feature of the mechanism. In this respect the mechanism is identical with that of certain dreams. Indeed, dreams are one type of hallucinatory phenomena. In fact we met with one dream the chief element of which was repeated afterward in the waking state as a vision. We are justified, then, in applying the principle of a subconscious process to the elucidation of the _visions of normal people_, although it may be difficult to determine exactly the specific content of the process and the antecedent thought from which it was derived. Sometimes the content of a vision and the known circumstances under which it occurred are sufficient to enable us to interpret the phenomenon with reasonable certainty. In the following historical examples it is not difficult to recognize that the vision was a symbolic answer to a problem which had troubled the conscience of the Archduke Charles of Austria. Unable to solve his problem consciously and come to a decision, it was solved for him by a subconscious process. Indeed, as a fact, the vision was accepted by Charles as an answer to his doubts and perhaps changed the future history of Austria.

“The Archduke Charles (the father of the present Emperor of Austria) was also greatly troubled in his mind as to the right to waive his claim to the crown in favor of his son. According to his own statement he only finally made up his mind when, while earnestly praying for guidance in his perplexity, he had _a vision of the spirit of his father, the late Emperor Francis, laying his hand on the head of his youthful grandson and thus putting all his own doubts to rest_.”[118]

The likeness in type of the dream which we have just discussed to this vision is instructive. In the former the mother of the dreamer answers the question of conscience by drinking the whisky; in the latter the father of the visualizer does the same by laying his hand on the head of the object of the doubt.

I have already pointed out the evidence for a subconscious process underlying the hallucinatory phenomena of sudden religious conversion.[119] I may further cite here, as an analogous phenomenon, the following historical example of not only hallucinatory symbolism, but of _explicitly conscious processes of thought_ which were elaborated by subconscious processes. It is Margaret Mary’s vision of the Sacred Heart. Margaret earnestly desired (according to her biographer)——

“To be loved by God! and loved by him to distraction (aimé jusqu’à la folie)!—Margaret melted away with love at the thought of such a thing. Like St. Philip of Neri in former times, or like St. Francis Xavier, she said to God: ‘Hold back, O my God, these torrents which overwhelm me, or else enlarge my capacity for their reception.’”

The answer and the form of the fulfilment of this wish came as an hallucination. She had a vision of Christ’s Sacred Heart

“‘surrounded with rays more brilliant than the sun, and transparent like a crystal. The wound which he received on the cross visibly appeared upon it. There was a crown of thorns roundabout this divine Heart, and a cross above it.’ At the same time Christ’s voice told her that, unable longer to contain the flames of his love for mankind, he had chosen her by a miracle to spread the knowledge of them. He thereupon took out her mortal heart, placed it inside of his own and inflamed it, and then replaced it in her breast, adding: ‘Hitherto thou hast taken the name of my slave, hereafter thou shalt be called the well-beloved disciple of my Sacred Heart.’”[120]

There is scarcely room to doubt, on the strength of the evidence as presented, that the antecedent longings of Margaret impelled by the conative force of their emotions were the causal factor of this vision. These longings, organized in the unconscious, must have gone through subconscious incubation (as William James has pointed out) and then emerged after maturity into consciousness as a symbolic visualization accompanied by hallucinatory words which were the expression of explicit subconscious imagination. Indeed, all such hallucinatory symbolisms—like the mental phenomena in general of sudden religious conversion—can only be psychologically explained as the emergence into consciousness of subconscious processes. The problem in each case is the determination of the content of the process.[121]

_Reflection, consideration, meditation._—We are entering upon more uncertain ground in attempting to apply the mechanism of subconscious processes to every-day thought. There are certain types of thought, however, which behave as if this mechanism were at work. When, for instance, we take a problem “under advisement,” reflect upon it, give it “thoughtful consideration,” it seems as if, in weighing the facts pro and con, in looking at it from different points of view, i.e., in switching it into different settings, in considering all the facts related to it, we _voluntarily_ recall each fact that comes into consciousness. Yet it is quite possible, and indeed I think more than probable, reasoning from analogy, that the processes which present each fact, switch each point of view, or setting into consciousness, are subconscious and that what we do is chiefly to select from those which are thus brought into consciousness the ideas, settings, etc., which fulfil best the requirements of the question. In profound reflection or attention to thought (a form of absentmindedness) it seems as if it were more a matter of attention to and selection from the “free associations” which involuntarily come into the mind than of determining voluntarily what shall come in. If this be so, it is evident that the subconscious plays a much more extensive part in the mechanism of thought than is ordinarily supposed. We have not, however, sufficient data to allow us to do much more than theorize in the matter. Yet there are certain data which suggest the probability of the correctness of this hypothesis. In this connection I would point out how entirely confirmatory of this view is the testimony of the hypnotic consciousness which was cited in the previous lecture and which I will ask you to recall. You will remember that this testimony was to the effect that when a problem was under consideration associative memories required for its solution kept emerging out of the unconscious into the secondary consciousness.[122]

