A study of the dream in the light of these facts will show how perfectly the dreaming mind appears to have "taken advantage of" them-in reality following cues along the lines of least resistance.
THE DREAM AS A RESPONSE TO A CUE
The Scratch-Reflex dream is then to be reconstituted first of all as a memory-reaction determined by factors of recency, frequency and intensity in the dreamer's experience. The operation of these factors determines the evocation of a specific context or apperception-mass, namely the conversation in question, whose affinity with the external stimulus (scratching) is now made evident. The course of events can be followed so concretely as to permit the logical exclusion of other supposed determinants; confining the explanation as stated. The principle of the parsimony of causes is here applied. I contend that the dream is neither an infantile nor a sexual wish-fulfilment, all plausible analogies to the contrary notwithstanding. Should anyone wish to urge the more remote interpretations which I first manufactured, then the burden of proof rests with him. And no proof is conclusive that rests on mere precedent or on mere reasoning by analogy. The only psychological proof of an interpretation is fundamentally the ability of the interpreter to reconstitute the dream beyond peradventure. This I propose to accomplish more in detail, showing the dream to be a reaction to specific cues, through a process of trial-and-error, and to a limited degree, of trial and success.
TRIAL PERCEPTS
Consider the sequence of events: the dream pictures are all related, at least individually, to the conversation in question: microscope, slide, reflex and "scratchiness" are all so many pictures jig-sawed out from this very context or apperception-mass. The scratching sensation, we must suppose, evoked these pictures serially, in the order stated. If these images were what the psychologist calls "trial percepts," we would expect from them just what we do find, namely, an increasing degree of correspondence (relevancy) between the stimulus-idea and the images, as they appear.[33] Precisely so, the images of microscope, slide, reflex and scratchy handwriting, as they successively come into focus, conform more and more to the nature of the stimulus, until the approximation ends in the idea of an all-absorbing interest in "scratchy" marks. This visual image hardly reaches precision before it becomes translated and transposed to the tactile field of my ear; smoothly, as if it were one magic lantern view dissolving into another. In fine, the presentation of each image in the dream amounts to a groping effort of the dreamer's nervous system to find a proper experiential EQUIVALENT for the arriving stimulus. It is a trial-and-error method of perceiving or apperceiving a stimulus by marshelling associated ideas; in this case they are serially evoked; (what might be called "oniric echelon"); in other cases the trial apperceptions are blended smoothly (oniric fusion) or heaped together in rough-and-tumble fashion, a kind of confusion (conveniently called "oniric entassement") which testifies sufficiently to the failures of the Unconscious t o dispose smoothly of arriving excitations, and so emphasizes; the theory of trial-and-error, as applied to dreams.
APPERCEPTIVE DELAY IN TRIAL-AND-ERROR PROCESS
The delay in arriving at the correct apperception of the stimulus may be referred to as "finding-time" or simply as apperceptive delay. It represents time occupied with the reproduction of erroneous apperceptive images-apperceptive errors. Meanwhile the stimulus-idea, that mental element most closely connected with the original stimulus, is operating somewhere in the brain, determining the evocation of the secondary images that appear in the dream.[33] This wire-pulling is done in the dark; the primary stimulus-idea is not itself imaged, at first; neither is the context or apperception-mass which meets it half-way, that is, becomes conjoined with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, the images that come into the dream are only emerging peaks of a submerged island of memory. What shall emerge is determined by the interplay of stimulus-idea and apperception-mass, below the level of consciousness. (A and Z are working together.)
The particular "island of memory" in this case, was an impression of the talk with Dr. X., about histology, reflexology and dream interpretation; it remained subliminal, evidently, except so far as portions of it were raised above the threshold by the reproductive energy of the stimulus of scratching. Necessarily, a process of imageless thought had taken place, whereby the conversation was brought into play as a sub-excited apperception-mass or setting-of-ideas for the stimulus-idea. Furthermore, another process of imageless thought must have taken place whereby the secondary images being raised into consciousness attained to their arrangement as a wish-phantasy, without that preliminary tuning-up which the principal cue (scratching) called forth, on its own account. This remains to be explained.
