The Journal of Abnormal Psychology

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The Journal of Abnormal Psychology

EDITOR
MORTON PRINCE, M.D.. LL.D.
Tufts College Medical School

ASSISTANT EDITOR FOR BRITISH ISLES
ERNEST JONES, M.D., M.R.C.P.
London

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

HUGO MUNSTERBERG, M.D., PH.D.
Harvard University

JAMES J. PUTNAM, M.D.
Harvard Medical School

AUGUST HOCH, M.D.
New York State Hospitals

BORIS SIDIS, M.A., PH.D., M.D.
Brookline

CHARLES L. DANA, M.D.
Cornell University Medical School

ADOLPH MEYER, M.D.
Johns Hopkins University

WILLIAM McDOUGALL, M.B.
Oxford University

VOLUME X

1915-1916

RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS

BOSTON

Reprinted with the permission of The American Psychological
Association, Inc
JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION KRAUS REPRINT CORPORATION

Volumes 1-15 of this title were published as
The Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Volumes 16-19 of this title were published as
The Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology.

first reprinting, 1964

Printed in the United States of America

ORIGINAL ARTICLES--VOLUME X

Hysteria as a Weapon in Marital Conflicts. By. A. Myerson, M. D.
The Analysis of a Nightmare. By Raymond Bellamy
Analysis of a Single Dream as a Means of Unearthing the
Genesis of Psychopathic Affections. By Meyer Solomon, M. D.
An Act of Everyday Life Treated as a Pretended Dream and Interpreted by
Psychoanalysis. By Raymond Bellamy
Freud and His School (Concluded). By A. W. Van Rentergham, M. D.
Anger as a primary Emotion, and the Application of Freudian Mechanism to its
Phenomena. By G. Stanley Hall
The Necessity of Metaphysics. By James J. Putnam, M. D.
Aspects of Dream Life. The Contribution of a Woman Remarks Upon Dr. Coriat's
Paper, "Stammering as a Psychoneurosis." By Meyer Solomon, M. D.
Constructive Delusions. By John T. MacCurdy, M. D., and Walter L. Treadway,
M. D.
Socrates in the Light of Modern Psychopathology. By Morris J. Karpas, M. D.
Psychoneuroses Among Primitive Tribes. By Isador H. Coriat, M. D.
Two Interesting Cases of Illusion of Perception. By George F. Arps, M. D.
A Psychological Analysis of Stuttering. By Walter B. Swift, M. D.
The Origin of Supernatural Explanations. By Tom A. Williams, M. D.
Data Concerning Delusions of Personality. By E. E. Southard, M. D.
Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Psychopathological Association.
Discussion.
The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races. By Sanger Brown II., M. D.
The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Hystero-Epilepsy. By L. E. Emerson, Ph. D.
On the Genesis and Meaning of Tics. By Meyer Solomon, M. D.
Scientific Method in the Interpretation of Dreams. By Lydiard Horton
A Case of Possession. By Donald Fraser
Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races (Concluded) by Sanger Brown
II., M. D.

INDEX TO SUBJECTS

(Figures with asterisks indicate original articles. Figures
without asterisks indicate abstracts, reviews, society reports,
correspondence and discussions. The names of the authors ar
given in parenthesis).

American Psychopathological Association, Sixth Annual Meeting
Anger (Hall)*
Backward Child (Morgan)
Brain, Study of (Fiske)
Character (Shand)
Christianity, (Hannay)
Continuity (Lodge)
Criminal Types (Wetzel & Wilmanns)
Daily Life, Psychology of (Seashore)
Delinquent, (Healy)
Delusions, Constructive (MacCurdy and Treadway)*
Development and Purpose (Hobhouse)
Dream Analysis (Solomon)*
Dream Life (Anon)*
Dreams, Interpretation of (Horton)*
Dreams, Meaning of (Coriat)*
Everyday life, Psycho Analysis of (Bellamy)*
Feeble Mindedness (Goddard)
Freud and his School (Van Renterghem)*
Human Motives (Putnam)
Hysteria as a Weapon (Meyerson)*
Hystero-Epilepsy, Psychoanalytic Treatment of (Emerson)*
Laughter (Bergson)
Mental Disorders (Harrington)
Metaphysics, Necessity of (Putnam)*
Nightmare, Analysis of (Bellamy)*
Perception, Illusions of (Arps)*
Personality, Delusions of (Southard)*
Phipps Psychiatric clinic
Possession (Fraser)
Post-traumatic Nervous and Mental Disorders (Benon)
Primitive Races, Sex Worship and Symbolism in (Brown)*
Primitive Tribes, Psychoneuroses among (Coriat)*
Psychical, Adventurings in (Bruce)
Psychobiology, (Dunlap)
Psychology, Educational (Thorndike)
Psychology, General and Applied (Munsterberg)
Psychoneuroses, Treatment of *
Sexual Tendencies in Monkeys, etc (Hamilton)
Sleep and Sleeplessness (Bruce)
Social Psychology (McDougall)

INDEX TO SUBJECTS
Socrates, Psychopathology of (Karpas)*
Stammering, Remarks upon Dr. Coriat's paper (Solomon)*
Stuttering, Experimental Study of (Fletcher)
Stuttering, Psychological Analysis of (Swift)*
Supernatural Explanations (Williams)*
Tics (Solomon)*

CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME X
Anon.
Arps, George F.
Bellamy, Raymond
Brown, Sanger
Carrington, H.
Castle, W. E.
Clark, L. Pierce
Coriat, Isador H.
Dearborn, George V. N.
Elliott, R. M.
Emerson, L. E.
Fraser, Donald
Hall, G. Stanley
Harrington, Milton A.
Horton, Lydiard.
Holt, E. B.
Jones, Ernest
Karpas, Morns J.
MacCurdy, John T.
Myerson, A.
Putnam, James J.
Solomon, Meyer
Southard, E. E.
Swift, Walter B.
Taylor, E. W.
Treadway, Walter L.
Troland, Leonard T.
Van Renterghem, A. W.
Van Renterghem, A. W.
Williams, Tom A.

THE JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

HYSTERIA AS A WEAPON IN MARITAL CONFLICTS

BY A. MYERSON, M.D.

Clinical Director and Pathologist, Taunton State Hospital Taunton State
Hospital Papers, 1914-5

THE progress in our understanding of hysteria has come largely through the
elaboration of the so-called mechanisms by which the symptoms arise. These
mechanisms have been declared to reside or to have their origin in the
subconsciousness or coconsciousness. The mechanisms range all the way from
the conception of Janet that the personality is disintegrated owing to
lowering of the psychical tension to that of Freud, who conceives all
hysterical symptoms as a result of dissociation arising through conflicts
between repressed sexual desires and experiences and the various censors
organized by the social life. Without in any way intending to set up any
other general mechanism or to enter into the controversy raging concerning
the Freudian mechanism, which at present is the storm center, the writer
reports a case in which the origin of the symptoms can be traced to a more
simple and fairly familiar mechanism, one which, in its essence, is merely
an intensification of a normal reaction of many women to marital
difficulties. In other words, women frequently resort to measures which
bring about an acute discomfort upon the part of their mate, through his
pity, compassion and self-accusation. They resort to tears as their
proverbial weapon for gaining their point. In this case the hysterical
symptoms seem to have been the substitute for tears in a domestic battle.

Case History--Patient is a woman, aged thirty-eight, of American birth and
ancestry. Family history is negative so far as mental disease is concerned,
but there seems to have been a decadence of stock as manifested in the
steady dropping of her family in the social scale. She is one of two
children, there being a brother, who, from all accounts, is a fairly
industrious, but poverty-stricken farmer. Her early childhood was spent in
a small village in Massachusetts. She received but little education,
largely because she had no desire to study and no aptitude for learning,
although she is by no means feeble-minded. The menstrual periods started at
fourteen, and have been without any noteworthy accompanying phenomena ever
since. History is negative so far as other diseases are concerned. She
worked as a domestic and in factories until she was married for the first
time at the age of twenty. She had no children by this marriage. It is
stated on good authority that she took preventive measures against
conception and if pregnant induced abortion by drugs and mechanical
measures. At the end of eight years there was a divorce. Just which one of
the partners was at fault is impossible to state, but that there was more
than mere incompatibility is evident by the reticence of all concerned.
Shortly afterward, she married her present husband with whom she has lived
for about nine years. He is a steady drinker, but is a good workman, has
never been discharged, and, apparently, his drinking habits do not interfere
with the main tenor of his life. He lives with the patient in a small house
of which they occupy two garret rooms, meagerly furnished, though without
evidence of dire poverty.

From her fifteenth year the patient has been subject to fainting spells. By
all accounts they come on usually after quarrels, disagreements or
disappointments. They are not accompanied by blanching, by clonic or tonic
movements of any kind, they last for uncertain periods ranging from five
minutes to an hour or more, and consciousness does not seem to be totally
lost. In addition she has vomiting spells, these likewise occurring when
balked in her desires. She is subject to headaches, usually on one half of
the head, but frequently frontal. There is no regular period of occurrence
of these headaches except that there is also some relation to quarrels, etc.
On several occasions the patient has lost her voice for short periods
ranging from a few minutes to several hours following particularly stormy
domestic scenes.

On July 29 of this year she was suddenly paralyzed. That is to say, she was
unable to move the right arm, the right leg, the right side of the face, and
she lost the power of speech entirely; there was complete aphonia. This
"stroke" was not accompanied by unconsciousness, but was preceded by severe
headache and much nausea. During the three weeks that followed she remained
in bed, recovering only the function of the arm. Her husband fed her by
forcing open her mouth with a spoon. She did not lose control of the
sphincters. As she manifested no other progress to recovery despite the
administration of drugs, numerous-rubbings and liniments, the physician in
charge called the writer into consultation.

Physical Examination Aug. 20--A well-developed, fairly well nourished woman,
appearing to be about thirty-five years of age. Face wears an anxious
expression and she shuns the examiner's direct gaze. Movements of the right
hand and arm are now fairly free. There is no appreciable difficulty in any
of its functions according to tests made for ataxia, strength, recognition
of form, finer movements, etc., in fact, she uses this hand to write with,
as she cannot talk at all. Such writing is free, unaccompanied by errors in
spelling, there is no elision of syllables and no difficulty in finding the
words desired. The face is symmetrical on the two sides. There is no
evidence of paralysis of the facial muscles. In fact, the cranial nerves, by
detailed examination, are intact, except in so far as respiration and speech
are concerned. The right leg is held entirely spastic, the muscles on both
sides of the joints, that is, flexors and extensors, being equally
contracted. It is impossible to bend this leg at any joint except by the use
of very great force. The reflexes everywhere are lively but are equal on
the two sides, and none of the abnormal reflexes is present, including in
this term Babinski, Gordon and Oppenheim.

Sensation--There is very markedly diminished reaction to pin prick all over
the right side, including face, arm, chest, leg and tongue. In some places
complete analgesia obtains. Reaction to touch is likewise diminished and
recognition of heat and cold is impaired.

Speech--There is complete loss of the ability to make any sound, either
voiced or whispered; that is to say, there is complete aphonia,-- there is
loss of all voice. The patient understands everything, however, and writes
her answers to questions rapidly and correctly. She can read whatever is
written, there is no difficulty in the recognition of objects, no evidence
of any aphasia whatever.

The diagnosis--hysteria--can hardly be doubted. The history of headaches,
fainting spells without marked impairment of consciousness, vomiting spells,
hemianaesthesia, hemianalgesia, complete aphonia and an exaggerated
paralysis, not only of the right leg, but of the ability to thrust out the
tongue, while at the same time all other cranial functions were unimpaired
together with the apparent health of the individual in every other respect,
make up a syndrome hardly to pass unrecognized.

Treatment--The patient was entirely inaccessible to direct suggestion, for
no amount of assurance that her leg was all right enabled her to move it.
When such suggestions were made, she shook her head firmly and conclusively,
and this is true of suggestions concerning speech. This point is of
importance in the consideration of the mechanism. Attempts at hypnotism
failed ingloriously. Psychoanalysis was deferred for the time, and recourse
was had to indirect suggestion and re-education.

