The Analysis of Dreams.

The patient was astonished at his dream, being himself a most peaceable man. He was asked to say what was suggested by the name Charles. The word recalled several men of that name: first, a Dr. Charles Stuart, who was a dentist, and had a week before extracted a tooth from the mouth of the patient's wife, in his presence. The dentist, however, wore a beard, and the incident of tooth-extraction hardly seemed to account for the intense fear, the revengeful biting of the hand, and the tearing of the jaws of the dog. Dr. Jones therefore asked for other associations. The name Charles now recalled the Stuart kings, and then a former family doctor named Stuart Rankings, who had died when the patient was only nine years old. Finally, there came to mind "a very painful scene, previously quite forgotten, in which the doctor had roughly extracted two teeth from the terror-stricken patient, after forcibly gagging his mouth open; before he could accomplish this, the doctor had had his left-hand badly bitten. The date of this occurrence could, from extrinsic evidence, be referred to the patient's fifth year." Further analysis made it clear that the dream thoughts were all connected with this, to the child, terrifying experience, and the dream itself was accompanied by intense fear. "The assailant in the dream," concludes Dr. Jones,* "was no other than the doctor whose treatment of the patient was nearly thirty years after his death thus fearfully avenged in the dream. The play on his name, Stuart Rankings ('Rank-kings') which enabled him to become identified first with the Stuart King Charles" is quite characteristic of the play upon words so frequent in dreams.

The symbolising of the doctor by a dog is explained by the fact that he was a noted dog-fancier, and had given the patient a fine collie; also, he led a very irregular life, and the patient recalled that he had often heard his father refer to him as a "gay dog."

* Papers on Psycho-Analysis, p. 210.

It is especially noteworthy that the first natural interpretation of the dream, namely, that it was a mere recall of the recent tooth extraction by a man named Charles Stuart, would appear so plausible as to have satisfied the dreamer had he reflected unaided upon his dream.

Freud does, indeed, hold that some recent event usually serves to revive past experiences, which in some way can be associated with it, as was undoubtedlv the case in the above dream. But the prima facie explanation of this dream would obviously fail to account for the biting of the left hand, the feeling that the man's name was not really Charles, the intense fear and the impulse of revenge; it could only treat these as absurd and irrelevant additions. But they are, at least, more intelligible as the resultants of the terrifying experience of the little boy and of the repressed feelings of anger and revenge which no doubt accompanied it.

Unfortunately, as is well known, dreams are very rapidly forgotten, and the most definitely remembered elements of a dream are not usually those of the greatest value in interpreting the dream. The significant elements are more frequently those which are elusive and which may only be recalled in the effort to analyse and interpret the dream; and here there is always the danger that a tendency to fill in and to rationalise the dream may result in additions being made unknowingly by the person relating the dream. By many cases similar to that given above and to that of the young officer from claustrophobia, it is now clearly established that psycho-analysts, treating dreams in the way described, and especially being guided by the emotional element in the dream, have been able to recall long-lost memories, or to hit upon mental conflicts and repressions in the life of a patient of which he was not thoroughly aware himself, or which he did not realise were connected with his nervous trouble.

We shall refer to symbolism in dreams in the chapters on the psychology of dreams. Usually, the interpretation of symbols is at first received with utter scepticism. But there certainly seem to be some dreams which can be interpreted by means of the interpretation of symbols, and an experienced psycho-analyst can sometimes facilitate the interpretation of the dream by his knowledge of certain symbols fairly common in dreams, and of those peculiar characteristics of dream processes which we shall discuss later. The same symbol, however, does not invariably mean the same thing, but may have to be interpreted by the context.

Symbolism in Dreams.

We have seen that the analysis of a dream by reflection on the elements of the dream may result in the recall of forgotten experiences of an intensely emotional nature, the repression of which may be causing some nervous disorder, as was found in the case of the young officer suffering from claustrophobia. Dreams may also give a clue to mental conflicts due to present circumstances, or to recent events by no means forgotten.

The repetition of a dream with a similar general significance, even in different settings, may be of special importance in diagnosis. Thus a woman, who is struggling day by day against a growing hatred towards her husband, may give the clue to the analyst by the record of her dreams in which her husband, or more probably some one or something which symbolises him, suffers injury or death.* Or a melancholic, who repeatedly dreams of his own death, may thus betray a (repressed) tendency to commit suicide. Such dreams have, in a few cases, been actually known to be followed by the patient's death under circumstances which suggested suicide. There lies herein one of the great difficulties of the medical adviser. For by interpreting a dream as signifying an impulse towards suicide he may actually be suggesting suicide to the patient, and the suggestion of suicide does seem to be, capable of influencing some persons in certain moods. Against this danger, however, there is to be set the possibility that the psycho-analyst may be able to lay bare the obscure and perhaps forgotten cause of the morbid impulse towards suicide, to show its absurdity and to weaken its force or even expel it entirely from the mind.

Dreams and Mental Conflict.

* Compare the dream recorded on p. 99.

A word may be added as to the ease with which dreams are forgotten. This has been attributed to the repression of the memory of those experiences which are being partially re-lived in the dream, albeit in a disguised form, the repression being partially released in sleep, but returning again in waking life. This seems likely to be one main explanation of the rapid fading of many dreams. It must, however, be remembered that the dream material is usually arranged in a way quite contrary to the normal logical connectedness of waking life, and the difficulty of remembering disconnected items is well known. Furthermore, while many dreams, even when recalled and written down, are very readily forgotten, some persons seem to remember particular dreams in great detail, and striking dreams may be remembered for many years.

The Forgetting of Dreams.

Individual differences in this respect will prepare us for the view I shall put forward in a later chapter that many dreams seem to be of no great significance as a clue to repressions.