I want you to dream a dream. I want you to dream a plain, ordinary dream, and to dream it in the plain, ordinary way. If this dream is seemingly funny and senseless, so much the better (though these will be features that are beyond your control).

Perhaps, just because you are required to have this dream for subsequent experimental purposes, you will not be able to have it just when it is wanted; sooner or later, however, you will probably dream—just as you have done so many times before in your life.

When this dream occurs I want you to sit up in bed at once and write it down in all its details. Don't put off the task for a moment; if you do, there is great danger of your putting it off for ever, for in a moment or so you will probably be so comfortably snoozing again that, when you eventually arise, you may not even recollect that you had a dream.

Until you have this dream make it a practice to have paper and pencil at the head of your bed; also have lighting facilities handy.

When you do dream that dream, sit up in bed at once. Don't even wait for your eyes to get thoroughly open. Yes, you will be rather sleepy; in fact you will more than likely experience extremely strong mental resistances against making the necessary efforts to anchor the dream to the consciousness. There will be a tendency to formulate an excuse for not doing so, at least in relation to this particular dream; but you must persevere.

When you have dreamed the dream, turn on the light and go after it; write down every detail im­mediately; and write fast. If you don't move along quickly you are going to lose a lot of the dream's details and I want you to retain as many of them as possible.

When you have written down all the details that you can recall, go over the dream in your mind and visualize the various elements. Live the dream over again as vividly as possible.

When you are re-creating your dream in this wak­ing state, and are bringing your attention to bear upon all the dream elements, you are anchoring them to your consciousness.

You may have had many thousands of experiences when you have awakened in the morning after having had a vivid dream, but these have slipped off again into the unconscious depths. We don't want more slip­ping off than we can help in the case of this particular dream.

When you are writing down your dream, and are re-creating it in your waking consciousness, don't analyze or criticize anything. You will eventually want to analyze dreams very persistently and with much detail, but not at present.

I don't want you to think that this, that, or some other part of the dream is foolish or sensible, meaning­less or the opposite. Don't try to read any meanings into anything. Simply devote your energies to tying that dream fast to your conscious mind, so that some hours afterwards you will remember the dream ele­ments as vividly as you can remember some scene that happened in yesterday's waking experiences.

If this dream has occurred considerably before the usual time for getting up, you may go to sleep again— if you can. If you can't, well, it won't matter much for once anyway.

When you awaken at the usual rising time (you see that I have given you another nap), sit up in bed and grasp hold of that dream narrative immediately, and go over it again in detail. Try to visualize it as vividly as possible. In the dream there will be some vague parts which you will be unable to describe very clear­ly; but try to do so as well as you can, no matter how indefinite your description may transpire to be. If you have described a vague element with one set of words which are unsatisfactory, and you think that you could do better with another set, then do so; but preserve all such records.

Now you have anchored this dream to the con­sciousness fairly well. You can get up and go on with your daily routine, for you have put your dream into a sort of mental cold storage for future analysis, and it will be available for that purpose when you are ready for it.

That dream of yours is a message to your con­sciousness from your great unconscious mind; and if you can manage to decode it you will be the better for having done so.

There is some wish, fear, or undesirable inclination hidden behind the camouflage of those dramatized ideas; this wish, fear, or undesirable inclination will become revealed to your conscious understanding if you can manage to trace the line of connections that exists between the various elements in that dream and their sources in the unconscious.

Decoding a Dream

Just what will happen to you if you succeed in tracing your dream elements down to their uncon­scious sources, what you will find there, how you will recognize certain things, and how you will be able to take advantage of that which you discover, is rather hard to explain.

I will give an actual dream of my own, to describe how I decoded it, and how I found the hidden mean­ing of the dream.

I would like to make clear that, after you have managed to analyze some of your own dreams, and have traced their roots to their latent sources in the unconscious, you will not feel disposed to write many dream biographies for the edification of all and sun­dry. No, indeed! You will realize that the deciphering of a dream hieroglyphic is an extremely personal matter.

Here is my dream:

/ am in California. I want to have a prescription made up. I go to a certain familiar chemist and am told that in order to have my requirements supplied I shall have to go to Miles City, Montana. I am much perturbed, for MilesCity is a long distance away, and would entail a very tedious and expensive journey. Suddenly I decide to send a telegram; and I feel at once considerably relieved.

In order to analyze this dream I split it up into its elemental parts, and used those elements as stimulus ideas for developing flows of free associations.

The element prescription brought up into my con­sciousness the idea of ammoniated tincture of quinine, then the name of Sir William Broadbent (whom I remembered as having been quoted as an authority for saying that ammoniated tincture of quinine was very beneficial during the first epidemic of influenza in England many years ago). Then thoughts concern­ing a certain house (in relation to which I have some rather painful memories). Then of a certain univer­sity scene (in which some other person figured as a central actor, and my own position was that of an en­vying onlooker). Then recollections of a mine, fol­lowed by resurrected memories of a certain scene on the Northern Pacific Railway. Then a burst of re­membrances of experiences which occurred to me at Miles City, Montana, and which transpired twenty-seven years previously. When the Miles City mem­ories burst up into my consciousness, all the camou­flage   of   my   dream   symbolism   became   instantly wiped away. I had my unconscious message decoded.