The first function to be restored was the power of bending the leg which
hitherto had been held entirely spastic. The patient was assured that while
she had lost the power of using the limb, a little relaxation of the muscles
of the front of the leg would permit it to be bent. Her attention was
distracted while at the same time a firm, steady pressure was put upon the
leg above and below the knee joint and advantage taken of every change in
the tone of the muscles involved in keeping the leg extended. Little by
little the leg was bent until finally it was completely flexed, this for the
first time in three weeks. Her attention was called to this fact and she was
assured that upon the physician's next attempt to bend her leg, resistance
would be lessened and she would be able to aid somewhat as well. This
proved true. Then the leg was only partly supported by the physician while
the patient was assured that with his help she would be able to bend it more
freely. From this, she passed on to the ability to move the leg without any
assistance on the part of the writer. After having been given exercise in
bending the leg for some twenty or thirty times, with complete restoration
of this ability, she was induced to get out of bed, and while standing erect
she was suddenly released by the physician. She swayed to and fro in a
rather perilous manner but did not fall. Finally, by gradation of tasks set,
by a judicious combination of encouragement and command, she was enabled to
walk. She was then put to bed and assured that upon the physician's next
visit she would be taught to walk freely. Meanwhile, the husband was
instructed that he must not allow her to stay in bed more than an hour at a
time and that she must come to the table for her meals.

On the physician's next visit, two days later, it was found that the husband
had not been able to induce his wife to come to the table, and that he had
been unable to get her to walk. The physician then commanded her to get out
of bed, which she did with great effort. She was then put back to bed and
instructed to get up more freely and without such effort, demonstration
being a visual one, in that she was shown how best to accomplish the task
set. Finally, at the end of the visit, she was walking quite freely and
promised in writing, for she had not as yet learned to talk, that she would
eat at the table.

The next day instruction was commenced along the lines of speech. Upon being
asked to thrust out her tongue, that organ was protruded only a short
distance, and she claimed, in writing, to be unable to protrude it further.
Thereupon it was taken hold of by a towel and alternately withdrawn from and
replaced into the mouth. After a short period of such exercise she was
enabled to thrust the tongue in and out. She was then instructed to breathe
more freely; that is to say, to take short inspirations and to make long
expirations, this in preparation for speech. She was unable to do this, the
expiration being short, jerky and interrupted. Thereupon the examiner placed
his two hands, one on each side of her chest, instructed her to inspire, and
when she was instructed to expire forced his hands against her ribs in order
to complete the expiratory act. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of
this combination of instruction and help the patient was able to breathe by
herself and freely. She was then instructed to make the sound "e" at the end
of expiration. This she was unable to do at first, but upon persistence and
passive placing of her mouth in the proper position for the sound, she was
able to whisper "e." From this she rapidly went on to the other vowel
sounds. Then the aspirate "h" was added, later the explosives, "p," etc.,
until at the end of about two hours she was enabled to whisper anything
desired. Her husband was instructed not to allow her to use her pencil any
more, and she promised faithfully to enter into whispered conversation with
him, although it was evident that she promised this with reluctance.

Upon the next visit, two days later, she was still whispering, and when
asked if she could talk aloud, shook her head and whispered "No," that she
was sure she could not. Efforts to have her make the sound "a," or any of
the vowels in a voiced manner failed completely. She was then instructed to
cough. Although it is evident that a cough is a voiced sound, she was able
to do this, in a very low and indistinct manner. She was then instructed to
add the sound "e" at the end of her cough. This she did, but with
difficulty. Finally, after much the same manoeuvering which has been
indicated in the account of how she was instructed to whisper, she talked
freely and well. When this was accomplished the husband was instructed to
have her dress herself and to take her to: some place of amusement, and to
keep her out of doors almost continuously.

At all times the patient had complained of a pain in her side which she
claimed was the root of all her trouble. It had been "doctored," to use her
term, by all the physicians in the city and, it was alleged, came after she
had been lifting a paralyzed old lady in the house across the way. Despite
all treatment this pain had not disappeared and the various diagnoses
made--strain, liver trouble, nervous ache had not sufficed to console the
patient or to relieve her. There was no local tenderness, no pain upon
movement, but merely a steady ache. No physical basis whatever for this
trouble could be found. Her medicine for the relief of it was discontinued,
and so, too, were certain medicines she had been obtaining for sleep.

Upon each visit the husband and wife had been informed by the physician that
he did not believe the trouble was organic in its nature, that he believed
it depended upon some ideas that the patient had, and that, furthermore, it
was the result of some mental irritation, compared for the purpose of fixing
the point to a festering sore and which, if removed, would permanently
eliminate the liability of such seizures. The patient and her husband were
informed that the physician intended to delve to the bottom of this trouble
and, by deferring investigation as to its exact nature until the symptoms
had practically disappeared, a way was cleared to obtain their complete
confidence, and at the same time to overcome any unwillingness to accept a
psychical explanation for such palpable physical ills. This latter point is
of importance in dealing with uneducated persons. For the most part, they
are intensely practical and materialistic, and a mere idea does not seem to
them to account for paralysis although, of course, such skepticism is
usually accompanied by superstitious credulity along other lines. Moreover,
by establishing himself as a sort of miracle worker (for so the cure was
regarded), it would be understood that curiosity was not the basis for the
investigation into the domestic life of the patient and her husband, but
that a desire to do more good inspired it.

The physician started his investigation with the statement that he knew from
past experience that some conflict was going on between husband and wife;
that there was some source of irritation which caused these outbursts of
symptoms on the part of the patient, and that unless they told him what was
behind the matter his help would be limited to the relief of the present
symptoms. It was firmly stated that any denial of such discord would not be
believed, and that only a complete confidence would be helpful.

The patient, who had been listening to this statement with lowered eyes and
nervously intertwining fingers, then burst out as follows: There WAS trouble
between them and there always would be until it was settled right,--this
with much emphasis and emotional manifestation. So long as he insisted on
living where they did, just so long would she quarrel with him. She did not
like the neighbors, especially the woman downstairs, she did not like the
room, she did not like anything about the place or the neighborhood, hated
the very sight of it and would never cease attempting to move from there. It
came out on further questioning that the woman downstairs, whom the patient
particularly disliked, was a storm center in that the wife was jealous of
her, although she adduced no very good reasons for her attitude. Moreover,
the patient stated that she wished to move to a district where she had
friends, though other sources of information showed that these friends were
of a rather unsavory character. Her husband was absolutely determined not to
move from his house. He stated that he would rather have her go away and
stay away than move from there; that the rent was too high in the place
where she wanted to move, and that the rent was suitable where they were.
Moreover, for his part, he hated his wife's desired neighborhood and would
never consent to changing his residence from the present place to the other.
It came out that her fainting and vomiting spells and headaches usually
followed bitter quarrels, and on other matters these symptoms usually placed
the victory on her side. On this particular point, however, her husband had
remained obdurate. It was shown that the present attack of paralysis and
aphonia, symptoms of an unusually severe character, followed an unusually
bitter quarrel which had lasted for a whole day and into the night of the
attack.

The question arises at this point, "Why did this attack take the form of a
paralysis?" At first this seemed unaccountable, but later it was found that
the old woman for whom the patient had been caring had a "stroke" with loss
of the power to speak, though no aphonia. The patient had gone to work as a
sort of nurse for the old woman under protest, for she did not wish to do
anything outside of her own light housekeeping, although the added income
was sorely needed since work was slack in her husband's place of employment.
The pain in her side caused her to quit work as nurse, much to her husband's
dissatisfaction until she convinced him that her pain and disability were
marked. It was evident that despite the controversies and quarrels that
prevailed in the household, her husband sincerely loved her, for he stayed
away from his work during the three weeks of her illness to act as her
nurse. Moreover, he spent his earnings quite freely in consulting various
physicians in order to cure her.

It was shown from what both the patient and her husband said, and from the
whole history of their marital life, that she had used as a weapon, though
not with definite conscious purpose, for the gaining of her point in
whatever quarrel came up, symptoms that are usually called hysterical; that
is to say, vomiting, fainting spells and pains without definite physical
cause. This method usually assured her victory by playing upon her husband's
alarm and concern as well as by causing him intense dissatisfaction. With
the advent of a disagreement which could not be settled her way by her usual
symptoms, there followed, not by any means through her volition or conscious
purpose, more severe symptoms; namely, spastic paralysis and aphonia, which,
in a general way, were suggested by her patient. There seems to have been,
and there undoubtedly was, a sexual element entering into this last quarrel;
namely, that she was jealous of the woman who lived downstairs, though
without any proof of her husband's infidelity.

Both patient and her husband finally agreed to the physician's statement
that the symptoms were directly referable to the quarrels, although both
claimed that it had never occurred to them before, a fact made evident by
their questions and objections. No psychoanalysis was possible in this case,
for the man and woman belong to that class of people who feel that they are
cured when their symptoms are relieved. It may be argued, without any
possibility of contradiction, that a psychoanalysis would have revealed a
deeper reaching mechanism and that a closer relationship and connection
between the paralysis and other symptoms with the past sexual experiences of
the patient could have been established. This last claim may be doubted,
however, for there is always a gap between the alleged "conversion" of
mental states into physical symptoms, and this gap can in no case be bridged
over even by Freud's own accounts. The conversion always remains as a mere
statement and is a logical connection between the appearance of physical
symptoms and the so-called conflicts; in other words, it is an explanation
and not a FACT. Compared with the complex Freudian mechanism, with its
repressions, compressions, censors, dreams, etc., the conception of
hysterical symptoms as a marital weapon as comparable with the tears of more
normal women seems very simple and probably too simple. In fact, it does not
explain the hysteria, it merely gives a USE for its symptoms, and the writer
is driven back to the statement that the neuropathic person is characterized
by his or her bizarre and prolonged emotional reactions, which, in turn,
brings us back to a defect ab origine. And the Freudians, starting out to
prove that the experiences of the individual ALONE cause hysteria, by
pushing back the TIME of those experiences to INFANCY (and lately to foetal
life), have proved the contrary, that is, the inborn nature of the disease.

THE ANALYSIS OF A NIGHTMARE

BY RAYMOND BELLAMY

Professor of Education, Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.

A FEW nights ago I experienced a very interesting nightmare, and,
immediately on awakening, I got up and recorded it, analyzing it as fully as
I was able. This is the first nightmare I have had for several years, and I
never was especially addicted to them. Two years ago I made an introductory
study of dreams,[1] and at that time dreamed profusely, but recently I have
been dreaming very rarely, and when I do dream the experiences are not at
all vivid. I use the term "nightmare" in a somewhat popular sense to mean a
painful or frightful dream accompanied by physical disturbances, such as
heart flutter and disturbances of breathing, and followed on awakening by a
certain amount of the painful emotion which was a part of the dream.
Accepting this definition, the experience which I have to relate was a
typical nightmare. A few words of explanation are necessary to give the
proper setting for the experience. At present I am teaching in the summer
school at this place and my wife is visiting her folks; during her absence,
in order to keep from getting too lonesome, I invited one of the young men
in the summer school to come and room with me and keep me company. With this
as an explanation, I shall copy the original account of the dream as nearly
as possible, making a few corrections of the barbarous language I used in
the half-asleep state.

[1] At Clark University, 1912-1913.

On the night of August 9, 1914, I went to bed at 11.40 o'clock and was soon
asleep. About 3.40 in the morning, the young man, F. K. S., roused me and I
awoke weak, scared, and with a fluttering heart; he said I had been making a
distressing sort of noise, but he could not distinguish any words.
Immediately, I judged that the dream was caused by my lying on my back, and
in an uncomfortable position. As a rule I do not sleep on my back, but for
some reason I had gone to sleep that way this time. Also, it had been
raining when I went to bed, and I had put the windows down, and the
ventilation was bad.

