Psychoanalysis

ally in healthy, pleasant dreams, is s

e defy the law of gravitation and rise or soar with or without wings; we brave law and custom; we aband

n dreams through three processes, visual

ons than visual ones may be experienced in

t the dream is based primarily on a scene which is perceived visually, not

environment; the people who address us in dreams do not actually emit sounds but seem to communicate

to be compared to the gesticulation of primitive individuals who attempt to visualize everything they describe, indicating the length, height, bulk of ob

ort. And this explains the popularity of the movies, the enjoyment of which does n

Captions warn them of what they are going to see, that they may not misunderstand the meaning of any scene. The movie, like our unconscious, translates every thought into a visual sen

ll attract thousands of people, many more for instance, than free concerts in the open. Illustrated lectures appeal to more people than l

ength, height, volume, weight, hardness, coldness, etc. It is doubtful, however, whether we can imagine length without thin

order to be grasped, than concrete facts. A philosopher expounding his theories to an audience tires himself and the audi

hen we think of a house we select the essential characteristics of the various houses we have seen, the properties wherein a house essent

ing features of every one of them. We may see a dream character with th

having a beard and the latter being clean shaven and suffering from hip trouble, combi

nster with the head of a physician, the b

l which had the head of a t

combination of man's intelligence, the bull's strength and the bird's power of flight, the various Egyptian deities in whom the process was reversed, for so

hrough the symbolic representation

ns. Think of the expression "bats in the belfry," in which the complicated human head is replaced by an architectural detail much simpler in character and occupying in an edifice the same position which the he

on, the cross, which to the initiated and uninitiated alike signifies christianity. In many cases we do not even represent the cross as that instrument of tortur

t to one essential detail which has stru

a "bow-wow," because to his simple mind, ticking and barki

nt it by a house. The authority vested in the father and mother

l sum up the various dream symbols w

into water or some one climbing out of

king a journey, being dead

umbrellas, knifes, daggers, revolvers, plowshares, pencils, files, objects from which water flows, faucets, fou

contrary by hollow objects, pits,

by apples, peaches and fruit

ized by ploughed fi

of the various centuries draws upon the same material for the purpose of simplified representation. Differences in climate, fauna and flora are purely superficial. Dwe

e uninitiated and sceptical, dream symbols generally appear rather ludicrous fancies and not a few opponents of psy

ng them also to indicate through an appropriate gesture when the dream would begi

e subject and made

pset when she learnt that the man she loved was suffering from syphilis, was a

cannot distinguish is near me. I only feel the touch of a hand. I am very thirsty. I would like to sla

ple is quite typical of the symbolization

ethod saw me in a dream "carrying a fake refrigerato

ying in a deceptive way an assortment of

that the ideas are not ev

onths, he was unable to puzzle out its meaning. It expressed his mental state at the time and yet having made up

his doubts in most striking symbolism

. For in nightmares we may express a wish through a symbol which expresses it fitt

e published in the issue of the Journal of Mental and Nervous Disease for January, 1920, and which represents a hospital patient who has reached the lowest degree of infanti

olical of her regression to, not onl