THE INCIDENTAL WISH-FULFILMENT
The dream, viewed as a mere wish-fulfilment, is plainly a successful allegory. While the action of the principal cue or immediate stimulus had served to evoke the apperception-mass or context out of which this wish-phantasy was constructed, at the same moment, there was an ulterior influence at work, dictating a process of re-arrangement of the secondary images, so as to give expression to my preference for reflexology as against histology. Besides, the ground appears to have already been so well prepared that we can readily explain the absence of evident signs of trial-and-error. For in dreaming that I look away from the microscope and turn with intensive interest to the reflex, I was still only giving effect to a preference which had already attached the emotions of liking and dislike, to these two objects of thought, respectively. The creative fancy in this instance, what Hobbes[34] called the FICTION of the mind, has a very simple task to work upon: achieving the imaginary satisfaction of unadjusted feelings regarding the mental conflict between histology and reflexology. The MICROSCOPE is accordingly reproduced naively with an "endeavor fromward" attached to it, and likewise the REFLEX, with an "endeavor toward" it.[*] Thus is the expression completed of a wish which had been partially outspoken in the conversation with Dr. X.
[*] Hobbes, "Leviathan," Cap. VI: "These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called ENDEAVOUR. This endeavour,. when it is toward something which causes it, is called APPETITE, or DESIRE; ... And when the endeavour is fromward something, it is generally called AVERSTON. These words appetite and aversion, we have from the Latins, and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So do also the Greek words for the same, which are Horme and Aphorme."
In this connection, I beg leave to suggest that these Greek terms are more usefully applied to dreams and to the passions in general, in their uncomplicated primitive sense, rather than in the new way that Dr. C. G. Jung is suggesting for Horme, as a companion word for Libido or for elan vital. For several years, I have found it useful to employ the coined adjectives hormetic and aphormetic to characterize the tendencies fromward or toward, as exhibited in the association of ideas. For example, in the Scratch Reflex dream, there is shown an aphormetic tendency regarding the microscope and a hormetic tendency regarding the reflex.
While the external physical stimulus (scratching) must be thought of as being represented dynamically somewhere in the arrival platforms of the brain, it is necessary to think of the internal psychic stimulus (or wish) as existing in the form of facilitations, or ready-made connections of ideas and motives, as it were awaiting, in a state of mobilization, the proper signal to discharge into consciousness. The expression of the wish thus became accessory to the apperception of the principal cue. The accessory wish-cue wrought its effect coetaneously, during the apperceptive delay.
Granted the correctness of this explanation, does it not clearly conform to the statement of Emerson that "dreams are the maturation often of opinions not consciously carried out to statements, but whereof we already possessed the elements."[*]
[*] Emerson, R. W., "Lectures and Biographical Sketches," Vol. X, Complete Works, p. 8; Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1904.
THE PERSEVERATION OF THE UNADJUSTED
In the foregoing words of Emerson, there is brought to bear on dreams an energic conception of mind-action similar to that which Hobbes had developed in his Leviathan in 1651. The latter, by analogy with conceptions of mechanical inertia new in his time, had compared the persevering effect of nervous stimuli to the continued agitation of waves of the sea after a storm: "When a body is once in motion, it moveth, unless something else hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, quite extinguish it; and as we see in water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of man, then, when he sees, dreams, et cetera." (Cap. II)
The Delage-Woodworth conception that dreams are due to persevering effects of unadjusted mental elements is not, therefore, entirely novel; but is itself a maturing of opinions which have been more or less loosely entertained by writers on dreams since Hobbes first formulated the modern doctrine of the association of ideas,-not to go back any further. The fertility of the conception of the "perseveration of the unadjusted" has been emphasized in my mind by illustrations obtained by an extended study of the dreams of normal people, and notably, by the agreement of my conclusions with those of Professor Woodworth and of Dr. Morton Prince. And I am led to believe that a development of this conception should harmonize with accepted principles of psychology, normal and abnormal, as formulated in Ladd and Woodworth's text-book, and in Prince's "The Unconscious."
Greater precision must be conferred upon this conception by showing specifically in what ways, and by what associative mechanisms, the persevering and unadjusted stimuli evoke the dream-images. Granting that unadjusted stimuli persist in their effects upon dream life, or in other terms, that primary stimulus-ideas may evoke secondary dream-images, and so on unto the third and fourth "generations;" then, in what manner does the process go on or come to an end? The answer to this question is an eminently practical one, to which Psycho-analysis has already brought the complication of its own still immature formulation of Ab-reaction and of Catharsis.[35] The matter still requires further study. In particular, it is necessary to formulate, through specific examples, a conception which shall be the pendant or complement of the theory of the perseveration of the unadjusted, and which I will call the "resolution of the unadjusted."
Already, I have taken the preliminary steps in this direction by adopting the physiological conception of trial percepts and applying it to dream interpretation. As a result, I have come to regard the successive evocations of imagery in the dream and even their reciprocal adaptations under the influence of creative fancy, as being trial apperceptions or attempted responses to one or more cues, either sensory or psychic.