The dream, as nearly as it was remembered, was as follows: I was with
somebody in a buggy and we drove down a hill, across a little stream, and up
the other hill, where we arrived at our destination. I seemed to find
trouble in getting a place to hitch, and I had to take the horse out of the
buggy and I think take the harness off. I distinctly remember that in the
dream this was a hardship to me, as it would have been in waking life, for I
am not a good hand with horses, and do not like to work with them. All this
is very hazy to me, and I do not know with whom I was driving, but think it
was a lady, possibly my wife. There were other people at this place and
other horses and buggies. (Could it be called a case of reversion to
childhood, in that there were only horses and buggies and no automobiles?)
There is a break in the dream here, and we were within some kind of a
building where there was a crowd of people. As it seems now, we were around
some kind of a rotunda, but this is very vague. The important part seems to
be that there were two people, a man and a woman, who were talking very
stealthily and earnestly to each other, and they soon drew me into the
conversation. It runs in my head now that the man was my father (who has
been dead for some years), though I am not sure about this, while there is
no recollection of who the woman was. Now it appeared that there was some
woman in the crowd who had some peculiar evil influence over every one and
whom everybody feared. This man and woman were planning to slip off from
this wicked woman and meet me and the one with me on the road, and in some
way, which is not now clear, we were to circumvent this bad woman and break
her power. The man explained and explained to me that we were to meet at
certain springs which were at the side of the road, but it seemed that I
could not get it into my head where they were, and I was afraid I would not
stop at the right place. At last I thought I knew where he meant, and told
him that I would stop there and wait until he came up, but then I happened
to think that he might be ahead of me anyhow, and could stop and wait for
me; then I was sure he would be ahead, for I remembered that I had to
harness and hitch up the horse and his was all ready. And now we seemed to
be getting our horses, and I remarked to him that I was not a bit good hand
at working with horses, and he expressed his sympathy that I had this work
to do.

Here was a second break in the dream, and I was standing in a hallway,
looking through a window into a room. In this room sat my wife and the evil
woman whom everybody feared. She had learned our play (I was conscious of
this in the dream), and was determined to have her revenge, and prevent us
carrying out our plan. She had hypnotized my wife, and had her scared so
that she was in great mental agony. I heard her saying, "Now you are a big
black cat," or something much like this, at any rate making her think she
was a cat and at the same time leaving her partly conscious of who she was.
This woman looked exactly like a woman who lives in the neighborhood where
my wife is now visiting and of whom she has always been somewhat afraid
because of her sharp tongue and unpleasant ways. Immediately, I was filled
with a great fear for my wife and with a raging anger against the woman. I
broke out into calling her all kinds of names, especially saying, "You
devil, you devil," and trying to get through the window to her. I tore out
the screen, but had a great deal of difficulty in doing so. When I had
finally succeeded in tearing the screen out, I threw it at her head, but she
did not dodge, but sat boldly upright and seemed to defy me. Then I tried
to jump through the window to get to her, but was so weak that I could not
do so; this seems strange since the window was not more than three feet from
the floor. I was making unsuccessful attempts to get through, and was
railing at the woman when S. awoke me. I awoke weak, and for some time
continued to feel frightened, though not enough so to keep me from talking
and writing out the dream. I got up and put up the windows (since the rain
had stopped), and about this time a very fair explanation of parts of the
dream came to me. I immediately told it to S., in order to keep from
forgetting it, and then decided to write it down, which I proceeded to do.

Parts of the dream seem to analyze very nicely, but there are parts which
seem to resist analysis; I did not try to force the analysis but gave only
the part which came spontaneously. In the first part of the dream I was
driving in a buggy, I crossed a creek and had trouble with unharnessing a
horse. Several times recently, I have mentioned the fact that I never liked
to work with horses, even when on the farm at home. I do not remember of
having mentioned this fact on the day of the dream, but Mr. C. had stopped
in to call on me that evening and had mentioned that he drove in in a buggy.
I had not seen the buggy and had wondered what he did with it, and had not
remembered to ask him. He had also told me that he was going to a place
called Yellow Springs; I knew about where Yellow Springs are, but could not
quite place them and had tried to figure out what direction he would go.
This seemed to come out very clearly in the dream, when I was trying to find
out where these unknown springs by the side of the road were. I had related
during the evening how I recently fell into a creek with my clothes on and
this probably accounted for the creek over which I drove in the dream. In
the dim second part of the dream, the rotunda seems to have resembled the
chapel of the new college building which is being builded, and about which I
was talking that afternoon.

The last part of the dream seems to have been the important part, and in it
several of the Freudian mechanisms show up very plainly. Just before going
to bed, I had read an article about Vera Cheberiak, the Russian murderess of
the Mendel Beilis case, and how she is now engaged in suing different people
for slander. The article had described her as coolly and impudently sitting
up in court and seeming to realize her power over her enemies, and it had
also made a point of the great fear in which she is held. I had read another
article about the city of Salem, which has recently burned, and I had
remembered that it was the "witch" town of colonial days where people were
supposed to be turned into black cats. I had read still another article,
descriptive of country life, which described how a man had climbed a tree
after a cat which was eating young robins. I had just a day or two before
received a letter from my wife, which contained the news that she was going
to visit this woman whom she fears, but whom she must visit because of their
social relation As already mentioned, the woman in the dream looked just
like this one, and it will readily be recognized that the dream woman was a
condensation of Vera Cheberiak, a Salem "witch," and the woman whom my wife
fears. The fact that she was hypnotized into thinking she was a cat would
naturally accompany the Salem witch, and the cat in the apple tree,
concerning which I had read, might also have entered the dream. Aside from
these, there is another element which may have been instrumental in causing
my wife to be punished by thinking she was a cat. I once saw a woman who was
suffering from melancholia who thought she was a cat, and her mental
suffering seemed to me to be about the keenest of any that I have ever
observed, this possibly caused the dream-making factor to represent her as
thinking she was a cat. The hall, window and screen are also easy of
explanation. That evening I had examined a window which opens from our
bedroom into a hall, and had wondered whether we would continue to keep it
curtained this year or take the curtains away. When I put down the windows
to keep out the driving rain, I had had trouble with a screen much as I did
in the dream.

The heart of the dream seems to be in this last scene. That morning (it was
Sunday) I had very unwillingly, and from a sense of duty, gone to a tiresome
and long-drawn-out church service. I had become so fatigued during the
service, and so disagreed with some of the things the preacher said, that I
was conscious of a mild desire to swear and throw something. I had
humorously mentioned this fact after the service, but there was quite an
element of truth in the jest. The dream gave me the chance of my life to
fulfil this desire, and I seized the opportunity by breaking into a stream
of profanity (not very successful profanity, I fear, as I never use it when
awake and therefore was not in good practice) and throwing the screen at the
woman. But was there not a deeper meaning than this in the dream? I think
so decidedly; it seems that it would be a lot of trouble to construct such a
tremendous nightmare just to give me an opportunity to swear and throw
something, because a preacher had been somewhat tiresome. There was
evidently a deeper and more subtle wish which was also fulfilled. That
evening I had walked up the railroad track with a crowd of young people and
where the paths crossed we had all split up and gone different directions.
Two young ladies had gone back to their boarding places across the campus,
and I had suggested to the young fellow with me that we go along with them.
However, he objected, and we walked back down the railroad track. Now, it
had occurred to me that he probably thought I was not within my bounds as a
married man when I wanted to walk back with these young ladies; something of
the same idea had come to me that day when some one had said in a
conversation, "Professor B. is the most satisfied man on the campus whose
wife is away." I had wondered if they thought I did not care for my wife and
vaguely wished I had some way of showing my love for her, and, more than
that, these suggestions had very naturally made me wonder if I really care
for her as much as I should. I could not have asked for a better opportunity
to serve and show my love for my wife than the dream gave me, and at the
same time it assured me of my affection for her. There is still another
element of repression in this and that is that I have for some time been
wanting to forcibly express myself against the unpleasant ways of this lady
whom my wife so fears. In the dream, I very freely and fully followed this
desire.

This far I can go in the analysis and feel sure of my ground. It will be
noticed that I have not resorted to symbolism, and have made very little
technical use even of the Freudian mechanisms. I could very easily plunge
into symbolism and more elaborate analysis, but should I do so I fear I
would be in the same condition as a bright young scholar who made an
elaborate study of Freudian theories. He expressed himself by saying that it
was a "chaotic inferno." This analysis will seem very unfinished to many of
the well-trained readers of the JOURNAL, and so, in a way, it does to me,
but it may be interesting as the work of a layman rather than a trained
physician. I have not used the word "sexual" in this paper, but the reader
can judge for himself if the impulses would come under this heading, either
in the more narrow use of the term or in the broader meaning which Freud has
given it. For myself, I see no possible objection in employing the word
"sexual" in this connection.

The uncertain parts of the dream are as interesting in a way as the others.
Why did I not know with whom I was riding, and why were the persons with
whom I talked more certain in their identity? Here, of course, is the place
where it would be easy to find a repression if such existed and--I
believe--if it did not exist. Whether there is such a repression there or
not I do not know, but I see no necessity for considering that there is one
there just because there is a dim place in the dream. In the study which I
made of dreams a year or so ago, I became convinced that there is a
principle of dream-making which has not been noticed. I will throw out a
suggestion here in the hope that some one will study it further, but will
give no elaborate discussion in this paper. Briefly, it is that only those
things appear in a dream which are necessary to express the meaning of the
dream. A few illustrations may make this clear. Every one has noticed the
rarity with which colors and sunshine appear in dreams; I have found,
however, that colors and sunshine always appear if there is any necessity
for their doing so. Some one dreams of a melon and looks to see if it is
ripe; he sees the red color; he dreams of a stream which he thinks is a
sewer and smells it to see if it gives off an odor and finds that it does;
he dreams of pulling his fishing line to see if there is a fish on it and
senses the pull of the fish; I have examples in abundance which go to
indicate that taste, smell, tactual, kinaesthetic, color sensation or any
other kind will appear in a dream when they are called for to complete the
meaning of the dream, but they are not common because they are very rarely
needed. Even in waking life we rarely think in these terms. If this little
principle prove true, it would be easy to understand why certain parts of a
dream are dim without going to the doubtful process of positing a
repression. The persons in the dream were not recognized simply because
there was no need for them to be; the dream expressed the pertinent meaning
just as well without them as with them. They were observed just as many of
us would observe the occupants of a street car in waking life; we could
possibly not describe, even partly, any one of the occupants of the car
which we used on our way to the office or home.

Before leaving this nightmare, I want to call attention again to the somatic
elements. I was lying on my back and in a cramped position, the air was
closer than usual, and my circulation was naturally deranged. When I awoke I
was strongly inclined to give the physical elements a large amount of the
responsibility for the dream, and I have not found occasion to change my
mind in this matter. I think that even the inability to jump through the
window in the dream was caused by the weak and exhausted state of my body,
due to the poor circulation and cramped position.

ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE DREAM AS A MEANS OF UNEARTHING THE GENESIS OF
PSYCHOPATHIC AFFECTIONS

BY MEYER SOLOMON, MD., CHICAGO

THOSE; of us who have devoted a certain amount of our time and energy to the
study of dreams have early come to realize the value of a dream as a
starting-point in the analysis of certain mental states, particularly those
of an abnormal character.