Many years ago I worked for an old Cornish farmer for the magnificent stipend of sixteen cents a day.

My job during that winter was "trimming turnips." The technique of this profession consisted of going out into the field about seven o'clock in the morning, when the frost was nice and thick, pulling the aforesaid turnips out of the ground by their well frosted tops with one bare hand, while with the other I manip­ulated a "hook" for the purpose of cutting away the earthy roots.

Time flew and scenes changed; and nine years afterwards I found myself in Butte, Montana, work­ing as a miner. Then came an economic panic, with a consequent closing down of the mines. Hearing that some "first-class salesmen" were wanted, with applica­tions to be made at one of the business buildings in Butte, I applied, and in about eighteen minutes I went to work.

My job consisted of selling The Century Diction­ary, the very existence of which I was ignorant until the day before I started out to sell it. Just the way I went after all and sundry to invest eighty-nine dollars in that great lexicon certainly betrayed the possession of some considerable physical energy—to say nothing of mental presumption.

After about a month on the road I found myself at Miles City, Montana; and well do I remember spending about three hours one evening trying to sell an eighty-nine-dollar set of The Century Dictionary to a poor little schoolmarm whose monthly salary was probably not more than about fifty dollars.

It must be remembered that I had some of the selling points of this great dictionary fairly pat by this time; so much so, in fact, that even to this day I can hear myself jabbering about the etymology of the word the, and can re-create a mental picture of myself as I showed prospective purchasers how the roots of this commonly used word stretch back to the Sanscrit, etc. And with what sonorous enjoyment I would give an illustration of "the correct French accent" to such places as Champs-Elysees, etc. Yes, I was some sales­man. In fact, I had not been selling The Century for a very long period before I commenced sending sug­gestions of new definitions of certain terms and ex­pressions to the Company to be incorporated in some succeeding new edition. (That old Cornish farmer did not by any means manage to kill all the sources of an extremely fertile fount of nerve!)

When I thought that I had talked enough to my schoolmarm "prospect" I handed her my fountain-pen with an intimation as to the exact line on which she was to sign her name. The lady took the pen all right, but just before signing the order form she cas­ually remarked: "Mr. Ralph, if you were I, and you were earning only fifty dollars a month, would you buy this?"

Now I am going to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth; and my reply was: "Hell, no!"

I shall never forget the whimsical smile that that schoolteacher had on her face as she gave me back my fountain-pen, together with the unsigned order form. And then I went out into the night.

Two days later, when I was canvassing another lady "prospect," she told me that she had heard of me, and of how she envied me my knowledge of the English language. There were a few other remarks, also, along similar lines.

Now, just which side of me became swollen the most upon hearing these nice things I do not know. Maybe I became filled out fairly evenly all the way round. Such was probably the case. But before any harsh or satirical comments on my bumptiousness are indulged in by the reader, I will ask that it be remem­bered that I was not only human, but also a compara­tively young specimen of the breed.

Let us now change the scene a bit; a little jump of twenty-six years, to be exact; twenty-six years of going along a rather wearying trail, but one which became a little brighter as I went along.

Now, unless a child goes from its mother's breast to a suitable sphere of instruction, many little educa­tional kinks are apt to remain fixed in the mature personality;  and  as that turnip-trimming regime in Cornwall precluded Eton or Harrow from my educa­tional attainments, it is not to be wondered at that, down at the bottom of my heart (actively on the rampage in my unconscious, as a matter of fact), a certain trend of thoughts kept prodding my conscious attitude to the effect that I was handicapped in my educational armament for competing in the struggles of life.

Please don't grasp the idea that I went through life with an active grievance against anyone for this shortcoming of mine, or with any conscious sense of inferiority. On the contrary, I am afraid that I suc­ceeded in making up in sublime impudence for any in­tellectual shortcoming with which I might have been afflicted.

And now for the unconscious message in that dream of mine. On the day before the night in which it occurred, a gentleman called on me in connection with a business proposal, bringing with him a letter of introduction. He was courteous in manner, pleasing in personality, and business-like in attitude; but I sat back in my chair rather unimpressed—as far as the proposals of my caller were concerned, but very much impressed in another direction. My interviewer had only to speak a few words before I recognized that he was a cultured Englishman; a university man.

Here we were, then, the two of us. Ages about the same; and probably not much difference existing between our respective financial standings. Still, dur­ing the time in which I was trimming turnips for the old Cornish farmer for "eightpunce" a day my friend was probably at Eton or Harrow; and when I was inhaling bad air and powder smoke in a Butte copper mine, he was probably "up" at Oxford.

It is very necessary, however, that no erroneous conclusions are formed at this point, and that the psychology of the situation in question is properly apprehended. As a matter of fact, I have no idea as to what my conscious thoughts were at the particular interview in question. Probably, I didn't have any that were sufficiently distinct to lend themselves to either expression or definition. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious (by reason of the dream experience that was stimulated by the incident) that some very strong unconscious emotions were stirred into activity; and some form of aroused emotional trend is the motivat­ing influence in every dream.