RESOLUTION OF THE UNADJUSTED
The operation of any cue, waking or sleeping, implies the endeavor of the organism to provide a channel of escapement for the nervous excitation emanating from the stimulus. The best channels, of course, are furnished by those neurograms, or vestiges of previous experience, originally constellated with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, as in the Scratch-Reflex dream, we find that the stimulus does immediately tend to pass into such channels. But the same example shows that it takes time for the excitation to raise into consciousness the image most closely related to, or agglutinated with, the stimulus; this being, no doubt, due to the passive inertia in the corresponding neurogram. Meantime, during the apperceptive delay, the energy spills over into less appropriate neurograms, albeit they are more quickly mobilized, with the result of evoking bizarre imagery; what I have called trial apperceptions.[36] Sometimes, too, this is adequate to meet the situation; for the resolution of the unadjusted is complete so soon as the stimulus is drained off, re-distributed and dynamically absorbed, as in the case of mechanical "lost motion." A useful and intelligent solution is by no means requisite: mere rambling often suffices.
Yet in sleep the process of trial-and-error may often result in highly constructive resolutions, as in what the French call reve utile. This is especially true in case the unadjusted cues are highly persistent psychic stimuli. Here, the excitation rises instead of seeming to wear down and can be followed in its working up, through trial-and-error, to the elaboration of a more or less logical response to the demands of the mental situation;-after which, the excitation appears to trouble the sleeper no further. Unfortunately, time does not permit my giving the examples I would like of the varieties of resolutions in dreams-with their every degree of relevancy and irrelevancy, of a propos and bizarrerie. Instead, I will briefly dwell on a suggestive example of mental adjustment to specific cues, in the waking state.
A Japanese poetess is asked to combine into one word-picture the ideas of a triangle, of a square and of a circle. After a short pause, taken up (as we may believe) by what Ernst Mach calls the conflict of ideas, and which I think of as imageless trials and errors, the poetess evolves the following phantasy: "Detaching one corner of the mosquito netting, lo, I behold the moon." This resolution left nothing to be desired.
All resolutions of problems, of riddles, of charades, and, according to my experience, most dreams if not all, represent a trial-and-error method of working out a reconciliation among unadjusted mental tendencies, the goal of which is illustrated by the case of the Japanese poetess. Dreams, however, usually exhibit only the preliminary efforts. Those are hidden in this example, which stands midway between the severe reasoning of Euclid and the free-play of a dreamer's response to the reproductive tendencies playing upon his memory.
As to the theory of the resolution of the unadjusted, I must resist the temptation to dwell on its many attractive phases, in bringing this discussion to a close. One of its neglected aspects, however, may be indicated within the present context, by remarking upon the feeling of incompleteness that would at this stage, be left in the mind of the hearer, if I should make an end, abruptly, like a phonograph stopped in the middle of a tune. My discourse would inevitably be left at loose ends, owing to the persistency of a number of questions which have been raised, agitated, but not fully set at rest. These would continue to act as so many persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas. These are embodied in the feeling we now have, that a summary should be made of what has gone before concerning the Scratch-Reflex dream and the various methods of interpreting it. Thus, our "unfinished feeling" represents in itself an obscure demand for a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake-as I trust you all still remain. The present demand for the resolution of the unadjusted must be met without going deeper into the theory of the matter.[37]
THE RECONSTITUTION SUMMARIZED
Accordingly, I will now point out the fact that the analysis of the Scratch-Reflex dream has been carried to the stage where the dream stands reconstituted as follows:-
It is an attempt of the nervous mechanism to resolve a specific sensory stimulus-idea (A) by the discharge of nervous energy into a previously prepared or "facilitated" set-of-the-mind or context (Hidden Z). This, in the premises, happened to possess associative affinity for the stimulus, and was therefore, by the same token, chosen, i. e., brought into play, as a spillway for the stimulus. The secondary images (C) in the dream, evoked by the derivation of excitement through the channels of the given context (conversation with Dr. X.) are explained as forming-in the order of their appearance- a chain of apperceptive pictures, or trial-and-error series, whose links or steps approximate gradually to the characteristic features of the primary stimulus-idea (scratching sensation). But while regarding this immediate influence as the principal cue to memory (calling it A), we must admit an ulterior influence or motive-power, itself in the nature of an accessory cue, namely a wish (B), revived along with the memory of the conversation. This wish (to substitute reflexology for histology) contributes a special configuration or phantastic, wishful arrangement to the group of successive trial apperceptions called forth by the physical stimulus (A). The corresponding motives of desire and of aversion, (concisely pictured as positive interest in the reflex and disinterest in the microscope), although seeming to spring out of the system of memories (Z), which form the context, are none the less separate from it as self-acting sources of stimulus, as a wish apart from the mere brute memory of the talk about reflexes. The wish is thus an accessory cue (B) operating in conjunction with the external stimulus, although revived by the energy of the latter. In this case, the imaginary wish-fulfilment achieves an immediate, though limited, success. Correspondingly, it does not exhibit on its own account the feature of trial-and-error which we have learnt to recognize in the working of the unadjusted sensory stimulus (scratching).