Frequently, in the hopeless tangle of symptoms, complaints and disconnected
facts in the history as originally obtained, especially in old-standing
cases, one does not really know just where to begin, what to start with in
the first efforts to struggle with the problem of the ultimate genesis and
evolution of the condition which is presented to him at the particular
moment. Of course, by a careful review of the patient's past life history,
gone over by persistent questioning and cross-examination, one can begin
with the family history and step by step trace the history of the patient
from earliest childhood or infancy through the various stages and phases of
activity and development up to the very moment of examination. This may at
times appear quite dull, quite uninteresting and entirely unnecessary to
certain patients. For this reason and also for many other reasons, which I
shall not enumerate at this point it is at times well to resort to dream
analysis. And in analyzing dreams it is well to remember a fact, with which
I believe all psychoanalysts will agree, namely, that by a most thorough and
far-reaching analysis of a SINGLE DREAM, we can, by following out to the
ultimate ends the various clues which are given us and the various by-paths
which offer themselves to us in the course of the analysis--we can, I
repeat, should we be so inclined, root up the entire life history of the
dreamer. This may not be necessary in all cases. But, at any rate, if we
desired so to do for scientific purposes, we could arrive at such results.
In such an analysis we would, of course, first take up, individually, every
portion and every element of every portion of the dream, and by means of
each such lesser or greater element of the dream, we could arrive at a mass
of material, a wealth of information concerning the past experiential,
emotional, mental and moral life of the individual whose dream we were at
the moment analyzing. In fact, one could ferret out the full life history in
great detail, thus obtaining a complete autobiography leading far down into
the depths of the dreamer's mental life and into the inner world of his own.
With the material so obtained one could truly reconstruct the complete life
history, piecemeal, until the wonderful and inspiring structure of the
mental world of the dreamer would be reared, reaching far back to early
childhood and perhaps even to infancy, extending so far forward as to give
us a prophecy, based on the dreamer's dynamic trends and emotional trends
and leanings, of the probable future, stretching forth its tentacles in all
directions, and, uncovering the psychic underworld in its every part,
holding up before our eyes the naked mind, in its length, its breadth and
its thickness.

I am not referring here particularly to the employment of the method of
hypnosis, especially as practiced by Prince, or to Freud's so-called free
association (which is frequently really forced association) or Jung's word
association methods. I am speaking only of analysis of the dream by ordinary
conversation and introspection, in the normal waking state. Of course, were
the latter method supplemented by these other methods, the results would be
so much the more complete and far-reaching. I may mention, specifically,
that the employment of Freud's free association method would be helpful here
in gathering information because, when employing this method, one
practically forces the one being analyzed to think by analogy and by
comparison, insisting that he tell you what a certain word or name or scene
or experience or what not reminds him of, what it resembles, what he can
compare it to, no matter how remote its connection, no matter how unrelated,
how far-fetched or how silly the association may appear in his own eyes--in
other words, we demand that he co-operate by suspending critical selection
and judgment. Although, as I say, Freud's, Jung's, Prince's and other
methods may be advantageously employed, still, it seems to me, although I
cannot yet state this in final or positive terms, that, at least in most
cases, such an unravelment and resurrection of the past life history can be
obtained by an analysis of the dream conducted in the ordinary, waking
state, and the usual conversational mode of history-taking and daily oral
intercourse.

It needs no repetition or elaboration to convince psychoanalysts (I use the
term "psychoanalyst" in the broad, unrestricted sense of the word, including
the supporters of all possible schools or standpoints or methods in
psychoanalysis or mental analysis, and not limiting it to Freud's
psychoanalysis) of the essential and fundamental truth of this statement. I
shall, therefore, not unnecessarily lengthen this paper by endeavoring to
bring forth complete evidence of the truth of this assertion.

As a matter of fact, this conclusion or generalization applies not alone to
dreams but to any single element in the objective or subjective world which
may be seized upon as the initial stimulus and from which, as a
starting-point, association of ideas, in ordinary conversation or aided by
any of the more or less experimental or artificial but valuable methods
heretofore mentioned, may be begun and continued ad libitum or even ad
infinitum, under the tactful guidance and judgment of the investigator. For
example, if I may be permitted to tread upon the dangerous path of
near-sensationalism or extremism, I may mention that were I to take even so
common, so widely used, and so relatively insignificant a word as the
definite article "the" as the initial stimulus, and have one of my fellowmen
or fellow-women (whose full co-operation, it is assumed, I have previously
obtained) give me one or more free or random word associations, and
thereafter, with these newly acquired elements, continued to forge my way
into the thickly wooded and unexplored recesses of the unknown and
mysterious forest of the mind, I doubt not but that I should achieve the
same results as if I had started upon my journey with a dream. If this be
true, and I firmly believe that it is, in the case of that universally used
and apparently inconsequential word "the," to which the normal person can be
expected to have such a large number of associations, of varying degrees of
intimacy or remoteness, how much truer is it when we have such a definite
mental fact or mental state as a dream as the starting-point of our hunting
expedition?

The dream gives us something tangible to start with, something near at home
to the dreamer or patient, something interesting and amusing to him,
something baffling and so frequently unintelligible to him, and, as a
consequence, a more conscientious, earnest and wholehearted co-operation can
be obtained from the person whose mental life is being investigated. Here is
something vivid to him, something of personal interest to him. And so we can
look to him to lend us his aid in better spirit and in fuller measure than
might otherwise be obtainable.

I have been referring in my previous remarks, for the most part, to
unravelment of the normal individual's life history. But my remarks are
equally applicable to a mentally disturbed individual's life history and to
the genesis of abnormal psychic states, particularly those to be met with in
the neuroses and psychoneuroses.

So true is the generalization, indeed the truism or dictum here laid down,
that, in only the psychoanalyst knows how many instances, by the analysis of
a single, even the very first dream, one can arrive at the rock-bottom depth
of the trouble at hand--yes, at the very genesis of the condition. It is not
my intention in this paper to report such cases in full detail, since the
presentation of even a single such case would be too lengthy for publication
in an ordinary medical or other journal, and in many instances might well go
to make a good-sized book, a real autobiography of more or less interest, if
not to the average reader, at least to the psychoanalyst and to the person
who has undergone the psychoanalysis. Without attempting to present an
elaborate history or complete analysis, but rather merely to call attention
to the truth of the general problem which is being discussed in this paper,
I shall, however, mention a few definite illustrations of this sort.

A man of sixty was brought to my dispensary clinic by his wife (I say
"brought" and not "accompanied" by his wife, advisedly). She accompanied him
into my examining room. He had an almost complete aphonia, spoke hoarsely
and in a whisper and presented all the signs of abductor laryngeal
paralysis; added to which there was a partial hemiplegia of the right side
involving the upper and lower extremities, but not the face or any of the
cranial nerves other than that supplying the right laryngeal abductor. I
shall not give any other points in the history except that this paralysis
was of four months' duration, there was some resistance to movements at the
elbow and knee, but Babinski and other indications of a central organic
lesion were absent. The results of the rest of the physical examination need
not be mentioned except that the patient presented evidences of
arteriosclerosis. The patient was of dull mentality, meek humble and
subservient; he was much below par mentally (I did not put him through any
special intelligence tests), had little information to offer, constantly
resorted to "I don't know" as a reply, and could co-operate but little. I
did, however, obtain the important bit of information that seventeen years
ago he had had an almost complete aphonia of several weeks' duration and
that one day, while on board ship, he became seasick, vomited, became
frightened, went to his room, and suddenly his voice returned to him. So
sudden was the transformation that many of his fellow-passengers insisted
that he had been deceiving them and had purposely simulated the condition he
had previously presented. The case was one of hysteria, the patient
presenting at the time of my examination signs of abductor laryngeal
paralysis (laryngological examination disclosed a right-sided abductor
palsy) and right-sided partial hemiplegia.

For the next two visits the wife accompanied, or rather, brought the patient
to the clinic and I could get but little information and consequently
progressed but little. I asked him, in her presence, to come alone the next
time--which he did. The description of the onset of the attack, which was
furnished me on his previous visits, proved the hysterical nature of the
condition: he had suddenly been attacked by nausea and vomiting, fell to the
floor, lay there, more or less unconscious (as he described it) for five or
ten or more minutes, was assisted to his feet, went to his bed with
practically no assistance, a few hours later found that he could speak
little more than above a whisper, and in another few hours or more his right
side became weak and failed him. He had insisted that the onset came on
suddenly. He had denied any quarrels or trouble at home. Nothing could be
obtained from him as to his thoughts just prior to the attack or as to any
special emotional shocks.

On his fourth visit I asked him to tell me any dream he had had recently and
which had made an impression upon him. He could give me no aid. Nothing
came to mind. I asked him if he had dreamed the night before, and he told
me he had had a dream the afternoon of the preceding day, during an
afternoon nap. Here is the dream: He found himself struggling with a
tremendous snake, the upper part of which was in human form, the features
being very hazy and not at all recalled. The snake was vigorously
endeavoring to enwrap itself about him and to strangle him, and he was
desperately and fiercely struggling to defend himself against it and to free
himself from it--and yet he could not fight it off. In desperation and in
fear he cried aloud for help. This was the end of the dream, for, at this
point, members of his family came rushing toward him to inquire what was
wrong with him, and due partly to shock and his own activity in the dream,
and partly perhaps to the noise of the footsteps and of the conversation of
those who came running toward him to inquire into the cause of his
distressful cries, he awoke.

The thoughts and reveries just preceding the dream and the thoughts and
experiences during the morning preceding the dream, although the true
inciters of the dream, and although concerned with the central figure (his
wife) in this little drama, need not be detailed since the dream has a wider
and more deeply arising significance.

I could not learn definitely from him whether the series of associated
thoughts turned first from his wife to his troubles with her, to her
attitude toward him, and then to her resemblance in this respect (her
nagging, pestering persistence and actual persecution of him) to a snake
which is endeavoring to enwrap itself about him, to strangle him, to
withdraw from him his very life's blood, etc. This may or may not have been
the line of associations just preceding the dream.

He had no idea as to what the dream meant. Using free association, in
ordinary face-to-face conversation, I asked him what "snake" reminded him
of. The association came in a moment. He smiled, became embarrassed, said
it was foolish of him to tell me this, but it reminded him of his wife. He
had always looked upon his wife as a snake in human form. He had frequently
called her "snake" because of her conduct toward him. She had wound herself
about his life in snake-like fashion.

And then came the story of their troubles. This was his second wife. She
was fifteen years his junior. He was meek, feeble, of weak will-power,
without initiative. She was domineering. Although his wife never told him
so openly and in so many words, he felt convinced that the trouble had begun
more or less because his wife's sexual libido was not satisfied in her
sexual relations with him. He admits that she is a passionate woman, her
sexual libido was of such strength that he, much older than she, and not too
strong physically, could but little gratify her. The first complaints and
the sole trouble which appeared on the surface were financial--he barely
made a living and she complained thereat continually, bitterly and
tyrannically. It seems that her complaint in this direction was justified.
It is difficult to determine just what role her lack of sexual gratification
played-- whether it only acted as stirring up the embers of dissatisfaction
(with his weekly earnings) which already existed, or whether it was the
basic factor, led to her dissatisfaction with her matrimonial choice, and
caused her to seek some more or less valid cause for complaint, in that way
permitting her, more or less consciously, to transfer her dissatisfaction
and discontent from the lack of sexual gratification to the hard pressed
financial condition (which perhaps she might, for that matter, have been
willing to endure, did she but obtain the full gratification of her sexual
craving). At any rate, both of these factors played their role in causing
domestic disagreement, one factor being openly acknowledged as the cause by
his wife, the other factor never mentioned by her, but believed by him to be
an important accessory, if not the main, fundamental and primary source of
the trouble. His wife, using his poor earning capacity as a weapon, and with
the demand for "more money" as her battle-cry, carried on a campaign of
complaint, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding, insult and abuse, but little
short of persecution, making conditions wretched and miserable at home.
Things at length became quite unbearable to him--so much so that, feeble in
willpower and lacking in initiative as he was and is, he was compelled to
leave home and live with his aunt, since his wife had practically deserted
him. Although she had sold out the furniture and the rest of the
furnishings of the home, and had pocketed the money thus received, she
repeatedly called at his aunt's home for no other purpose than to force him
to pay her sums of money for her weekly maintenance. On each such visit she
would act the tyrant, would storm and rage furiously, would subject him to
stinging rebukes and deliver biting tongue-lashings, causing him in
consequence to be much upset and nervous the rest of the day. The very
morning on which he had had the attack, which was followed by his present
trouble (partial aphonia and partial hemiplegia) his wife had paid him one
of these unusually stormy and noisy, and, to say the least, unwelcome
visits. She had carried the attack to such a point that our patient became
so emotionally upset (he is a harmless, emotional, kindly, unassuming and
indifferent sort of old fellow) that he suddenly was attacked with nausea
and vomiting, and, frightened, fell to the floor, with the consequences
above detailed. I need not go further into the history and analysis of this
case, but the story thus far elicited is more than sufficient to show that
here we have a specific instance in which, by the analysis of a single
dream, we have arrived at the genesis of an hysterical paralytic syndrome of
four months' duration. The analysis took but a few minutes. It may be
mentioned, in parentheses, that a full knowledge of the cause of the
condition did not lead to a disappearance of the palsy. In other words, as
we all know, knowledge per se does not lead to action or to the assertion or
development of the will-power. I may say, also, that the events here related
were not suppressed or repressed, for, as soon as the question of his wife
was taken up, the patient admitted that it was she who was the real cause of
his present conditions, and he thereupon detailed the story above related.
He assured me that he had always been fully aware that it was she who had
brought about his present condition, although, of course, he did not know
whether he had had an hysterical, apoplectic or other sort of attack. In
fact he believed his condition was permanent and incurable-- especially
since he had been treated at various neurological clinics for many weeks
past without the slightest improvement or progress.

