The World of Dreams
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: Havelock Ellis. New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1911. Pp. 281.
This contribution to the psychology of dreaming belongs mainly to the introspective group of dream studies and is based on notes taken during twenty years, chiefly of the author’s own dream experiences, though occasionally those of immediate friends are included. There are apparently as many well known authorities who believe that deep sleep is dreamless as there are those who contend that we dream during the whole period of sleep, only we fail to remember. There are even people, who, as far as they know, never dream at all, Lessing being a famous example of this type.
Mr. Ellis points out some facts about dreams, which we have all noticed, for instance, their kaleidoscopic character, the constant change and shifting of the dream image, the lack of voluntary attention, though all the characters of spontaneous attention are present, the absence in general of color and the confusion of imagery. In the chapter on the logic of dreams Mr. Ellis reminds us that in dreams we are always reasoning, forever trying to construct a coherent whole out of the most incongruous elements. According to the author, “the phenomena of dreaming furnishes a delightful illustration of the fact that reasoning in its rough form is only the crudest and most elementary form of intellectual operation, and that the finer forms of thinking involve much more than logic.”
The various stimuli to dreams are interestingly set forth, the different images evoked by sounds, touch or odors, heat or cold sensations and those arising from internal organic sensations.
Mr. Ellis believes the fundamental source of our dream life to be emotion; that the motor activities being mostly inhibited, the actions suggested by sensory excitation cannot be carried out and therefore the ensuing struggle is transmitted to the brain as a wave of emotion, with the result that in our dreams we weave theories to account for the unknown origin of these waves. That this unknown origin proves very often to be a source as humble as the stomach will be a shock to those who have exalted conceptions of the function of dreaming. Mr. Ellis differs with those writers who consider the facility and prevalence of murder and other crimes in dreams as proof of the innate wickedness of human nature made manifest in the unconstraint of sleep. He explains it as “the inevitable result of the mental dissociation which prevents many important groups of mental representations from finding their way into consciousness, and at the same time brings all our mental possessions on to the same plane, so that the things we have merely thought or heard of have the same visual reality as our own experiences.” It is interesting to hear that the real criminal tends to be peaceful and dreamless in his sleep and that such dreams as he has are usually of a simple and innocent sort. This seems eminently just and tends to afford a pleasing and harmless variety in the lives of the virtuous and the vicious, whereby the peaceful God-fearing citizen may experience the joy of murder without paying its penalty, while the unhappy murderer may find in dreams the peace and innocence he has lost. Inasmuch as Mr. Ellis holds that the most potent cause of dream criminality is a disturbed* or distended stomach, it would appear that criminals as a class are blessed with sound digestions.
In the well-known dreams of flying and falling Mr. Ellis points out that the respiratory element is the chief factor, though it is combined with another important element, cutaneous ansesthesia, or disappearance of the tactile sense. Often in those about to die the last sensation to which expression is given, is one of flying or moving upward. Thus, “out of dreams and dream-like waking states one of the most permanent of human spiritual conceptions has been evoked.” The chapter on symbolism in dreams is one of the most interesting parts of the book. To many it will come as a surprise that oneiromancy, the ancient art of interpreting dreams has a modern scientific exponent in Professor Sigmund Ereud of Vienna. This eminent psychologist contends that behind the symbolism of dreams, there lies always a wish, which tends to be really more or less of a sexual character, and that all dreams are purposive and significant. On the other hand Mr. Ellis does not believe that a single formula can cover all the manifold varieties of sleeping consciousness, and he presents his side in a very convincing manner.
The splitting up of a dreamer’s personality in order to construct other personalities is a well-recognized fact in dreams, and this resembles the process of dissociation so often found in hysteria. Sollier is quoted as saying that “hysteria is a condition allied to sleep, a condition of vigilambulism in which the patients are often unable to obtain normal sleep simply because they are all the time in a state of abnormal sleep.” The possible affinity between dreams and insanity is only touched upon as it offers a study by itself.
To every reader the chapter on dreams of the dead will have a certain poignant interest. Have we not all experienced the intense happiness of dreaming that our dead are alive? These dreams, Mr. Ellis points out, are due to a conflict of images, one, which comes from older and richer sources representing the friend as alive, while the other image, picturing the friend as dead is more poignant but being more recent is therefore more easily displaced or exhausted. It is not to be wondered at that such dreams had a marked influence on the primitive beliefs of men in a spirit world. As Mr. Ellis says “the repercussion of this kind of dream through unmeasured ages cannot fail to have told at last on the traditions of the race.”
One of the commonest of human failings is to be intensely interested in one’s own dreams, and extremely desirous of retailing them while the memory is still fresh and vivid, but it is equally and depressingly common to find one’s audience on such occasions concealing their boredom under the most perfunctory air of interest. Mr. Ellis tells us that once when a boy he gave pain by saying that it was foolish to tell one’s dreams, and that he has done penance for that remark ever since. The preceptors of my youth not only made this apparently regrettable statement in an even more forceful manner, but as far as I know never experienced any subsequent pangs of remorse. Hence, one of the pleasures Mr. Ellis’s book has bestowed is to give me back some trace of my old childish belief in the importance and interest of my dreams.
“The World of Dreams” is a book which should appeal to many minds, for its interest is based on experiences which we all share, and the manner of its telling is neither so simplified as to displease the scientists nor so technical as to discourage the laymen. E. E. W.
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