Consider certain facts of every-day experience. A novel and difficult question is put up to us for decision. We have, we will say, to decide whether a certain piece of property situated in a growing district of a city shall be sold or held for future development: or a political manager has to decide whether or not to pursue a certain policy to win an election; or the President of the United States has to decide the policy of the government in certain land questions in Alaska. Now each of us would probably say that we could not decide such a question offhand; we would want time for consideration. If we attempted voluntarily, at the moment the question is put, to recall to mind all the different facts involved, to consider the given question from all aspects, to switch the main facts into their different settings, we would find it an impossible thing to do. We consequently take the matter “under advisement,” to use the conventional expression. We want time. Now what we apparently, and I think undoubtedly, do is to put the problem _into_ our minds and leave it, so to speak, to incubate. Then, from time to time, as we take up the matter for consideration, the various facts involved in the different aspects of the question, and belonging to their different settings, arise to mind. Then we weigh, compare, and estimate the value of these different facts and arrive at a judgment. All happens as if subconscious processes had been at work, as if the problem had been going through a subconscious incubation, switching in this and switching in that set of facts, and presenting them to consciousness, the final selection of the deciding point of view being left to the latter. The subconscious garners from the storehouse of past experiences, those which have a bearing on the question and are required for its solution, brings them into consciousness, and then our logical conscious processes form the judgment. The degree to which subconscious processes in this way take part in forming judgments would vary according to the mental habits of the individual, the complexity of the problem, the affectivity and conflicting character of the elements involved. Under this theory we see that there is a deeper psychological basis for the every-day practice of taking “under advisement” or “into consideration” a matter, before giving judgment, than would appear on the surface. There is considerable experimental evidence in favor of this theory. In discussing above the subconscious solution of problems I cited certain evidence, obtained from the memories of subjects in hypnosis, for coconscious and unconscious processes taking part in such solutions. I have been able to accumulate evidence of this kind showing the coöperation of processes outside of consciousness in determining the point of view and final judgment of the subject when a matter has been under advisement; particularly when the subject has been disturbed by doubts and scruples. It is plain that in the final analysis any question on which we reserve our judgment is a problem which we put _into_ our minds. And, after all, _it is only a question of degree and affectivity between the state of mind which hesitates to decide an impersonal question, like a judicial decision, and one that involves a scruple of conscience_. This latter state often eventuates in hallucinatory and other phenomena involving subconscious processes. Scruples of conscience, it is true, usually have strong affective elements as constituents, but the former may also have them, particularly when involving personal ambitions, political principles, etc.

Footnote 98:

The Dissociation, Appendix L, p. 548.

Footnote 99:

The Dissociation, Chapter XXXI.

Footnote 100:

As a matter of fact, the judgment was erroneous, though a justifiable inference.

Footnote 101:

Cf. The Dissociation, 2d edition, p. 567.

Footnote 102:

William James had once said to her in my presence that she could make a valuable contribution to psychology. It is interesting to note, although it is aside from the question at issue, that this subject had strenuously denied that there was any “hope,” insisting that she was absolutely devoid of any such sentiment. Through hypnotic memories, however, I was able to demonstrate that this was only consciously true, and that there were very evident and strong coconscious ideas of hope of which she was not consciously aware. She had refused to acknowledge these ideas to herself and by repression had dissociated them from the personal consciousness. These ideas now expressed themselves symbolically in the dream.