Were we to follow up this history we could unearth the full life history of
this patient, including the genesis of his early attack of aphonia. But I
deem this unnecessary and inadvisable in this paper, as mentioned
previously.

Here, then, we have a definite case in which by the analysis of a single and
incidentally the first dream we have arrived at the genesis of the
psychoneurotic disorder.

From this same standpoint I have studied another case, a married woman of
twenty-nine, with marked neurasthenic and hysterical symptoms (including
astasia-abasia, anesthesias, palpitation of the heart, throbbing sensations
in the stomach and a great many other symptoms). This case I studied for
upwards of four months, with almost daily visits to the hospital where she
was being cared for. I made quite an intensive study of her dream life and
of her past life history, and I find that had I taken the very first dream
which I obtained from her and conducted a thorough analysis with this dream
as my first mile-post, I would have arrived at a full genesis of the
condition, which was of ten years' duration. In this case, also, I must
repeat, there was no indication of repression, the patient having always
understood very well the origin and cause of her condition. Here, too, we
find that the knowledge alone did not lead to her recovery. This case I
shall report in detail at a later date.

In this connection, I cannot keep from reciting the dream of a young girl of
twelve which I had the good fortune to study. She came to me complaining
about her throat. There was something dry, "a sticking" in her throat. She
did not know what it was. Would I look at her throat? I found nothing
abnormal, and was about to dismiss her when I observed that her hands were
bluish. I felt them. They were cold. I thought at once of probable heart
disease. I was soon informed that she had heart disease. She had been told
so by other doctors. This proved to be the case, as I learned on examining
her.

Being keenly interested in this subject of dreams, I wondered whether, if
she were subject to periods of cardiac decompensation of varying degree, she
did not have dreams of a terrifying nature (about burglars, robbery and the
like), because of embarrassment of breathing during sleep, resulting from
her cardiac insufficiency and consequent circulatory and respiratory
disturbance. I asked her whether she had been dreaming much of late. She
told me she had had a dream the preceding night. What was it? I inquired.

She had dreamed that she had died. Her mother had put her in a coffin,
carried her to the cemetery and then proceeded to bury her. Her mother had
first forced something into her mouth (it seemed to be a whitish powder),
and then lowered her into the grave and filled the grave with dirt. That is
all that she could remember.

I shall not enter into a complete analysis or interpretation of this dream.
There is no doubt, however, to every psychoanalyst who has devoted his
attention to dreams, that the analysis of such a dream should prove most
interesting. It is also apparent that by taking up the various elements of
the dream and following them untiringly along the various trails and
ramifications which lead on in various directions, one could unmask the
entire life history of this twelve-year-old girl.

I wish, however, to direct the reader's attention to only one aspect of this
dream--the death of the dreamer. She denied that she feared death or that
she thought of death because of her heart disease or from any other cause. I
next inquired: "Do you wish or have you ever wished you were dead?" The
reaction of the girl was immediate and intense. She stood frightened,
embarrassed; her eyelids twitched convulsively in rapid succession, her face
gradually assumed a suppressed crying expression, tears came to her eyes,
they soon flowed freely and rolled down her cheeks; she sobbed, and, through
her tears, she uttered, almost inarticulately, the one word, "Yes." A
convulsive, inspiratory grunt, a bashful, receding, turning away of the head
and body, a raising of the hands to cover her face and hide her tears, and
hasty, running steps to get away, while murmuring audibly "Let me go away,"
followed rapidly one upon the other. I gently seized her hand, calmed and
reassured her. And, through sobs and tears, in almost inaudible tones, in
starts and spurts, and reluctantly replying to questions which were forced
upon her, producing replies which were literally drawn from her against her
will, she told me this little story: A little boy cousin of hers, three
years her junior, had begun school two years or so later than she, and yet,
in spite of this handicap, this little relative had outstripped her in
school, he being now in a higher grade than she herself was. She would not
be so much concerned or worried about this not-to-be-proud-of performance,
had not the boy's mother that week visited her home and there, in the
presence of other people, talked considerably about her boy's progress in
school, his rapid advance as compared with that of our little dreamer, her
relative stupidity and backwardness. And so this boy's mother had continued
for some time in the same strain. This caused our little girl to feel much
embarrassed--in fact, ashamed and mortified. She had felt that way for
several days past, it had made her cry, had made her feel miserable and
unhappy; so much so that she had wished she were dead. I shall not continue
this analysis further. But it is plainly seen that here too, by a single
dream, we have come upon life-experiences, viewpoints and mental material
which affords us efficient and sufficient weapons to boldly attack the
fortress of her full life history, her mental qualities, her trends, her
psychic depth, her mental makeup in its entirety, in its every dimension.

It is interesting to note that on the morning following the experience which
I had with this child, she came to see me a second time, and, on my
examining her throat, it presented the typical picture of bilateral
tonsillitis, the final result of the initial sticking sensation in her
throat, which she had experienced the day before. After taking a culture
from her throat as a matter of routine to exclude a possible diphtheria, the
patient, greatly disturbed because of her newly-discovered trouble, burst
forth into bitter tears, and, still sobbing, rushed abruptly from the room.

A week later, when I saw her again, she had regained her emotional
equilibrium and we reviewed her dream and its analysis without any special
signs of emotional disturbance.

Very interesting, also, was my experience about a week following this when,
casually reciting this little girl's dream, its significance and her
conduct, to an old lady whom I know very well, I found that she too was
presenting all the signs of emotional upset, for, as I proceeded with my
recital, tears gradually came to her eyes, her face assumed a suppressed
crying expression, she tried to smile through her tears, and finally, unable
to control her emotions, she broke out into a free and unrestrained weeping
spell, following which I learned from her that the recital of this girl's
condition, her dream and its meaning, recalled to her mind her darling
daughter, a noble girl of sixteen years of age, who had died some fifteen
years ago, after a long period of incapacitation and a miserable existence
brought on by tonsillitis, chorea, rheumatism and, finally, heart disease,
with all the extreme signs and symptoms of broken cardiac and renal
compensation. Here, then, I had touched another complex, which, if followed
up, would lead me into the innermost depths and recesses of this old lady's
soul-life, into the holiest of holies of her mental life.

The writer will be pardoned for not here giving fuller histories, or for not
carrying out the analyses to their ultimate goals, or for not giving the
interpretations of the two dreams presented. That was not the primary object
of this communication.

I wish, in conclusion, to repeat that through the conscientious and most
far-reaching analysis of a single dream, or, in fact, of a single element of
a dream or a single element or stimulus in the objective or subjective
world, one may, at least not infrequently, unearth the full life history of
normal or abnormal individuals, and the genesis and evolution of
psychopathic affections.

The reader may justly inquire why the analyst should resort to dream
analysis instead of taking the history of the case in the usual way. In all
cases the patient should be permitted to tell her story in her own way.
This method of procedure, with cross questioning, may and should indeed be
sufficient to unravel the case for us in most cases. But if we find that we
have not gained the confidence of the patient and have not that condition of
being en rapport with the patient which is essential for progress and
success in the analysis, one may resort to dream analysis, not so much for
the purpose of following the royal road to what the Freudian school calls
"the unconscious," but rather with the object of obtaining the confidence of
the patient and of having something definite to start with.

AN ACT OF EVERYDAY LIFE TREATED AS A PRETENDED DREAM AND INTERPRETED BY
PSYCHOANALYSIS

BY RAYMOND BELLAMY

Professor of Education, Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.

A RECENT article by Brill, entitled "Artificial Dreams and Lying,"[1]
recalled to me a little work I did two years ago while engaged in making an
introductory study of dreams as a thesis at Clark University. The part
which is hereby submitted is a fragment of a larger work and, being only a
sort of side issue, was never included in the thesis proper. I have made
only such changes as were made necessary by the fact that this is a fragment
and needed one or two minor changes to make it complete.

[1] Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 5.

Let me say at the beginning that I have the greatest and most profound
respect for Freudian theories as interpreted by G. Stanley Hall and other
men of like scholarly ability, but I have never been able to accept the more
extreme form of Freudianism as interpreted by some of the most prolific
writers in this field. I have found that the charges made by Habermann[2]
are substantially true. I find it very helpful indeed, to try to interpret
my own dreams and to assist some of my students to do so according to the
Freudian formula, and to a certain point I believe these interpretations are
undoubtedly true. The question is to find the point beyond which the
interpretation becomes artificial. Personally, I believe that this will
always have to be decided finally by the individual himself rather than by
some outsider who insists on reading in a certain interpretation. I have
come to believe that it is possible for one to become trained to the point
at which he is able to decide just how far the interpretation goes, or, at
least, to approximate it.

[2] Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 4.

With these few introductory remarks I shall submit the paper, which was
written in 1912. I have not appended the rather long and cumbersome
bibliography from which I drew these references, but I can supply any
reference that is wanted.

If we examine the Freudian system, we find that it is impossible to disprove
this theory of dreams. If we demonstrate that a dream has no sexual
connection whatever, they have only to say that it is the censor that
blinds, and, by resorting to symbolism and other such very present helps in
time of trouble, they show plainly that we were mistaken. The situation is
the same as it would be if I declared that what I saw as blue appeared
yellow to the rest of the world. The disproof of this and of Freudianism are
equally impossible. But, on the other hand, have the Freudians presented any
proof or argument on the affirmative side of this question? They are over
fond of saying, "Freud has proven thus and so," but in what did the proof
consist? The great answer to all objections has been to analyze dreams and,
so far as I know, the attempt has never failed to show that the dream in
question conformed to the prescribed requirements. And in truth, it is not
a difficult matter to analyze a dream a la Freud. After a little practice,
especially if one has a vivid imagination and is somewhat suggestible, It is
possible to find the repressed sexual wish in every dream. But if we use
such flexible and wonderful factors as the four mechanisms, and, above all,
symbolism, we can find the same things in any other experience. By this I
mean that if we take a bit out of our daily life, a dream of some one else,
a fictitious story, an historical incident, or any other pictured situation
and PRETEND THAT IT IS ONE OF OUR OWN DREAMS and apply the Freudian
analysis, we find that it serves for this purpose as well as a real dream.
When this is the case, it is absurd to put any faith in the analysis of real
dreams, when carried to extremes.

As an illustration of the above statement, the following is a fairly typical
example. The supposed "dream" is a commonplace bit out of my daily life.
This is chosen at random (although Jones would say such a thing is
impossible) and subjected to a dream analysis.

ANALYSIS OF FALSE DREAM

Dream. I was walking along a street on a cold winter night. I looked down
at the cement walk and in this was set a piece of granite on which the
letters "W. H." were cut. Coming to the corner, I looked up and saw on a
short board which was nailed to a post, the name of the street, "Queen
Street," The street running at right angles to this was King Street, and I
turned and went down this. After walking a short distance, I came to a house
from a window of which a light was shining. The house number was "23." I
took a key from my pocket, unlocked the door and entered.