While this dream does not exemplify trial-and-error processes in response to a psychic cue, it is proper to state that the same mechanism can be demonstrated in the more purely psychic dreams, as well as in this one, wherein we have followed the trial apperceptions of a stimulus, from their incipience, to the point of awaking to a conscious recognition of the source of excitation. Moreover, by a more delicate and intricate use of the reconstitutive method it is possible to discover the stimulus-ideas in those cases where the dreamer is not able to testify to their character, as I was in this simple instance; purposely chosen, I may add, to outline the method in its simplest aspect.
According to the reconstitutive method, a dream is sufficiently interpreted and explained by having formulated the operation of the several specific factors, as in the foregoing example; that is, no preconceptions as to content or meaning or transcendental symbols are imported into this sort of purely mechanistic interpretation.
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC DILEMMA
Unfortunately, the psycho-analyst, if he applies the current conceptions of symbolism, may well doubt whether the reconstitution has gone far enough, and whether ALL the stimulus-ideas, or all the wish-factors have been found. This is because he does not make it a rule to check up his guesses as to meaning, by specific investigations of the settings-of-ideas, by auscultating the so-called "fringe of thought," or by laying out crucial tests for his own hypothesis in the given case. Such methods, which belong no less to general psychopathology than to the reconstitutive method, do not leave one free to argue from analogy; a privilege which most psycho-analysts enjoy, and have been known to abuse, as Freud and Jung themselves have done.
It follows that one might properly expect the psychoanalyst to dwell especially upon the seemingly phallic "symbols" in the Scratch-Reflex dream, which could be made out in the geometrical features of the microscope and cover-glass. He would thus, as I have shown, be led to unearth a sexual motive-which might be a mare's nest. This searching for sexual symbolism on a purely a priori basis, when no evidence internal or external, and no real clues to a sex idea exist, may become a mere obsession, a habit of interpretation which is not scientific at all. Unable to distinguish the subconscious operation of a non-sexual context, from that of the more familiar sexual context, the interpreter is at the mercy of superficial resemblances between the properties of the dream-objects and those of the well-known sexual symbols. The ambiguity which has resulted from this condition of affairs, maintains the Psychoanalytic Dilemma: that of not knowing when to stop in apperceiving sexual allusions. Indeed, it is part of the interpretative policy of psycho-analysts not to exclude sexual meanings, in case of doubt; but rather to take the sexual sense for granted.
How far this policy has been carried may perhaps be suggested by the following instance: A well-known physiological psychologist, attempting to show the absurdity of extreme sexual interpretations, remarked to a well-known psycho-analyst that even the geometry of Euclid would, according to the methods under criticism, be open to the imputation of sexual motive. To this the psycho-analyst replied that he did not feel at all sure that Euclid might not have been inspired to write his Geometry by the sexual ideas which men have, from time immemorial, embodied in circles and triangles and diameters.-This instance, be it said, implies no criticism of Psycho-analysis beyond the fact that its conception of symbols in dreams and elsewhere is transcendental and historical rather than truly psychological as it purports to be; a state of opinion which the use of the reconstitutive method is calculated to correct.
The difference between the psycho-analytic methods and the reconstitutive method, in a given case, is that the former assume the validity of sexual symbolism unless it can positively be proved absent, which is rarely attempted; whereas, the reconstitutive method assumes no symbolism and no meaning to be present in the mind of the dreamer except as the probability can be demonstrated by specific investigations and inferences as to the interplay of CUES and CONTEXTS or apperception-masses. Moreover, a special technique is used to study the "fringe."[1]
Reverting for a moment to the sexual interpretations of the Scratch-Reflex dream that I manufactured by applying the Freudian ready-made symbolism, and, again, by imitating the constructive fancy of Jung; they must both be judged as having no merit beyond, perhaps, that of coinciding with inherent probabilities in the premises. That is, what they purport to reveal might be made out of whole cloth to fit almost any unmarried man, barring a few individual adaptations, to suit the known circumstances of the dreamer. As these interpretations stand, they do not fit the psychogenesis of the dream. They are rank confabulations on my part; yet they appear to hold water, psychoanalytically.