As previously stated, dream solutions are not things about which one cares to shout as a rule; but I have to go on with this personal experience in order to make the lesson clear.

If the true thoughts of that great unconscious mind of mine could have been read at the time of the inter­view with the gentleman to whom I have referred, they would very likely be somewhat to the following effect:

"Yes, you have gone through Oxford all right; and you certainly have both ability and polish. But have you got very much farther along in the world than I have, after all? Even if your education did cost your father a couple of thousand pounds or so, at the least, have your benefits in life been proportionately high? On the contrary, I am not sure but that, in some things at least, I have greater accomplishments than you have; and if I have been able to do all this while climbing up out of a hole, so to speak, I am not sure but that my education is better than yours, after all," etc., etc.

As previously stated, I don't know what my thoughts were, either consciously or unconsciously; but without any doubt my unconscious thoughts were hostile to my visitor, and perhaps to the world in general. They were also egotistical.

Now then: why did my dream drama shed its camouflage as soon as the idea relating to Miles City, Montana, became linked up with this experience of the preceding day? In another chapter I will explain how and why the unconscious speaks in drama talk. Sufficient here to say that my anxiety to get my pre­scription made up was my repressed hostile thought concerning my educational shortcomings. I was a long, long way from any place (opportunity) where I could have my (educational) "prescription" made up (grat­ified), and I was accordingly distressed (cognizant of my shortcomings). I wanted that (mental) pre­scription made up (educational desires gratified), but the local facilities (usual avenues of education) were not available to me.

That "prescription" represented my educational longings.

I felt relieved when I realized that I could send a telegram to Miles City, Montana. That meant that I did not have to make a long and expensive journey to get my wishes (educational longings) gratified. It was not necessary (according to my dream gratifi­cation) for me to study for years at Harrow or Eton, and then to "go up" to Oxford or Cambridge in order to obtain my degree. Oh, no! My diploma could be obtained in a much easier manner; in a much cheaper and quicker way. I could get my educational imprima­tur simply by sending a telegram (a short cut, or method of expeditious attainment). In my dream I got my wish, which is the guiding influence in all dreams, with everyone. In my dream I was possessed of something that conditions had denied me in real life. It was not necessary for me to rest the standard of my educational rating on any college degree; for anyone could ascertain my accomplish­ments in that respect by simply referring to Miles City. Had not some conditions developed at that particular place that presupposed an enviable educa­tional status in the case of myself? (Where I had been satisfied with myself, for a time at least; where I had been actually "puffed up," in fact.)
I think that by this time you will begin to discern that when a dream is decoded the dreamer knows it. And when I had got thus far in my analysis it was not necessary for anyone to have recourse to a men­tal club in order to beat the import of my nocturnal experience into my conscious understanding.

That dream revealed to me the fact that ever since childhood there had been slumbering in my un­conscious mind a bitter hostility against anyone and everyone who might have enjoyed better educa­tional facilities than I had; and I did not know it, ex­cept to a comparatively minor extent. Probably many thousands of times I had blown up, when those submerged hostile thoughts had been set into violent activity by some environmental influence; but the true reason why I blew up had been con­cealed from my conscious understanding.

That dream exposed the exact state of uncon­scious affairs in this connection; and when I succeeded in decoding that message I took a big leap forward in at least one aspect of my psychical development. In relation to a weakness to which I had hitherto been unconsciously anchored, I grew up.

Instead of being troubled with that old inferiority complex in regard to education, you can see that I am now able to sit down at my typewriter and even turn out before you my innermost thoughts relating to those conditions—so that you may learn a lesson.

Life is short; there is a lot to do, and weaknesses are many; but, as far as that educational complex of mine is concerned, it is gone for ever. When I decod­ed that dream I succeeded in dragging that old brute out from its lair in my unconscious, clear up into the sunlight and glare of my conscious apprehension— and thereby I killed it.

Now let us turn to that dream of yours.

Some time before you go to bed on the day fol­lowing the night of the dream, try to arrange things so that you can have a little quiet time in some rest­ful spot all alone.

Your first work in this analytic effort is to split up your dream into its elemental parts, just as you did with that little "original" story of yours. You will understand that when I use the term "element" in this connection I mean a certain section or fragment of the dream. An element, of course, is something that is both simple and complete in itself; and if we have a dozen or more ideas all tangled up in one "element" of a dream that we are analyzing we won't, in reality, be considering an element at all, but something that is, itself, complex. However, we are not considering the term in a strictly scientific sense, but are using it for the purpose of conveying an idea.

In the way that we are considering things, there­fore, a dream element is a part or section which we can treat by itself, and which we can use as a stim­ulus point for developing flows of free associations of ideas.

When you have made an inventory of the ideas contained in your dream, snuggle down comfortably in your chair, direct your attention to some particu­lar element, and permit a flow of free associations of ideas to develop. Hold a particular dream frag­ment in the consciousness for a moment, and then mentally let go. Let the mind run freely. Just sit back and watch things.

