The Interpretation of Dreams

doubt. They have sometimes been judged in a
less serious spirit. Spitta quotes a relevant passage from A. Zeller
(Article "Irre," in the Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften,
Ersch and Gruber, p. 144): "An intellect is rarely so happily
organized as to be in full command of itself at all times and seasons,
and never to be disturbed in the lucid and constant processes of
thought by ideas not merely unessential, but absolutely grotesque
and nonsensical; indeed, the greatest thinkers have had cause to
complain of this dream-like, tormenting and distressing rabble of
ideas, which disturbs their profoundest contemplations and their
most pious and earnest meditations."
A clearer light is thrown on the psychological meaning of these
contrasting thoughts by a further observation of Hildebrandt's, to the
effect that dreams permit us an occasional glimpse of the deepest
and innermost recesses of our being, which are generally closed to
us in our waking state (p. 55). A recognition of this fact is betrayed
by Kant in his Anthropology, when he states that our dreams may
perhaps be intended to reveal to us not what we are but what we
might have been if we had had another upbringing; and by Radestock (p.
84), who suggests that dreams disclose to us what we do not wish to
admit to ourselves, and that we therefore unjustly condemn them as
lying and deceptive. J. E. Erdmann asserts: "A dream has never told me
what I ought to think of a person, but, to my great surprise, a
dream has more than once taught me what I do really think of him and
feel about him." And J. H. Fichte expresses himself in a like
manner: "The character of our dreams gives a far truer reflection of
our general disposition than anything that we can learn by
self-observation in the waking state." Such remarks as this of
Benini's call our attention to the fact that the emergence of impulses
which are foreign to our ethical consciousness is merely analogous
to the manner, already familiar to us, in which the dream disposes
of other representative material: "Certe nostre inclinazioni che si
credevano soffocate e spente da un pezzo, si ridestano; passioni
vecchie e sepolte revivono; cose e persone a cui non pensiamo mai,
ci vengono dinanzi" (p. 149). Volkelt expresses himself in a similar
fashion: "Even ideas which have entered into our consciousness
almost unnoticed, and which, perhaps, it has never before called out
of oblivion, often announce their presence in the mind through a
dream" (p 105). Finally, we may remember that according to
Schleiermacher the state of falling asleep is accompanied by the
appearance of undesired imaginings.
We may include in such "undesired imaginings" the whole of that
imaginative material the occurrence of which surprises us in immoral
as well as in absurd dreams. The only important difference consists in
the fact that the undesired imaginings in the moral sphere are in
opposition to our usual feelings, whereas the others merely appear
strange to