Analysis. In attempting to analyze this (so-called) dream, I was amazed to
find with how many past longings and emotionally-colored experiences it was
associated. I first took up the letters on the sidewalk, and as I repeated
them, letting my mind be as blank as possible in order that the associations
might be free, I gained an immediate response. "W. H."--"Which House"--came
out as in answer to a question. With these words there was a definite visual
image of a young country farm youth standing talking to two persons in a
buggy. I remembered the incident in all its details. I was the young man and
these people were asking the way to a certain place, or at WHICH HOUSE they
should stop. As it so happened, I was at that time keeping company with a
young lady who lived at the very house concerning which they asked. I will
not go into detail any further at this point, for this is a real case and I
should be trespassing on personal ground. But any one who yet remembers his
boyhood courtship, with all its agonies and fears, its hopes and joys, its
disappointments and its pleasures, can see at a glance how important this
occasion is in throwing light on the meaning of the dream. Of course "W. H."
stood for "Which House."

I seemed to get no further in my associations with these letters at this
time, and my thoughts spontaneously turned to the name of the street.
"Queen Street." Even more readily and completely than in the other case,
there came a whole complex of associations. First there was the name and
image of Miss Agnes Queen, whom I had known for years. But, strange to say,
the image was of this young lady standing and talking to a certain Mr.
Harding. I saw them together but once, and it seemed passing strange that
this incident should be the one remembered in connection with the name. But
the associations were rapidly progressing, and I mentally reviewed parts of
three or four years during which I was working and closely associating with
this Mr. Harding. Here I began to see some light. This Mr. Harding was in
all respects, at least as far as I knew him a man of good morals, but he was
much less particular in his social habits than I was. He was engaged to a
young lady all the time I was with him, and wrote letters to her constantly;
but this fact did not prevent him from paying attentions to other young
women, and I was aware that he was more familiar with them than
conventionality would warrant. In fact he made no attempt to be secret in
the matter, and often poked fun at me for my over sensitivity on the
subject. Here was the key to a whole lot of meaning. The first year I was
with him, I had no sweetheart or any lady friend on whom to center my
affection or to whom I could write. There were a number of young men in our
"squad," as it was called, and nearly all of them had correspondents and it
was a joke among us that I was "out in the cold world with no one to love."
In reality, this was not so much a joke for me at the time, as I tried to
give the impression that it was, and I longed for the very thing of which we
joked. The fact that I was out on the street on a cold winter night in this
dream symbolized being "out in the cold world," as we had used the term
then.

I now took up the letters "W. H." again, and the words "White Horse" came in
response to the stimulus. With little hesitation I placed this as connected
with the Knights of the White Horse of whom Tennyson writes in his poems of
"King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table." I got very little out of this,
but still the White Horse was a band of men who were unrestrained in their
desires and bore about the same relation to King Arthur's Knights that
Harding did to me. However, the associations did not stop here but went on,
giving what at first seemed to be a meaningless list of words. "W. H." first
called up the words, "Wish Harding"; next, "Will Harding"; next, "With
Harding"; and last, "Walk Harding." In a minute it flashed on me what this
all meant. "I WISH to do as Harding is doing, to WALK the way he is WITH
him and I WILL." To walk up Queen Street meant, then, to follow his
example, as he at one time paid some attention to this Miss Agnes Queen.
Perhaps the reason why her name was selected instead of some others was
because his relations to her had been very slight and formal, and thus the
idea was easier for the censor to let into sleeping consciousness than it
would have been if some other names had been taken. "W. H.," then,
symbolized the four expressions that arose in the analysis.

The meaning of "King Street" came last of anything in the dream, but I will
give it now. I did not seem to be able to get anywhere on this for some
time, and the idea kept presenting itself that it symbolized that I was king
of the situation which seemed innocent enough; but at last there came an
association with Nero as portrayed in "Quo Vadis." I then remembered how I
read this book while in the adolescent stage, and how a cousin made remarks,
very sensuous in their nature, about parts of it. I then got a vision of
the book, "Mad Majesties," which I saw on the library table not long since.
Next came a memory of the French kings as portrayed in the works of Dumas.
At this point, I realized that the idea suggested by the word king is very
often, though not always, an idea or image of a very loose person as far as
his social life is concerned. Thus to walk Queen Street or follow the
example of Harding finds a parallel in walking King Street or following the
example of a king.

With the light in the window, I came into an entirely new field of
associations. I cannot go far into detail here as it would involve others
as well as myself, but suffice to say that the light in the window called up
a paper on the subject of light which was written by a Mr. X. and read in my
hearing. Now Mr. X. and I had both kept company with the same young lady at
different times, and here was another group of emotionally colored
experiences. However, the important function performed by the light was that
it symbolized (together with the house in which it was) the comforts, warmth
and pleasures of the very opposite condition from that of being "out in the
cold world with no one to love."

The house number "23" is associated with at least two occasions. One Sunday
evening; a few of the boys of our "squad," myself among them, went out with
the daughter of our landlady, and one or two other young ladies and took a
boat ride in the park. It was a beautiful summer night and the park was full
of young people who were treating each other to very endearing caresses.
There were so many who wanted boats that only one boat was unoccupied, and
it was No. 23. It had been left because it was a hoodoo number, and the
other boaters were all superstitious. As we were not, we took this boat and
used it. My longing lonesomeness was about at its maximum height on this
night. The other occasion associated with this number is that I became
engaged when I was twenty-three years old and at that time desired greatly
to be married; but, as I was in school, it had to be postponed.

Now the climax of the dream! I took a key from my pocket, unlocked the door
and entered. This is so plain that it hardly needs comment. Being in the
cold world, as symbolized by the cold street, I enter the warmth and comfort
of the lighted house. The key and lock are, of course, phallic symbols and
have special significance for me as I once took a young lady to a banquet at
which the favors were paper keys and hearts. Thus symbolically are fulfilled
all the longings I felt while with Harding, all my desires to be married
when twenty-three, all my adolescent courtship yearnings, and all my
remaining repressed sexual longings.

As a point which may have a little bearing on this, I have recently received
a letter from Harding and in it was information that he is for a time away
from home, and I wondered if he is still careless in his behavior.

This analysis will seem foolish in the extreme to many, and I am one of the
number, but my excuse is that I have copied as closely after the Freudians
as possible. I have only to invite a comparison. This is not a "made up"
dream, but a little bit out of my daily life; just an experience occurring
on the way home from the seminary. The analysis is real in the sense that
the associations arose as I have recorded them.

Perhaps some ardent Freudian might find it in his heart to say that this
analysis only strengthened their position, as it showed how a whole sexual
background underlies our entire life, and therefore our dreams must have a
sexual origin. But the reason why I found a sexual solution of this was that
I started the analysis with a definite Bewnssteinlage, as Titchener would
call it, which consisted of a knowledge that I had started for a certain
kind of solution, and the whole course of the associations was governed by
this. If Freud had at first come into the possession of a theory that every
dream fulfills a fear, or pictures a state of anger or any other emotion, he
would have had just as good success in demonstrating the truth of his
statements. The following analysis will illustrate this. This is a real
dream, but before beginning the analysis, I took the attitude that the
analysis would reveal the fulfillment of a fear or show that the dream was
the dramatic representation of a feared condition as actually existing. It
took some time to get into this attitude, it is true, but when the result
was finally accomplished, the analysis was begun and the attempt was made to
follow the Freudian method as closely as possible under the changed
conditions.

The Dream. On the night of February first, I dreamed that I was going down
a little hill in company with my brother and Mr. N. We seemed to be in
Colorado, and at the foot of the hill was a little stream which was very
pretty. There was a little waterfall, and a green pool below it, and a mist
hung over the pool. I am not sure I saw the color of this pool. There was
also a huge rock around which the water dashed. Some people were fishing in
the stream. Some one asked if we could see the rainbows, and Mr. N. replied
that he could see only one. I then looked carefully and saw a purple haze in
the mist over the pool and supposed this was what was meant. But, as I
continued to look, I saw a great number of rainbows, or at least patches in
the mist over the water which showed the spectral colors. These were about
two feet in diameter and extraordinarily beautiful. I was very anxious to
get some of the trout which I felt sure were In the stream. As we came
nearer, it seemed that the stream had overflowed and there were several
shallow pools not over a foot deep and eight or ten feet long. In these
pools could be seen fish by the dozen from a foot to eight feet long. I was
slightly troubled because it would muddy my shoes, but I began to try to get
some of them out. I got one very big one by the gill slit, but could not
manage him and had to let him go. I handled several in the dream, but do
not know whether or not I got any out.

ANALYSIS OF DREAM SHOWING FULFILLMENT OF A FEAR

I had some trouble in getting any light on this dream, but suddenly much of
the meaning became clear and a whole group of associations came up.
Undoubtedly the trouble I experienced at first was caused by the resistance
of the censor. I will give the associated memories first and explain them
later.

I delight in fishing and have spent many happy hours fishing for trout In
the clear waters of the Colorado streams; but, strange as it may seem, it
was not a memory of any of these which come into consciousness. Instead,
there came up memories of three different instances, each accompanied with
definite visual imagery, and in such rapid succession that I could hardly
tell which came first.

Six years ago last summer, I crossed the Ohio River to spend a day in
Carrolton, Kentucky, and on the way back, I bought some fish of a fisherman
at the river's edge. This man was barefooted and wore a little greasy wool
hat and very ragged clothes. I remember thinking at the time that his work
must be very degrading, and that the river fisherman must be about the
lowest type in that part of the country. I especially noticed his feet and
legs, which were bare to the knees, and which were so sunburned that they
hardly looked like parts of a white man's body. In the analysis of this
dream, the image of the man as he stood there and the memory of the incident
came back with great vividness.

A year or two later, my brother and I were riding along the road at about
the same place, and we met a very miserable-looking specimen of humanity,
driving a poor limping horse to a rickety wagon in which were some pieces of
driftwood. My brother was in a "spell of the blues" at this time, and he
remarked that he was coming to just that condition as fast as he could. The
image and memory of this incident also came into consciousness as if it had
been waiting repressed just under the surface.

The other memory was one in which I did not figure personally. A year or so
ago, my brother was telling me how he and his boy had gone to the river
several times and gone fishing with an old fisherman who lived there. My
nephew, like most boys, had a desire to become a fisherman or hunter, and my
brother had suspected that a little close acquaintance with the way a
fisherman lived would cure him of this desire; in this he was entirely
right, and after a few trips to visit the old fellow, he had expressed
himself as cured of any desire to live the beautiful, pleasant life of a
river fisherman.

Without going any further, it can easily be seen that a fisherman symbolizes
for me everything that is synonymous with failure. Thus, when I stepped out
into the muddy water and began fishing I symbolically became a failure, a
no-account, a man who had failed in the struggle and had not achieved
success. The very fact that we came DOWN HILL to the place of fishing
shows, on the face of it, that a downhill career is symbolized. My brother
was with me, and that is easily explained as a dramatization of the fact
that I was accompanying him on that downhill road to the state of the man in
the rickety wagon which he had prophesied as his future. The water in the
shallow pools was muddy, and I stepped into it just after experiencing a
fear that I would get my shoes wet. Remembering the fisherman's bare brown
feet, this can be interpreted as nothing but a very strong symbolization of
a drop from a cultured and successful circle to a low and unsuccessful one.
I grasp a fish bigger than myself and struggle with it, but am compelled to
give it up. Another symbol: my work is plainly too big for me; this
question is too much for me to handle, and this thesis will ultimately have
to be given up as the big fish is. In fact, I cannot say that I succeeded in
getting ANY fish out of the water and, therefore, I shall never succeed at
anything I undertake, but will land figuratively, if not actually, in the
fisherman's hut.