If your first results are somewhat unsatisfactory, and you don't know whether you have done what you should have, or whether you have complied with the requisite mental attitude, bring the attention back again to the stimulus idea and start off afresh. If the first selected stimulus idea happens to lead to associations which have an obvious significance (such as the prescription element in my dream had for me), let the mind browse around them until the full wealth of their meaning is understood. On the other hand, if nothing recognizable develops from the first selected stimulus element, move on to the next, then to the next, and so on until you have treated all of them.

It does not matter in what sequence you take the respective dream elements for analysis. You may commence with the first one that you feel like try­ing; only go through them all.

You will understand that, when you select an ele­ment as a stimulus idea, you just mentally look at it momentarily, but must not think about it. To think means a utilization of intellectual judgment, and this must be avoided. In the present mental oper­ation, mechanical, spontaneous, and unconscious processes are required to work unhampered; and for the time being the reasoning, analytic consciousness should be held in abeyance.

Sometimes you will have the experience of having the real unconscious meaning of a part of your dream flash up almost instantly, and with a signifi­cance that is too obvious to misunderstand. I am go­ing to assume, however, that you will have many difficulties in decoding those unconscious hiero­glyphics of yours, so I will consequently take up the various aspects of further possible necessary pro­cedures.

Let us conclude, therefore, that you have gone through all your dream thoughts with the associa­tion method, but have fallen down; that you have not managed to get any enlightenment whatever. If such is the case, take a look at the dream elements that you have written out, and see if any of them, in any way, have any associations with anything that you ex­perienced on the day before the night in which the dream occurred.

Take each dream fragment in turn, hold it in the mind for a moment, and then mentally go back over yesterday's experiences. To aid you in this effort, imagine that the whole of yesterday's happenings con­sists of many fragments of cloth of different colours and textures, and that your dream fragment is a sam­ple which you desire to match. Imagine yourself going along over the trail of yesterday's events with this sample in your consciousness trying to find where it belongs—from which piece of "experience cloth" it was "cut."

At this point it will be well to accept the following fundamental of dream phenomena: Every dream is stimulated by something that was experienced the day before the night that the dream occurs—provided that the dream is of a nocturnal nature. The foregoing principle can be re-stated as follows: A dream transpires during the first period of mental twilight condi­tions that occurs after the stimulating influence has been undergone.

If therefore you are patient, also resourceful, and will take that "sample idea" from your dream, and go back over the previous day's experiences in a mental survey, somewhere or other (in the case of at least one of your elements) you will succeed in matching the sample. You will discover in that day's occur­rences the incident that actually stimulated the dream. When you have found out what caused your dream you will immediately have at least one good clue to a part of its meaning.

The meaning of my prescription dream continued to be baffling for a time. While I was floundering about among the associations of influenza, ammoni-ated tincture of quinine, Sir William Broadhent, uni­versities, and certain painful memories, etc., there was not much light on the trail of my mental associations. But, following the golden rule of the analytic meth­od, I refrained from speculation and from asking my­self what on earth any of those subjects had to do with my psychical welfare; and also from speculating on the relevancy or irrelevancy of any of the ideas that passed in review before my consciousness. I fol­lowed the trail of thought associations, and carefully refrained from blazing any new mental paths.

While I was carrying my Miles City "sample" over the experiences of the previous day—flash! All at once I mentally found myself in my office, tilting back in my swing-chair, turned somewhat sideways to my cultured caller, who occupied a seat on the other side of my table-desk. I had matched my sample.

There then bubbled up into my consciousness a series of thoughts and realizations of mental tendencies in relation to the subject of education that I did not understand had been disturbing me; these thoughts and tendencies had, however, evidently been in active eruption beneath the horizon of my con­sciousness from early childhood. I had been carrying around within me an education complex which had been no small handicap to me in my life.

"Mussed-Up" Dreams

Now it may be that even with a great resourceful­ness in the foregoing methods of analysis, you will still be unable to decode the meaning of your dream; so we shall have to move along to a consideration of other factors in analytic technique. Some of the ele­ments of the dream are liable to be "all mussed up"— as my little daughter sometimes expresses herself; they may be either vague and indistinguishable, or else familiar, yet unrecognizable. We will go after those familiar yet strange features first.

The strangeness about a dream element is mostly caused by what is known as condensation and dis­placement.

It may be that one of your figures looks like some­one whom you know as regards a stooping of the shoulders, though the beard is strange; and instead of his appearing to wear ordinary trousers, his legs may seem to be composed of elongated sacks of flour; or some other seeming incongruity may be in evidence. In such a case, the form of one person, with some characteristics of another person blended into it, is an illustration of condensation; that is, some of the fea­tures of two different people, whom you know, are condensed into one figure in the dream drama.