Enough has been said to suggest, I think, that while Dr. Freud may be honored as the father of dream analysis, with Dr. Jung as its foster-father, yet, to neither of these gentlemen of psycho-analytic fame should be conceded the right to bring up the "child!" That is a task for the psychologist, because he can afford to go deeper into normal processes than has so far been possible in psycho-analytic practice. But he must take pains to employ those scientific methods which comport the rigorous application of logic even to the vagaries of dreams, and the rejection of the argument from mere authority. Of such methods, the exemplars are to be found only among those writers who today are worthily carrying forward the mechanistic traditions originated by Descartes. In so far as psycho-analysts depart from these traditions and, relying on the authority of their leaders, follow them into metaphysical speculations about the Libido, and transcendental notions of symbolism, they are wandering on ground full of pitfalls to common sense.
SUMMARY
The question here considered is whether dream interpretations shall represent the state of the dreamer's mind or the mere fancy of the interpreter. Criticism is directed at the aprioristic and oftentimes hit-or-miss practices of the Vienna and Zurich schools of Psycho-analysis.
For illustration, a simple dream is interpreted by the current methods of Psycho-analysis: first, according to the "reductive method" of Freud, it is made out as symbolizing an infantile and sexual wish-fulfilment, expressing a "voyeur" component of the Libido. Secondly, the dream is re-interpreted by Jung's "constructive method" so as to gloss over the gross Freudian phallicism. It is now made to mean that the dreamer is impelled to higher biological duties, namely marriage and professional success.
The plausibility of these interpretations once shown, they are next proved to be wide of the mark, by the fact that the dream can be more adequately accounted for in another way, i. e., by a proposed "reconstitutive method." This method aims to "reconstitute" the dream-thought (both imaged and imageless) by tracing the wave of nervous excitation from its origin in primary stimulus-ideas (sensory or psychic) through a specific apperception-mass into a consequently derived system of secondary images, which form the manifest dream content. The derivation of the secondary images must be concretely followed through the authenticated channels of association-not assumed on the basis of "fixed symbolism," or any other a priori conception.
The reconstitution of this particular dream illustrates the reductio ad absurdum of the two previous psycho-analytic "solutions." The fact that either of them would apparently have satisfied the demands of the problem, is characterized as an artifact evolved through the interpreter's deliberate confabulation and forcing of analogy; thus causing the scant data of the dream to fall into artificial agreement with the preconceived notions of the Vienna and Zurich schools, respectively. As a guarantee of scientific accuracy, it is urged that the interpreter trace the process of imageless thought (Woodworth) back of the dream, and, in particular, seek the meaning in the Unconscious Settings-of-Ideas (Prince). The reconstitutive method is the extension of these two formulations from normal and abnormal psychology into the field of dream analysis, through the study of Individual Differences (Cattell) and the Application of Logic (Alfred Sidgwick).
It is not denied that Freud's dream theories serve very well to interpret a considerable proportion of common dreams; but the psycho-analytic technique embodies a fallacious assumption that there is a transcendental symbolizing activity in the Unconscious, as it were a language of dreams. This gives rise to a biased "will to interpret." The alleged meaning may thus often be the work of the interpreter's mind although not that in the dreamer's mind.
The reconstitutive method brings into relief the trial-and-error character of the dreaming process: the organism as attempting the physiological resolution of persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas. Psychologically speaking, the images evoked in the dream are called trial percepts or trial apperceptions of the stimulus-ideas, corresponding more or less closely to the latter; not through analogy necessarily, but through mere contiguity, as the case may be.
In certain cases, the erroneous apperceptions are observed to form a series of approximations to the correct apprehension of one of the stimulus-ideas at a time. In other cases, the apperceptive errors may take the form of a blended reaction to two or more cues, more or less perfectly achieved.
These mechanisms, when they go wrong, as they often do, produce the incoherency and bizarrerie of the dream; but they do not preclude a significant reconstitution of the process of which the dream is a by-product. Such reconstitutions require to be validated by specific tests and inferences, of such logical character as to bear comparison with the methodology of other sciences. The psychoanalytic arguments from analogy, from precedent and from authority are alike to be rejected.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. Emerson, R. W., "Demonology," 1839; Vol. X, Complete Works, 1904; Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston.
2. Freud, Sigmund, "Die Traumdeutung;" Three editions, 1900, 1909, 1911; Franz Deutike, Leipzig und Wien.