The Mr. N. who was with us, was cross-eyed which, in itself, seemed to have
no special meaning; but it immediately called up an image of a cross-eyed
man standing at the river's edge at Vevay, Indiana. This fellow was the
picture of ignorance and want. He was telling another man about catching a
big fish a few days before and how he liked that kind of fish boiled so
well, but he could not wait for it to boil, but had fried part of it and
eaten it that way. As I heard him relate this and watched his face, the
whole event seemed to me to be most disgusting. As I was watching him, some
one at my side told me that, because of a drunken spree, he had been
disfranchised. He was also a fisherman and another typical specimen of the
class. Mr. N., having the same facial defect, though in a much less
noticeable way, became identified with him, and I am again found walking
down the hill to oblivion in company with this brother in distress. This is
bad for Mr. N., but it cannot be helped.

The rainbows seem bright enough, but they bring in another disquieting group
of associations. The rainbow is almost, if not quite, a universal symbol of
failure. We all know the old story of going to the end of the rainbow for a
pot of gold, and if we want to belittle any effort we say that the
individual is chasing the rainbow. So here I am again on the downhill road
between two failures, following the rainbow to a hopeless condition of muddy
uselessness. And if it were not bad enough to be following one rainbow, I am
following a great number which must mean that I shall always end in failure
whatever I undertake.

But, besides this, the rainbow has special associations for me. The first of
these associations which came into consciousness was a little booklet made
by a Latin student and handed her professor. I had several years of Greek
and Latin under this teacher and at a certain place in the course, he asked
each student to make a little booklet of some kind, using as much
originality as possible, copy some favorite quotations from De Senectute and
hand in the finished product. Every year he gets these out and exhibits them
as a kind of inspiration. One of them had a rainbow and a pot of gold on the
cover. I spent a great deal of time and work on mine and made a more
elaborate booklet than any other that had been made, but I purposely left it
unfinished and inscribed a statement that this was to typify the kind of
work I did in that department. Of course it was a joke, but I have often
thought that there was method in this madness, and that it really
approximated the true state of affairs. This seeming chance association,
then, is closely connected with my fear of making a failure which is so
clearly dramatized in this dream.

The fact that the dream is placed in Colorado is also important. Two years
ago, I spent the summer in Colorado and had a very delightful time, as was
natural, being on a wedding trip. But during this stay, I did make a total
failure at fishing. I had been a fairly successful trout fisher a few years
before, but I had forgotten the art and did not do enough fishing to
relearn. In other words, my dream gives me to understand that I cannot be
successful even in fishing. One evening my bride and I witnessed a most
beautiful sunset, a rainbow figuring largely in the scene. At this time we
were debating whether or not to go on farther West as I had originally
planned; but circumstances prevented this and instead of going on farther,
we came back East or toward the rainbow. This is just one more place where
the dream so clearly symbolizes a failure to do what I undertake. I will
not carry the analysis any further, though I could find associations by the
hundred which would strengthen the meaning given.

Of course I am not at all conscious of having any such fear as this. In fact
I am rather inclined to be over-confident; but this is, of course, due to
the repressing influence of the censor and only strengthens the analysis.

Examples could be given until the last trump is sounded and the world rolled
up like a scroll, but I do not want to keep any one so long. Whatever we
wish to make out of a dream--the dramatization of a fear, a joy, a joke
(really this is what the Freudians often do), a tragedy, anything that can
be suggested, the result can easily be accomplished if only we be allowed
the use of Freud's mechanisms and a moderate amount of symbolism.

I have tried to show: First, that any situation or experience can be
analyzed with as good success as a dream, and second, that a dream may be
made to mean anything. In other words, with Freud's method, one can
demonstrate anything to suit his taste or belief. Long ago, the saying was
formulated that all roads lead to Rome. This being true, it must also be
true that all roads lead everywhere else. Freud employs a wonderful figure
of a mystical sphere, with its layers and cross veins and other
mineralogical characteristics, to represent the part of consciousness with
the repressed factor at the center well guarded. It would be far more to the
point if he should represent the whole of past experience as the surface of
a country, with its various roads connecting the different centers. The
stations would then represent the experiences, and the roads the association
tracks between them. If one should travel at random over these roads, he
would in time pass through all kinds of towns and cities, but if he started
in quest of a certain type, say mountain villages, he would arrive at his
goal much more quickly than he would otherwise. The Freudians themselves
acknowledge that they have difficulty in knowing when to stop the analysis.
Their plan seems to be to travel until the landscape suits them and then get
off and camp.

Thus, while I have made no attempt to give positive proof or argument that
Freud's theory, in its extreme form is at fault, I have tried to
substantiate my argument that there has been no real argument on the other
side. And when a theory so spectacular and altogether out of the ordinary
is presented, the burden of the proof should very decidedly be thrown on the
positive side. We have no obligation or even excuse for accepting such a
theory on the mere presumption of the originator.

And that Freud's theory is weird and fantastic is a self-evident fact.
Perhaps the Clark University student who very carefully worked it up a few
years ago went a little too far when he said it was a chaotic inferno, but
at any rate, it is far removed from celestial harmony. Sidis takes about the
sanest attitude possible when he refers to certain Freudian writings as
being full of unconscious sexual humor. He observes further as does Prince
and others that the Freudian school is in reality a religious or
philosophical sect. He says that Freud's writings constitute the
psychoanalytic Bible and are quoted with reverence and awe. Kronfeld, in a
most valuable criticism, says that in comparison with Freud's conception of
the vorconscious and its work, Henroth's Demonomania appears a modest
scientific theory.

The attitude of the Freudians is, itself, worth noticing. They are very
prone to consider any criticism as very personal, and fly to the rescue with
all the fervor of a religious fanatic. A work on dreams, because it does not
bear out Freud in all details, calls forth thunderbolts from two continents.
This over-anxious attitude indicates that the belief in the theory is based
on an emotional condition rather than logical reasoning. Bernard Hart, who
is one of those happy individuals who get the best out of Freudianism, shows
the difference between the two kinds of belief by comparing our belief that
the earth goes around the sun and that the man who abuses a woman is a cad.
The cold, indifferent attitude toward the former is in marked contrast to
our warm lively interest in the latter, and the reason is that the belief in
the one is founded on scientific demonstration and in the other on our
feeling in the matter. If we allow this as a gauge by which to measure, it
is not difficult to place the Freudians.

We must not overlook the immense opportunity for suggestion in the work of
psychoanalysis, both on the subject and the one who is in the work. The
Freudians vehemently deny that any of the results of dream analysis are
suggested into the mind of the dreamer, but the evidences are all on the
other side. Freud, in referring to psychoanalysis of hysterical patients,
says, "It is not possible to press upon the patient things which he
apparently does not know, or to influence the results of the analysis by
exciting his expectations." Such an attitude is fatal when it comes to a
question of accurate work. And no less important is the self-suggestion
practiced by the Freudians. When we read of Freud's long struggle in an
attempt to find something which he felt surely was to be found, we see that
he had abundant opportunity to acquire almost an obsession. The long years
since, which he has spent in analyzing dreams and making them all come out
right some way, would serve to more firmly ground his conviction, and the
same is true of his disciples. Put a man to drawing square moons for ten
years, and at the end of the time he will swear that the moon is square.

A large portion of the scientific world seems to have gone mad over the term
"psychoanalysis." But this kind of work has been done by all peoples and
times under different names. There can be no objection to such an analysis
of a dream if it is done by the right person. The dream may be used to aid
the dreamer in finding out his own life, it is true, and when we understand
psychoanalysis as this process, and only this, it is not objectionable. But
if such is the case there is no need of all the mechanism and symbolism. The
preacher who uses the Old Testament stories of the wars with the Philistines
to illustrate a moral struggle is not to be criticised; but if he maintains
that they were written for that purpose, we should hardly feel inclined to
accept his position. A very inspiring message might be builded on the text,
"The ants are a people not strong, but they prepare their meat in the
summer"; but it is hardly possible that such thoughts were in the mind of
the writer. Just so, a dream or a story or any other situation may be used
to open the locked doors of a life, but to say that the dream has slipped
stealthily out of the keyholes and over the transoms and wonderfully,
mysteriously and magically clothed itself is quite another matter.

FREUD AND HIS SCHOOL

NEW PATHS OF PSYCHOLOGY

BY A. W. VAN RENTERGHEM M.D., AMSTERDAM

(Concluded)

WE are frequently confronted with the question: "Just why does an erotic
conflict cause the neurosis? Why not just as well another conflict?" To
this the only answer is, "No one asserts that this must be so, but evidently
it always is so, in spite of anything that can be said against it. It is,
notwithstanding all assurances to the contrary, still true that love (taken
in its large sense of nature's course, which does not mean sexuality alone),
with its problems and its conflicts of the most inclusive significance, has
in human life and in the regulation of the human lot a much greater
importance than the individual can image.

The trauma-theory (meaning what was in the beginning conceived by Breuer and
Freud) is therefore out of date. When Freud came to the opinion that a
hidden erotic conflict forms the real root of the neurosis, the trauma lost
its pathogenic significance.

An entirely different light was now thrown upon the theory. The trauma
question was solved, and thrown aside. Next in order came the study of the
question of the erotic conflict. If we consider this in the light of the
chosen example, we see that this conflict contains plenty of abnormal
moments, and at first sight does not suffer comparison with an ordinary
erotic conflict. What is especially striking, seemingly almost unbelievable,
is the fact that it is only the exterior action, the pose, of which the
patient is conscious, while she remains unconscious of the passion which
governs her. In the case in question the actual sexual factor
unquestionably remains hidden, while the field of consciousness is entirely
governed by the patient's pose. A proposition formulating this state of
affairs would read as follows.

In the neurosis there are two erotic inclinations which stand in a fixed
antithesis to each other, and one of these at least is unconscious.

It might be said of this formula, that although perhaps it is adapted to
this case, possibly it is not adapted to all cases. Most people, however,
are inclined to believe that the erotic is not so widespread. It is granted
that it is so in a romance, but it is not believed that the most affecting
dramas are more often enacted in the heart of the citizen who daily passes
us by unnoticed, than upon the stage.

The neurosis is an unsuccessful attempt of the individual to solve in his
own bosom the sexual question which perplexes the whole of human society.
The neurosis is a disunity in one's inmost self. The cause of this inward
strife is because in most men the consciousness would gladly hold to its
moral ideal, but the subconsciousness strives toward its (in the present-day
meaning) immoral ideal. This the consciousness always wants to deny. These
are the sort of people who would like to be more respectable than they are
at bottom. But the conflict may be reversed; there are people who
apparently are very disreputable, and who do not take the slightest pains to
limit their sexual pleasures. But looked at from all sides this is only a
sinful attitude, adopted, God knows for what grounds, because in them, back
of this, there is a soul, which is kept just as much in the subconsciousness
as the immoral nature is kept in the subconscious of moral men. (It is best
for men to avoid extremes as far as possible, because extremes make us
suspect the contrary.)

This general explanation was necessary in order to explain to some extent
the conception of the erotic conflict in analytical psychology. It is the
turning-point of the entire conception of the neurosis.

After Breuer's discovery, putting into practice the "chimney sweeping" so
justly christened by his patient this method of treatment has evolved into
shorter psychoanalytical methods, which we will now discuss in succession in
their main points.

In his use of the primitive method, Freud depended upon the time saving of
hypnotism and upon the circumstance that many could not be brought into the
desired deep degree of provoked sleep. The aim of this operation was to call
up in the patient another state of consciousness, in which it would be
possible for him to remember facts which had given cause for the origin of
the phenomena, facts which thus far had remained hidden from the ordinary
daily consciousness. By questioning the patient when in this state, or by
spontaneous production of phantasies communicated by the patient while in
hypnosis, memories come to light and affects connected with them are relaxed
(these are abreagirt [rearranged], as the expression is) and the desired
cure is attained. This just-mentioned method (cathartic, cleansing) and
more especially the modified one, which aims especially at the promotion of
a spontaneous production of phantasies communicated by the patient while
under hypnotism, is still used in practice by some investigators. In what
follows we go still further back--Freud next sought for a method to render
hypnotism unnecessary. He discovered it by applying an artifice which he
had seen Bernheim use during a visit (1887) to the latter's clinic at Nancy.
Bernheim demonstrated upon a hypnotized patient how the amnesia of the
somnambulist is only an appearance.

