In the introductory pages to his masterwork Die Traumdeutung (1899), Freud
cites a number of relatively straightforward or kneejerk-model accounts of
dreams, from his oneirological predecessors, before proceeding with his own far
less directly physiological, much more indirect and psychological interpretations. Among the former, he cites a series
of experiments which Maury (the author of Le sommeil) had performed,
with himself as the sleeper.
The results are almost comically straightforward:
1) Er wird an Lippen und
Nasenspitze mit einer Feder
gekitzelt. -- Träumt von einer schrecklichen Tortur: eine Pechlarve wird ihm aufs Gesicht gelegt, dann weggerissen, so daß die
Haut mitgeht.
2) Man wetzt eine Schere an einer Pinzette. -- Er hört Glocken
läuten, dann Sturm läuten und ist
in die Junitage des Jahres 1848 versetzt.
3) Man läßt ihn Kölnerwasser
riechen. -- Er ist in Kairo … Daran schließen sich tolle Abenteur, die
er nicht reproduzieren kann.
 |
| Shouldena ate them pickles ... |
Usw. (Plus several
examples of the classic, in which what
turns out to be the alarm-clock is
explained-away in the dream as being churchbells or whatever.)
This struck me as implausible, and likely influenced by the
researcher/dreamer’s desire to prove his point. Had the correlations been random, he would have had no
famous paper to publish -- no tenure -- no job, no prospects, hounded by
beggars through the streets of the city:
instead of marrying the department chair’s buxom daughter, and having his
way with the secretaries on the side.
*
Falls Sie im
Doktor-Justiz-Sammelsurium
weiterblättern
möchten,
Bitte hier
klicken:
*
More analytically:
Such stumpfsinnig insistance
on so plat an S-R causality, in the
face of the enormous variety of dreams, and what must surely be an exiguous
proportion that even in principle admit of such possible promptings -- after all, most of us sleep through
the night without having lab-assistants tickle our nose with a feather, or
carriages rattle by on cobblestones, and dream abundantly nevertheless -- suggest
an actual resistance, in the
psychoanalytic sense, to understanding anything deeper about dreaming: “See, that’s all there is to it! Pay no attention to the daemon
behind the curtain!” -- For our
scornful account of Edward O. Wilson’s equally shallow reductionist account of
dreams -- and this, by way of specific antithesis to Freud, whom he equally
scorns -- click here:
Not increasing our confidence in his account, is another dream that Maury recounts (“ein Traum, zur Berühmtheit gelangt”, Freud informs us), in which an elaborately long and detailed story, involving the French revolution and yadda yadda, eventually leads to Maury mounting the steps to the guillotine (pause for station-break) the blade of which then falls on his neck -- omigosh, turns out a bedpiece had in fact so fallen! -- the mystery being how he could have dreamt all that in the instant that the item fell. That is, barring intra-oneiric prescience; but I have an alternate explanation: Maury had read, and cribbed from, Ambrose Bierce’s much-anthologized short-story, “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”.
Just once have I experienced what at first seemed just such
a literalist stimulus-response dream
-- but the results were all the other way. It happened in college, my senior year:
I dream that I am lying in bed in
my college room. A din of
uncertain origin begins to rise within the dream. “Aha!” say I to myself. “Doubtless an instance of the ‘dream as guardian of sleep’,
made famous by professor Freud!
I’ll simply wake up and shut the window against whatever may be making
that infernal racket.
I awoke -- to perfect silence in the room.
(Note: To a
professional, I suspect, such a dream would seem to betoken the imminent
outbreak of a full-blown psychosis. -- Still, it has been almost half a century
since that dream occurred, so it’s probably safe to come out now.)
Still, one anecdotal instance does not refute a theory; to experiment we must have recourse! Accordingly, having secured a
gigantic grant from NIH, I
repaired to the sleep laboratory, accompanied by my faithful famulus, the
hunchback Igor.
The following are the laboratory results:
 |
| My lab assistant, attending to some technical details |
The following are the laboratory results:
Stimulus: Igor and his assistants fill the bedchamber
with indistinct whispers.
Response: Dr. Justice dreamt he was a penguin.
Stimulus: They tickle the dreamer’s forehead with a feather.
Response: Dr. Justice again dreamt
he was a penguin.
Stimulus: The Bulgarian Men’s Marching-Band plays Hayden’s “Surprise” Symphony at top volume.
Response: Dr. Justice is now quite certain that he is, indeed,
a penguin.
Stimulus: Igor reads aloud from Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum
Unbewußten.
Response: “I am walking through a town square, somewhere in the
Alps. I ask a stranger the
direction to the Rathaus. The
villagers point and whisper, ‘Look, a talking penguin!’”
Stimulus: Brooding bedside, Igor eats some Chinese takeout.
Response: Dr. Justice dreams of delicious fish.
Stimulus: The electro-encephalograph that has been monitoring the
experiment, malfunctions, filling the room with smoke.
Response: Dr. Justice dreams that a skua is glaring menacingly at the
chicks.
Stimulus: Igor frantically calls
911.
Response: Dr. Justice dreams that he is being pursued by an irate
leopard-seal.
Stimulus: The fire brigade rushes
in, dousing everything.
Response: Dr. Justice dreams of a polar bear -- then realizes he is at
the wrong Pole.
Stimulus: A brazier of hot coals is held directly over the dreamer’s
head.
Response: Dr. Justice dreams that the iceberg he had been placidly
standing on is melting.
 |
| Actual EEG image of that dream, courtesy of our friend Pyesetz, who himself enjoys the honor of being a dog. |
Stimulus: Igor, screaming,
sets the bedroom on fire.
Response: It suddenly occurs to Dr. Justice that all this talk of
Global Warming might have
something to it after all. He
wakes, and warns the other penguins.
[Our thanks go out to NIH, MIT, FBI, and the Illuminati, for
funding this ground-breaking research.]
~
~ Posthumous Endorsement ~
"If I were alive today, and in the mood
for a mystery,
this is what I'd be reading: "
(Ich bin Sigmund Freud, and I approved this
message.)
~
~
~
.
Dreams are so much fun. I once took Chantix to help quit smoking, and was delighted when I experienced the most-common side-effect: strange and vivid dreams. They were a blast!
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