The idea of sacks of flour serving as legs illustrates the principles of displacement. Sacks of flour are all very well in their way, and when taken by them­selves are quite commonplace objects; but when they are made to represent the legs of a man they are far from being ordinary ideas; they are, in fact, extraor­dinary. They have become displaced from the set of memories to which they belong, and have been pro­jected to other sets where they have no relevant or­derliness whatever.

With this little additional information for your guidance, go to work now and see if you can split up some of your complex dream fragments into smaller parts. For example: In the case of the man with the stooping shoulders (who reminds you of some partic­ular individual), just consider the stooping shoulders as an element for a stimulus idea, and let your associ­ations flow from that point.

After you have done this, take the beard part of the condensed figure, and utilize that as another stimulus point; and if the figure has other familiar yet strange characteristics, take them all in turn and treat them likewise.

Remember that the great secret in dream analysis is to split up the dream fragments until you can con­sider something that is free from distortion.

After you have taken all the features of condensa­tion, and have developed flows of free associations in connection with them, take up the displacements; in the case in point, for instance, these are the sacks of flour that have become displaced from a logical to an illogical association. Forget everything else; take these sacks of flour as stimulus points, and let the mental engine run freely again. Don't think of those sacks of flour as being legs, or as anything else, for that matter. In fact, as previously emphasized, don't think at all. Simply make a mental picture of those sacks of flour, but without associating them with anything, and then allow your mental streams to run freely.

It is very likely that, before you have got thus far, at least something will have become revealed to you. If you have been unable to decipher any complete "sentences" of your dream hieroglyphics you will most probably have succeeded in picking out some "words" here and there. You must not be impatient, however; for if you start to learn a modern language, such as Spanish, you will not advance very far by your first day's efforts.

"Funny" Dreams

Let us now take a look at something that you may describe as a funny part of the dream. Maybe, for ex­ample, your dream pictured a cat smoking a pipe, or featured a very emaciated cow standing on her head on the top of a gate. Taken as a group of ideas, the effect would certainly be funny. But if the cat is con­sidered and treated as a cat, and then the pipe is simi­larly treated (the two ideas removed from their dis­placed positions), the grotesque effect is at once re­moved. The cat, when considered as a cat (by itself), will probably be found to be quite an ordinary and, possibly, a very self-respecting animal; while the pipe, when looked at merely as a pipe (by itself also), will be found to be similarly devoid of any humorous char­acteristics.

Similar conditions will prevail in the case of the emaciated cow which the dream drama represented as casually standing on her head on the top of a gate. There is nothing funny about an emaciated cow; in fact, the effect is rather the reverse. Still, the risibili­ties of a Sioux Indian would be badly strained at the sight of a poor old cow doing anything like that which the dream drama pictured.

If we take this particular bovine specimen, stand her on her feet instead of her head, and consider her from that more normal standpoint, we have a quite commonplace dream fragment as a stimulus point for flows of free associations. For that matter, we can "split up" that poor old cow, and use the tail, the gaunt pin bones, or her dung-plastered sides, as indi­vidual stimulus elements. Then, when we have taken the gate feature by itself, and have given it similar consideration as a separate dream fragment, we shall very probably begin to get somewhere.

You in Your Dream

If you can succeed in decoding that dream of yours, you will find that, concealed in its picturesque and symbolized language, there is some repressed wish, fear, or weakness. And if you have followed closely the instructions given up to this point, you will probably have succeeded in uncovering at least some of the hid­den meaning of that dream. Don't be disappointed if you have not managed to get to the end of all the roots of those dream thoughts, however, nor if your ef­forts result in your being able to decipher only a com­paratively small proportion of the whole unconscious message. If you do not succeed in deciphering more than a mere fragment or so, you will have accom­plished something; and you will feel all the better for it.

There are still more rules with which to comply in your dream analysis; and the one which I am now going to intimate will possibly strike you, at first, as be­ing somewhat startling. The central actor in your dream is most often yourself. No matter whether you are a man and the central actor is a woman, or whether you are a woman and the principal character is a man; whoever or whatever that central actor may be it is probably you, yourself. It won't make any difference if the figure is a child, while you are an adult; that figure will simply be a mask behind which the interest of your own ego will be lurking. As far as that is concerned, it may be well to see whether some central thing, or even a scene, may not be a drama­tized representation of your own personality.

It must be remembered that as the dream is a dis­guised dramatization of unconscious (repressed) ten­dencies, it is a language of hints, inferences, and sug­gestions; the subtle resourcefulness of its vocabulary will depend upon the degree of repression that oc­curred in the first place, and upon the insistence of the tendency for these repressed ideas to break forth again into the consciousness.

Therefore, in addition to all the other procedures, try to imagine that the central actor in your dream is yourself, no matter whether or not there is a dissimi­larity in sex or age; and then, from that standpoint, try to associate yourself with the rest of the dream drama. When you have done this it is probable that some more of the camouflaging features of the dream will become dissolved, and you will be able to recog­nize further details of its hidden meaning.

Imagining, therefore, that the central actor of the dream is yourself, and that you are actually seeing yourself when you are looking at that central feature. "Take out the clutch" of your intellectual mechanism once more, and let your free associations flow. When you do this it is very possible that the element which has hitherto baffled all previous efforts to decipher will, at last, yield its secret, so that the hidden mean­ing of your dramatized unconscious ideas becomes re­vealed to your consciousness.

