The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud (1900)

c'est surtout l'homme instinctif que se revele.... L'homme revient pour ainsi dire l'etat de nature quand il reve; mais moins les idees acquises ont
penetre dans son esprit, plus 'les penchants en desaccord' avec elles conservent encore sur lui d'influence dans le rive."[49] He then mentions, as
an example, that his own dreams often reveal him as a victim of just those superstitions which he has most vigorously attacked in his writings.
The value of all these acute observations is, however, impaired in Maury's case, because he refuses to recognize in the phenomena which he has
so accurately observed anything more than a proof of the automatisme psychologique which in his own opinion dominates the dream-life. He
conceives this automatism as the complete opposite of psychic activity.
A passage in Stricker's Studien uber das Bewusstsein reads: "Dreams do not consist purely and simply of delusions; for example, if one is afraid
of robbers in a dream, the robbers indeed are imaginary, but the fear is real." Our attention is here called to the fact that the affective development
of a dream does not admit of the judgment which one bestows upon the rest of the dream-content, and the problem then arises: What part of the
psychic processes in a dream may be real? That is to say, what part of them may claim to be enrolled among the psychic processes of the waking
state?
G. Dream-Theories and the Function of the Dream
A statement concerning the dream which seeks to explain as many as possible of its observed characteristics from a single point of view, and
which at the same time defines the relation of the dream to a more comprehensive sphere of phenomena, may be described as a theory of the
dream. The individual theories of the dream will be distinguished from one another by their designating as essential this or that characteristic of
dreams, and relating thereto their data and their explanations. It is not absolutely necessary that we should deduce from the theory of the dream a
function, i.e., a use or any such similar role, but expectation, being as a matter of habit teleologically inclined, will nevertheless welcome those
theories which afford us some insight into a function of dreams.
We have already become acquainted with many conceptions of the dream, which in this sense are more or less deserving of the name of dreamtheories.
The belief of the ancients that dreams were sent by the gods in order to guide the actions of man was a complete theory of the dream,
which told them all that was worth knowing about dreams. Since dreams have become an object of biological research we have a greater number
of theories, some of which, however, are very incomplete.
Provided we make no claim to completeness, we might venture on the following rough grouping of dream-theories, based on their fundamental
conception of the degree and mode of the psychic activity in dreams:
1. Theories, like those of Delboeuf, which allow the full psychic activity of the waking state to continue in our dreams. Here the psyche does not
sleep; its apparatus remains intact; but under the conditions of the sleeping state, which differ from those of the waking state, it must in its normal
functioning give results which differ from those of the waking state. As regards these theories, it may be questioned whether their authors are in a
position to derive the distinction between dreaming and waking thought entirely from the conditions of the sleeping state. Moreover, they lack
one possible access to a function of dreams; one does not understand to what purpose one dreams - why the complicated mechanism of the
psychic apparatus should continue to operate even when it is placed under conditions to which it does not appear to be adapted. There are only
two purposeful reactions in the place of the reaction of dreaming: to sleep dreamlessly, or to wake when affected by disturbing stimuli.
2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream a diminution of the psychic activity, a loosening of connections, and an impoverishment
of the available material. In accordance with these theories, one must assume for sleep a psychological character entirely different from that given
by Delboeuf. Sleep encroaches widely upon the psyche; it does not consist in the mere shutting it off from the outer world; on the contrary, it
enters into its mechanism, and makes it for the time being unserviceable. If I may draw a comparison from psychiatry, I would say that the first
group of theories construes the dream like a paranoia, while the second represents it as a type of mental deficiency or amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity paralysed by sleep finds expression in dreams is that by far the most favoured by medical
writers, and by scientists in general. In so far as one may presuppose a general interest in dream-interpretation, one may indeed describe it as the
most popular theory of dreams. It is remarkable how nimbly this particular theory avoids the greatest danger that threatens every dreaminterpretation;
that is, shipwreck on one of the contrasts incorporated in dreams. Since this theory regards dreams as the result of a partial waking
(or, as Herbart puts it in his Psychologie uber den Traum, "a gradual, partial, and at the same time very anomalous waking"), it is able to cover the
whole series, from the inferior activities of dreams, which betray themselves by their absurdity, to fully concentrated intellectual activity, by a
series of states of progressive awakening, ending in complete wakefulness.
Those who find the physiological mode of expression indispensable, or who deem it more scientific, will find this theory of dreams summarized
in Binz's description (p. 43):
"This state (of torpor), however, gradually comes to an end in the hours of early morning. The accumulated products of fatigue in the albumen of
the brain gradually diminish. They are slowly decomposed, or carried away by the constantly flowing blood-stream. Here and there individual
groups of cells can be distinguished as being awake, while around them all is still in a state of torpidity. The isolated work of the individual