Studies in Dreams

Studies in Dreams Synopsis

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Tific results as - pipe dreams or cigarette dreams. The quality of the interest of the reader in this book will undoubtedly be largely determined by his previous attitude of mind towards dreams and their interpretation. If he has a closed mind, has al ready committed himself towards some theory of dream mechanism - and I fear many students of present-day psychology already have - if he thinks he already knows it all, his interest may be hyper critically modified by the limitation of the task which the author has set before herself. I am not sure that this contribution has not gained by this limita tion. We have theories in plenty of the mechanisms by which dreams are excited and worked out by some or other part of the mind, but none is wholly satis factory, none, at least, is universally applicable to all dreams. We have physiological theories and psychological theories: we have theories making use of unconscious processes and conscious processes, of symbolisms, and double-faced Janus-like proc esses - an underlying latent and a manifest conscious process: and we have theories of naughty and dis guised wishes, and a watchful prude of a censor that spoils all the fun of dreaming and lets us fulfil our concealed wishes only on condition we don't know. We have what we want, and therefore can't con sciously enjoy forbidden fruit even in dreams: and we have theories of haphazard and trial and error processes, and many more. But all are theories, and. Nothing is proven fact. Some, nevertheless, work out very well with certain dreams, and then, when.