Footnote 103:

We must remember that a dreaming state is a dissociated state (like a fugue or trance), and numerous observations have shown that in such conditions any of the dormant related experiences of life may modify, repress, resist, alter, and determine the content of the dissociated consciousness. It is difficult to conceive of a dream allegory being constructed by the dream consciousness itself. If that were the mechanism, we should expect that the associative ideas for which symbols are chosen would appear during the dream construction as is the case in waking imagination. The method of the mental processes is very different in the latter. We there _select_ from a number of associative ideas that crowd into consciousness, choose our symbols, and remember the rejected ideas. This is not the case with dream imagination. The imagery develops as if done by something else.

Footnote 104:

It must not be assumed that all dreams are determined by a subconscious process or that all are symbolic. On the contrary, from evidence in hand, there is reason to believe that some dreams have substantially the same mechanism as waking imagination subject to the limitations imposed by the existing dissociation of consciousness during sleep. Just as, in the waking state, thoughts may or may not be determined by subconscious processes, so in the sleeping state. We know too little about the mechanisms of thought to draw wide generalizations or to dogmatize.

Footnote 105:

“For two or three days previously I had been trying to write some verses, and had been reading a good deal of poetry. I had been thinking in rhythm. I had also been under considerable nervous and emotional strain for some little time in reference to the facts portrayed in the verse.”

Footnote 106:

By this is meant “thoughts” of which she was not aware. Numerous observations on this subject have disclosed such subconscious ideas in connection with other phenomena. This corresponds with the testimony of other subjects previously cited. (Lecture VI.)

Footnote 107:

As a theory of the mechanism of the vision I would suggest that it was the emergence of the secondary visual images belonging to the subconscious ideas.

Footnote 108:

See page 102. Also Prince: The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams. _Jour. Abnormal Psychology_. Oct.-Nov., 1910. G. A. Waterman: Dreams as a Cause of Symptoms. Ibid. Oct.-Nov., 1910.

Footnote 109:

I base this theory on other observations where coconscious images or “visions” of scenes occurred. When these images emerge into consciousness the subject experienced a vision.

Footnote 110:

The Dissociation, p. 332.

Footnote 111:

The Dissociation of a Personality, p. 330.

Footnote 112:

Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, _Journal Abnormal Psychology_, Oct.-Nov., 1910.

Footnote 113:

The symbolic expression of beliefs and symbolic answers to doubts and scruples is quite common in another type of symbolism, viz., visions. Religious and political history is replete with examples.

Footnote 114:

_Loc. cit._

Footnote 115:

It has been answered that experience in a large number of cases shows that dreams always can be related logically to sexual experiences. To this it may be answered they can also in an equal number of cases, indeed in many of these same cases, be related to non-sexual experiences.

Footnote 116:

_Loc. cit._ It is possible, however, that sometimes the problem has been solved subconsciously in the waking state, the answer then appearing in the dream.

Footnote 117:

Here we find an analogy with certain allied phenomena—the visions and voices experienced as phenomena of sudden religious conversion.

Footnote 118:

Francis Joseph and His Sir Horace Rumbold. Page 151. (Italics mine.)

Footnote 119:

See also, “The Psychology of Sudden Religious Conversion,” _Journal Abnormal Psychology_, April, 1906, and “The Dissociation,” 2nd Edit., pages 344 and 564; also James’ “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”

Footnote 120:

Quoted by William James, page 343.

Footnote 121:

Some will undoubtedly read into Margaret’s vision a cryptic sexual symbolism. To do so seems to me too narrow a view, in that it fails to give full weight to other instincts (and emotions) and to appreciate all the forces of human personality.

Footnote 122:

Lecture VI, pp. 169-172.

LECTURE VIII THE UNCONSCIOUS

Our studies up to this point have led us to the general conclusion that a large measure of the experiences of life are conserved or deposited in what may be called a storehouse of neurographic dispositions or residua. _This storehouse is the unconscious._ From this storehouse our conscious processes draw for the material of thought. Further, a large amount and variety of evidence, which we have briefly and incompletely reviewed, has shown that conserved experiences may function without arising into consciousness, i.e., as a subconscious process. To what extent such processes take part in the mechanism of thought, contribute to the formation of judgments, determine the point of view and meaning of ideas, give direction to the stream and formulate the content of consciousness, and in particular conditions, by a species of translation, manifest themselves consciously as phenomena which we designate abnormal constitute special problems which require to be studied by themselves.