Dream Psychology

wont to build, in what Bleuler calls "autistic ways," that is through
methods in no wise supported by evidence, some attractive hypothesis,
which sprung from their brain, like Minerva from Jove's brain, fully
armed.

After which, they would stretch upon that unyielding frame the hide of a
reality which they had previously killed.

It is only to minds suffering from the same distortions, to minds also
autistically inclined, that those empty, artificial structures appear
acceptable molds for philosophic thinking.

The pragmatic view that "truth is what works" had not been as yet
expressed when Freud published his revolutionary views on the psychology
of dreams.

Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his
interpretation of dreams.

First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part
of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous
waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping
states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that
dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading
nowhere.

Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought,
after noting down all his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant
details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the
conclusion that there was in every dream the attempted or successful
gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious.

Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which
causes us to consider them as absurd and unintelligible; the
universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to
the trained observer.

Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our
unconscious, a part which puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to
minimize, if not to ignore entirely.

Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and
insanity, between the symbolic visions of our sleep and the symbolic
actions of the mentally deranged.

There were, of course, many other observations which Freud made while
dissecting the dreams of his patients, but not all of them present as
much interest as the foregoing nor were they as revolutionary or likely
to wield as much influence on modern psychiatry.

Other explorers have struck the path blazed by Freud and leading into
man's unconscious. Jung of Zurich, Adler of Vienna and Kempf of
Washington, D.C., have made to the study of the unconscious,
contributions which have brought that study into fields which Freud
himself never dreamt of invading.

One fact which cannot be too emphatically stated, however, is that but
for Freud's wishfulfillment theory of dreams, neither Jung's "energic
theory," nor Adler's theory of "organ inferiority and compensation,"
nor Kempf's "dynamic mechanism" might have been formulated.

Freud is the father of modern abnormal psychology and he established the
psychoanalytical point of view. No one who is not well grounded in
Freudian lore can hope to achieve any work of value in the field of
psychoanalysis.

On the other hand, let no one repeat the absurd assertion that Freudism
is a sort of religion bounded with dogmas and requiring an act of faith.
Freudism as such was merely a stage in the development of
psychoanalysis, a stage out of which all but a few bigoted camp
followers, totally lacking in originality, have evolved. Thousands of
stones have been added to the structure erected by the Viennese
physician and many more will be added in the course of time.

But the new additions to that structure would collapse like a house of
cards but for the original foundations which are as indestructible as
Harvey's statement as to the circulation of the blood.

Regardless of whatever additions or changes have been made to the
original structure, the analytic point of view remains unchanged.

That point of view is not only revolutionising all the methods of
diagnosis and treatment of mental derangements, but compelling the
intelligent, up-to-date physician to revise entirely his attitude to
almost every kind of disease.

The insane are no longer absurd and pitiable people, to be herded in
asylums till nature either cures them or relieves them, through death,
of their misery. The insane who have not been made so by actual injury
to their brain or nervous system, are the victims of unconscious forces
which cause them to do abnormally things which they might be helped to
do normally.

Insight into one's psychology is replacing victoriously sedatives and
rest cures.

Physicians dealing with "purely" physical cases have begun to take into
serious consideration the "mental" factors which have predisposed a
patient to certain ailments.