Vague Dreams

We will now consider the hardest obstacle of all,— that part of your dream where something or other, or some condition or other, was vague, and which you could not clearly define. You may perhaps think that, in such cases, the reasons for such indistinctness are to be found in an ordinary lack of memory; or that the vague fragment was not clearly seen in the first place. There are, however, very good reasons why that something or other in the dream was vague and in­distinct.

Some particularly undesirable unconscious wish, fear, or tendency struggled for expression; but it en­countered such great repressing influences from the upper thought streams of the consciousness that it was prevented  from becoming dramatized.

All dream fragments are of import, but the obscure parts are more than that: they are vital. Yet you must not worry over an inability to decode all such ele­ments; the basic principle of the free association method is to be cool and deliberate. Nothing can be accomplished by straining; the very act of straining circumvents its own object.

Dreams are the dramatized ideas of repressed un­conscious wishes, fears, and weaknesses; they are never meaningless; and when they are decoded it al­ways transpires that the hidden meaning is of great importance to the personality.

It may be asked, of course: "What about the dreams of little children; are they also dramatized ideas relating to repressed wishes?" No, they are not. Furthermore, the dreams of little children are not dis­guised. As soon as disguises commence to appear in a child's dreams the signs are infallible that repressions have commenced to occur.

Disturbing Dreams

If you indulge in a hearty meal of indigestible food just before going to bed, your sleep will probably be disturbed by unpleasant dreams; you may, in fact, have a pronounced nightmare. In such an experience the indigestible meal will very likely be blamed for the disquieting dreams; nevertheless the digestive dis­turbance will be no more responsible than the state of the weather for actually causing the dreams.

A cold in the head results from a development into aggressive activity of forms of germ life in certain areas of membranes; but a lowering of the bodily temperature by means of wet clothing or a draught, etc., does not create the germs. Under such circum­stances the germs were already present, and simply took advantage of a fitting opportunity to multiply and to break forth into aggressive activity.

A somewhat analogous condition exists in relation to indigestion and disturbing dreams. The digestive disturbance does not cause the dreams, but simply helps to produce a condition whereby unconscious phenomena can be apprehended by the consciousness. It produces the necessary physiological conditions whereby certain phases of disturbed unconscious men­tal influences can intrude with more than usual insist­ence upon the consciousness.

Under these conditions, instead of being persistent and comparatively unbroken, the state of complete mental unconsciousness becomes intermittent. The re­sult is that a profusion of mental twilight patches is in evidence. The usually existing sharp line of demar­cation between the sleeping and waking conditions is more or less dissolved, and there comes into play a more than ordinary degree of blending between the conscious and unconscious mental states.

Indigestion therefore does not cause dreams, but simply brings about a condition whereby the uncon­scious mental activity is enabled to encroach unduly on the plane of consciousness. Under these circum­stances we are able to witness unconscious mental phenomena in a limited and "flash-like" manner; such phenomena are in evidence in a persistent form in psychopathic cases. The only difference between dis­turbing dreams and the experiences of a hopeless asy­lum case is one of degree.

Freud advises his students never to resort to argu­ment for the purpose of endeavoring to combat the mental attitude of a skeptic towards analytic prin­ciples; but to remind him that the proof of the sound­ness of these principles lies open for anyone to take advantage of by applying the analytic method to himself.

I had not progressed very far in studying Freud's theories before I decided to follow his advice in the case of myself; and instead of weighing and estimat­ing in a purely academic spirit the various theories involved I determined to apply the acid test of the psychoanalytic principles to my own personality.

In a general way I am what may be called "pain­fully normal," with little, if any, unusual psychical tendencies. I am neither clairvoyant nor clairaudient, nor have I any other form of unconscious hypersensi-tiveness—sometimes broadly classified under the term "psychic."

In the phenomena of nightmare I had at my dis­posal a fruitful opportunity for the necessary experi­ments. From early childhood, however, I have had very good reason for realizing that I suffered from an oversensitive connection between a disturbance of the digestive system and an experiencing of disagreeable dreams. I therefore had in the composition of my own temperamental trends ample psychical material to which to apply the Freudian technique.

In nightmares the broad experience can be roughly divided into two classes; one being where there is a vague, indefinable fear in connection with some dream feature which, after awakening, appears to the dreamer to be either absurd or meaningless, and to have no actual significance as far as any cause for fear is concerned. The dreamer may awaken in fright at something or other which seems devoid of all rea­sonable meaning when ultimately considered by the reasoning faculties, but which had an extremely un­pleasant influence during the dream.

In such an instance the dreamer feels mystified at having been so profoundly affected by some particu­lar dream incident; and when viewed from the stand­point of an awakened consciousness it may be hard to account for the disturbing agency.

In the other broad type the nightmare takes the form of motor inhibition—an inability to use the limbs or to take the necessary defensive action against some menacing danger; the dreamer is being threat­ened by something or other, yet suffers from a paraly­sis of his powers of movement.