With this aim in view, Freud from then on ceased to hypnotize his patients
and substituted for that method, "spontaneous ideas." This means that when
the analysis of a patient who is awake is obstructed, and has come to a dead
stop, he is told to communicate anything which comes into his mind, no
matter what idea, what thought, even if the thing were very queer to him or
seemed meaningless. In the material thus obtained the thread should be found
leading to the semi-forgotten, the thing hidden in the consciousness. In
single cases--where the resistance toward bringing into consciousness the
forgotten or repressed thing, the complex, was slight--this method of
treatment very quickly attains its end, but in others where the resistance
was greater, the spontaneous ideas merely brought about indirect
representations, mere allusions as it were to the forgotten element. Here
favorable results either were not so readily obtained, or else were entirely
lacking. In conjunction with this, Freud planned a simple method of
interpretation by means of which, from the material thus obtained, the
repressed complexes could be brought to consciousness.

Independently of Freud, the Zurich school (Bleuler, Jung) had planned the
association method in order to penetrate into the patient's
subconsciousness. The value of this method is chiefly a theoretical
experimental one; it leads to an orientation of large circumference, but
necessarily superficial in regard to the subconscious conflict (complex).

Freud compares its importance for the psychoanalyticus; with the importance
of the qualitative analysis for the chemist.

Not being completely satisfied with his method of spontaneous ideas Freud
sought shorter paths to the subconscious, and therefore undertook the study
of the dream-life (dealing with forgetfulness, speaking to one's self,
making mistakes, giving offense to one's self, and with superstition and
absent-mindedness, and the study of word quibbles taken in their widest
sense), to all of which we are indebted for the possession of his three
important books: "Die Traumdeutung?" (First edition 1900, third edition
1912); "Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens" (1901-1907); "Der Witz und
seine Bedeutung zum Unbewussten" (1905).

Because of the discovery of the repressed and the forbidden in the soul
life, the instructions contained in the three last-named works are of great
importance and of help to us in the study of the spontaneous ideas of the
patient brought to light by free association. But what is of more importance
for analysis is the study of what may well be termed Freud's masterpiece,
"Die Traumdeutung."

Jung expresses himself as follows in regard to Freud's ingenious discovery.

"It can be said of the dream that the stone which was despised by the
architect has become the corner-stone. The acorn of the dream, of the
ephemeral and inconsiderable product of our soul, dates from the earliest
times. Before that, men saw in the dream a prophecy for the future, a
warning spirit, a comforter, a messenger of the gods. Now we join forces
with it in order to explore the subconscious, to unravel the mysteries which
it jealously guards and conceals. The dream does this with a completeness
which amazes us. Freud's exact analysis has taught that the dream as it
presents itself to us, exhibits merely a facade, which betrays nothing of
the inmost part of the house. But where, by attention to certain rules we
are able to bring the dreamer to express the sudden ideas awakened in him in
talking over the sub-division of his dream, then it very quickly appears
that the sudden ideas follow a determined direction, and are centralized
about certain subjects, possessing a personal significance and betraying a
meaning, which in the beginning would not have been suspected back of the
dream, but which stand in a very close symbolical relation, even to details,
to the dream facade. This peculiar thought-complex, in which all the threads
of the dream are united, is the looked-for conflict in a certain variation
which is determined by the circumstances. What is painful and contradictory
in the conflict is so confused here that one can speak of a
wish-fulfillment; let us, however, immediately add that the fulfilled wishes
apparently are not wishes, but are such as frequently are contradictory to
them. As an example let us use the case of a daughter who inwardly loves her
mother and dreams that the latter is dead, much to her sorrow. Dreams like
this are frequent. The contents make us think as little as possible of a
wish-fulfillment, and so one might perhaps get the idea that Freud's
assertion--that the dream presents in dramatic form a subconscious wish of
the dreamer--is unjust.

That happens because the non-initiated does not know how to differentiate
between manifest and latent (evident and hidden) dream contents. Where the
conflict worked over in the dream is unconscious, the solution, the wish
arising from it, is also unconscious. In the chosen example, the dreamer
wished to have the mother out of the way; in the language of the
subconscious it says: I wish that mother would die. We are aware that a
certain part of the subconscious possesses everything which we can no longer
remember consciously, and especially an entirely thoughtless, childish wish.
One can confidently say that most of what arises from the subconscious has
an infantile character, as does this so simple sounding wish: "Tell me,
father, if mother died would you marry me?" The infantile expression of a
wish is the predecessor of a recent wish for marriage, which in this case we
discover is painful to the dreamer. This thought, the seriousness of the
included meaning is, as we say, "repressed into the subconscious" and can
there necessarily express itself only awkwardly and childishly, because the
subconscious limits the material at its disposal, preferably, to memories of
childhood and, as recent researches of the Zurich school have shown, to
"Memories of the race," stretching far beyond the limits of the individual.

It is not the place here to explain by examples the territory of
dream-analysis so extraordinary composed; we must be satisfied with the
results of the study; dreams are a symbolical compensation for a personally
important wish of the daytime, one which had had too little attention (or
which had been repressed).

As a result of the dominant morals, wishes which are not sufficiently
noticed by our waking consciousness and which attempt to realize themselves
symbolically in the dream are as a rule of an erotic nature. Therefore it is
advisable not to tell individual dreams in the presence of the initiated,
because dream symbolism is transparent to one acquainted with its
fundamental rules. Therefore we have always to conquer in ourselves a
certain resistance before we seriously can be fitted for the task of
unraveling the symbolical composition by patient work. When we finally
comprehend the true meaning of a dream then we at once find ourselves
transposed into the very midst of the secrets of the dreamer and to our
amazement we see that even an apparently meaningless dream is full of sense
and really bears witness of extremely important and serious things
concerning the soul-life. This knowledge obliges us to have more respect for
the old superstition concerning the meaning of dreams, a respect which is
far to seek in our present-day rationalistic era.

Freud correctly terms dream-analysis the royal road which leads to the
subconscious; it leads us into the most deeply hidden personal mysteries
and, therefore, in the hand of the physician and the educator is an
instrument not to be too highly valued.

The opposition to this method makes use of arguments which chiefly (as we
will observe, from personal motives) originate in the still strongly
scholastic bent, which the learned thought of the present-day exhibits. And
dream-analysis is precisely what inexorably lays bare the lying morals and
the hypocritical pose of men, and now for once makes them see the reverse
side of their character. Is it to be wondered at that many therefore feel
as if some one were stepping on their toes?

Dream-analysis always makes me think of the striking statue of worldly
pleasure which stands before the cathedral at Basel. The front presents an
archaic sweet smile, but the back is covered with toads and snakes.
Dream-analysis reverses things and allows the back side to be seen. That
this correct picture of reality possesses an ethical value is what no one
can contradict. It is a painful but very useful operation, which demands a
great deal from the physician as well as from the patient. Psychoanalysis
seen from the standpoint of therapeutic technic consists chiefly of numerous
analyses of dreams; these in the course of treatment, little by little,
bring what is evil out of the subconsciousness to the light and submit it to
the disinfecting light of day, and thereby find again many valuable and
pretendedly lost portions of the past. It represents a cathartic of especial
worth, which has a similarity to the Socratic "maieutike," the "obstetric."
From this state of affairs one can only expect that psychoanalysis for many
people who have taken a certain pose, in which they firmly believe, is a
real torture, because according to the ancient mystic saying: "Give what you
have, then shall you receive!" They must of their own free will offer as a
price their beloved illusions if they wish to allow something deeper, more
beautiful and more vast to enrich them. Only through the mystery of
self-sacrifice does the self succeed in finding itself again renewed.

There are proverbs of very old origin which through the psychoanalytical
treatment again come to light. It is surely very remarkable that at the
height to which our present-day culture has attained this particular kind of
psychic education seems necessary, an education which may be compared in
more than one respect with the technic of Socrates, although psychoanalysis
goes much deeper.

We always discover in the patient a conflict which at a certain point is
connected with the great social problems, and when the analysis has
penetrated to that point, the seemingly individual conflict of the patient
is disclosed as the conflict, common to his environment and his time.

Thus the neurosis is really nothing but an individual (unsuccessful to be
sure) attempt to solve a common problem It must be so, because a common
problem, a "Question" which plunges the sick man into misery is--I can't
help it--"the sexual question," more properly termed the question of the
present-day sexual moral.

His increased claim upon life and the joy of life, upon colored, brilliant
reality, must endure the inevitable limitations, placed by reality, but not
the arbitrary, wrong, indefensable limitations which put too many chains
upon the creative spirit mounting from out the depths of animal darkness.
The nervous sufferer possesses the soul of a child, that arbitrary
limitation which represses and the reason for which is not understood. To be
sure it attempts to identify itself with the morals, but by this it is
brought into great conflict and disharmony with itself. On one side it
wishes to submit, on the other to free itself--and this conflict we speak of
as the neurosis.

If this conflict in all its parts were clearly a conscious one, then
naturally no nervous phenomena would arise from it. These phenomena arise
only when man cannot see the reverse side of his being and the urgency of
his problem. Only under these circumstances does the phenomena occur which
allows expression to the non-conscious side of the soul.

The symptom is thus an indirect expression of the nonconscious wishes,
which, were they conscious to us, would come into a violent conflict with
our conceptions of morals. This shadowy side of the soul withdraws itself,
as has once been said, from the control of the consciousness; by so doing
the patient can exert no influence upon it, cannot correct it and can
neither come to an understanding with it nor get rid of it, because in
reality the patient absolutely does not possess the subconscious passions.
Rather they are repressed from out the hierarchy of the conscious soul, they
have become autonomous complexes, which can be brought again into
consciousness only with great resistance through analysis. Many patients
think that the erotic conflict does not exist for them; in their opinion the
sexual question is nonsense; they have no sexual feeling. These people
forget that in place of that they are crippled by other things of unknown
origin. They are subject to hysterical moods, bad temper, crossness, from
which they, no less than their associates, suffer. They are tortured by
indigestion, by pains of every sort, and are visited by the whole category
of other nervous phenomena. They have this in place of what they lack in the
sexual territory, because only a few are privileged to escape the great
conflict of civilized man of the present day. The great majority inevitably
takes part in this common discord.

As specimens of dream-analysis I will give resumes of two histories of
illness told me by Dr. Jung.

ANALYSIS AND CURE OF A CASE OF NERVOUS PROSTRATION

A twenty-year-old banker's son, from a large city in Hungary, suddenly grew
sick two years ago, shortly after his father had suffered an attack of
apoplexy and paralysis of the right side. He is spiritless, restless, not
able to work, cannot use his right arm to write, is powerless to put his
attention on anything, sleeps badly, etc. No treatment has any helpful
effect. He is advised to seek distraction in Paris, but this, too, is of no
avail. Then, after months of torture, he came to Zurich to Dr. Jung, who
subjected him to analysis. At the second visit the patient behaved extremely
mysteriously; he was much disturbed and appeared to be under the influence
of an anxious dream, which he had dreamt that night. It required some effort
to induce him to tell this dream, and it was only after he had convinced
himself that no one could listen in the hall, that this story, not without
emotion, came out.

"I see in a vault a coffin in which my father lies, and I beside him; in
vain I attempt to remove the lid, and in my horrible fear I awake."

Some days were employed with the analysis of this dream. The explanation of
it is: he has a very strong father-complex. From childhood up he has always
been with his father, he has assumed the role of his father's wife, has
cared for him, lived for him. He often reproached his mother for not making
enough of the father, for not always cooking his favorite dish, for
sometimes contradicting him, etc. He was always around with his father,
worked at his office, served him in all sorts of ways, and anticipated all
his wishes. Now, when the father suddenly became an invalid, the conflict
arose. He identifies himself with the father. His father's invalidism

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