I have experienced both these types of dreams many times, and probably most people have had similar nocturnal sensations.

Freud's contentions are that the fears and inhibi­tions present in nightmares are mental displacements; that the fears are not only very real, but very justi­fiable; in order to read the true import of such experi­ences it is necessary to ascertain the sets of ideas, or mental tendencies, to which such displaced dream ex­pressions rightfully belong. When this has been ac­complished, Freud contends that such dreams will never be found to be either meaningless or unjustifi­ably disturbing, but will prove to be constructed of mental material which is of extreme importance to the personality.

It was with the purpose of proving the validity of these ideas that I set about analyzing my own ex­periences in nightmare phenomena. Just for the pur­pose of securing some unconscious mental material for analysis, I have recently indulged heavily in vari­ous forms of indigestible meals just before going to bed, with the deliberate purpose of stirring into ac­tivity a good healthy specimen of nightmare, but with no pronounced success.

The digestive disturbances resulting from my ex­periments have naturally not been affected by any analytic efforts; and such disturbances continue to produce a corresponding profusion of mental twilight conditions; with consequent dream phenomena. But the nightmare characteristics of my dreams have completely disappeared.

My injudicious eating, indulged in for purely ex­perimental purposes, continues to produce digestive disturbances, and these disturbances cause more or less prolific dreaming; the dreams, however, don't have unpleasant characteristics. Furthermore, my dreams have become less and less disguised in their construction, and the import of their unconscious mes­sages consequently more and more obvious. My dreams are less laden with repressed mental burdens. I have succeeded, in fact, in laying many of those mental ghosts which so persistently dogged my psy­chical footsteps from the days of early childhood, and the benefit to my personality has been accordingly appreciable.

In order to apprehend why an analyzing away of nightmare tendencies results in pronounced benefits to the personality, it is necessary that the real nature of such dream phenomena be clearly understood.

In the inhibition dream, where the dreamer is para­lyzed in his efforts to protect himself from some threatening danger, or to assume a defence against some form of attack, the personality suffers from what is known as a schizophrenic storm—a condition of split emotions.

In such experiences a certain stunted primitive im­pulse struggles for conscious expression, but encoun­ters a strongly antagonizing, censoring resistance. The result is that a struggle takes place just below the horizon of consciousness between these two tenden­cies, each of which strives to win: the one to break out and the other to repress. The net result is an in­tense emotional storm.

On analysis, by means of the association method, it has been determined that the paralyzing inhibition of the motor mechanism, which results in inability to make satisfactory efforts at either flight or defence from the menacing influences apparent in the dream, and also the pronounced mental agitation that is experienced, are due to the disguised, unconscious ideas coming into violent opposition with the general ethi­cal or moral characteristics of the conscious personal­ity. The dream-drama of the nightmare is therefore the camouflaged expression of unconscious tenden­cies that have encroached on the sphere of conscious­ness in a particularly aggressive manner.

In the other type of dream, where there is no inhi­bition of motor control, but where a vague and indes­cribable fear is experienced without there being any definite reason for it, different causes are involved. In this class of nightmare the dramatized expression of some repressed memory or primitive impulse has started to become so obvious that there is danger of its existence and character becoming apprehended by the consciousness. A predicament exists under these conditions that is similar to what exists when the sym­bols of a satirical drawing are so clear that little re­sourcefulness is necessary to decipher their meaning. In the case of such a dream the veneer of disguise is so thin that there is danger of the true character of the repressed unconscious tendencies becoming re­vealed to the consciousness. The emotional storm that exists in such instances is consequently a moral revolt against the aspect of some incompletely sublimated and aggressively active unconscious tendency.

A nightmare is a dramatized expression of this re­pressed, undesirable tendency which would offend some ethical or moral canon if permitted an undis­guised indulgence.

Nightmare experiences owe much of their notoriety to their extremely unpleasant aspects; and, although the popular mind has hitherto had little opportunity for estimating the  real  significance  of such  experiences, the prevalence of these phenomena has result­ed in many interesting speculations as to their origin.

Recurring Dreams

There is another form of dream, however, which contains almost as much significance to the personal­ity as the nightmare, and which persistently invades the twilight conditions of consciousness, though with­out its true import being in the least suspected—the recurring dream.

Only very little investigation is necessary in order to understand the fact that many people have their own particular variety of "pet dream,"—a form of dream which, with some slight modifications perhaps, recurs from time to time. With some individuals such dreams take the form of the subject's climbing or descending stairways; with others of passing through a series of connecting rooms or of flying or swimming; while yet others are continually missing trains.

In all such instances the evidence is conclusive that some particular wish which has been denied fullness of expression in the conscious life persists in smoul­dering in the unconscious.

In this class of dreams the desire on the part of the unconscious mental life may by no means be of a character that would, under rightful conditions, trans­gress cultural requirements; in fact, such wish or de­sire might quite well be in strict alignment with a per­fectly natural aspiration. Nevertheless (and here comes in the point of interest), irrespective of the naturalness of expression under proper conditions of any such desire, it has been denied that expression by the consciousness—-has been starved. Its very exist­ence has, in fact, been repudiated.

Recurring dreams of certain types reveal the fact that, in the unconscious mental activity of the dreamer, there is a starved sex life. Such dreams indicate that, irrespective of conventional attitudes, and of a seemingly placid conscious exterior, the dreamer has never succeeded in attaining to the fullest expres­sion of his love-yearnings; and such love-yearnings constitute the culminating peak of desire in every normal human being.

Is Dream Analysis Dangerous?

It may be asked whether any good is derived from bringing up into the consciousness those forms of psy­chical blemishes and repressed longings that the dream phenomena reveal as existing in the uncon­scious; whether it would not be just as well to "let sleeping dogs lie"?

The term "sleeping dogs" is, perhaps, somewhat un­fortunate, for the conditions rendered evident by the dream experience are by no means dormant qualities. The very fact that such repressed ideas succeeded in attaining even a disguised expression shows that they are extremely active agents.

Dreams, however, are not the only evidence of ac­tivity on the part of those undesirable submerged ten­dencies, for an analysis of their existence and charac­ter is available from phenomena existing in the daily waking life of the individual.

The emotion which characterizes the nightmare, and which is called fear, invades the consciousness and influences the conscious behaviour in many per­sistent forms, though the individual may not under­stand that many of the sensations which he experi­ences arise from causes existing within his own personality, and not from some exterior influence to which he often attributes it.

Every form of unreasoning fear, dread, antipathy, and repugnance (which nearly everyone has, to some extent, experienced) in relation to something or other, is, in fact, merely a projection upon the consciousness (in connection with some particular object, or scene) of the content of some unconscious emotional agita­tion.

A submerged emotional complex is far from being a harmless sleeping dog; it is more like a wide-awake mad dog.

The reason why an individual may have some un­reasoning fear or repugnance in relation to some ap­parently harmless object, is because at some time or other an experience occurred in which some such ob­ject was intimately involved with a particular re­pressed emotional trend. The result is that those old buried memories are aroused and activate their emo­tional burdens. Under such conditions, the individual lives over again (in his emotional sensations) some old experience, or undergoes afresh the psychical pangs of some unsublimated tendency.

By means of the analytic method all such disturb­ing dreams can be analyzed away.

The method of analysis is one and the same in ev­ery instance: (a) anchor the dream to the conscious­ness, (b) split it up into its various elements, (c) dis­integrate the displacements and condensations, (d) ascertain whether the "ego" is personified behind a camouflaged central actor or object, (e) transpose figurative expressions, and (f) apply the processes of free association of ideas to all the various dream ele­ments.

Beware of Resistance

In relation to analysis of nightmare experiences the self-analyst must be prepared to encounter greater re­sistances to his efforts than with the more seemingly harmless forms of dreams.

In the first place, the more menacing to the person­ality any particular psychical trend may be, the greater becomes the repressing influence to hold it in subjection. Now, the unconscious mind cannot reason; and after a repressive influence has been in action for a sufficient length of time it becomes semi-automatic —unconsciously operative.

When, therefore, an attempt is made to uncover the buried undesirable tendency, this very repressive in­fluence that was first brought into action to guard the best interests of the ego has itself to be overcome; the personality has, so to speak, to do battle against it­self; and the outcome of this battle depends on the re­sourcefulness and persistence of the efforts that are brought into play.

This resistance will take various forms of expres­sion, the most seductive being an inclination on the part of your reasoning consciousness to create a thou­sand and one excuses for not doing this or that in re­lation to the analytic requirement; and these excuses will appear to you so plausible as to give the impres­sion of their being consciously deliberated conclusions.

Then there is apt to develop a strange state of lethargy in relation to the analytic considerations, and a tendency to put off the analytic effort until some more fitting time. To such an extent this resistance may go that you will find yourself making excuses for not taking notice of certain dreams.

Here comes in the value of a methodical procedure. Always write down your dreams and preserve them. And if you fail to make much progress in analyzing any particular dream shortly after its occurrence, do not consider future prospects of better results hope­less.

Curiously enough, with the lapse of time after a dream has been experienced, the particular resistances in relation to it become lessened. It seems as if this resistance is at its peak at the time that the set of emotions involved in the dream are most active; and when the emotional disturbance subsides the resisting influence connected with it becomes considerably modified also.

The consequences of these conditions are that if a dream that has baffled analysis is put aside for the time being, and then subsequently returned to, great progress is oftentimes made in its unravelling. In such a connection I have casually taken up a fragment of a dream that occurred more than a year previously, with the result that the latent meaning of some ele­ment has become almost immediately obvious.

It is advisable not to "flog" the mind into trying to analyze the various psychical experiences, but to preserve a calm and deliberate attitude. As the vari­ous elements of the submerged undesirable psychical strains and tendencies are brought up into the con­sciousness, frankly faced, and the lesson of their im­port accordingly applied, their emotional burdens be­come dispersed.

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