The Interpretation of Dreams

interpret the quantum of
stimulus emanating from the rising and sinking of the pulmonary
lobes when the cutaneous sensation of the thorax has lapsed into
insensibility. This latter condition causes the sensation which
gives rise to images of hovering in the air. The dream of falling from
a height is said to be due to the fact that an arm falls away from the
body, or a flexed knee is suddenly extended, after unconsciousness
of the sensation of cutaneous pressure has supervened, whereupon
this sensation returns to consciousness, and the transition from
unconsciousness to consciousness embodies itself psychically as a
dream of falling (Strumpell, p. 118). The weakness of these fairly
plausible attempts at explanation clearly lies in the fact that
without any further elucidation they allow this or that group of
organic sensations to disappear from psychic perception, or to obtrude
themselves upon it, until the constellation favourable for the
explanation has been established. Later on, however, I shall have
occasion to return to the subject of typical dreams and their origin.
From a comparison of a series of similar dreams, M. Simon
endeavoured to formulate certain rules governing the influence of
organic sensations on the nature of the resulting dream. He says (p.
34): "If during sleep any organic apparatus, which normally
participates in the expression of an affect, for any reason enters
into the state of excitation to which it is usually aroused by the
affect, the dream thus produced will contain representations which
harmonize with that affect."
Another rule reads as follows (p. 35): "If, during sleep, an organic
apparatus is in a state of activity, stimulation, or disturbance,
the dream will present ideas which correspond with the nature of the
organic function performed by that apparatus."
Mourly Vold has undertaken to prove the supposed influence of bodily
sensation on the production of dreams by experimenting on a single
physiological territory. He changed the positions of a sleeper's
limbs, and compared the resulting dreams with these changes. He
recorded the following results:
{I|C ^paragraph 70}
1. The position of a limb in a dream corresponds approximately to
that of reality, i.e., we dream of a static condition of the limb
which corresponds with the actual condition.
2. When one dreams of a moving limb it always happens that one of
the positions occurring in the execution of this movement
corresponds with the actual position.
3. The position of one's own limb may in the dream be attributed
to another person.
4. One may also dream that the movement in question is impeded.
5. The limb in any particular position may appear in the dream as an
animal or monster, in which case a certain analogy between the two
is established.
{I|C ^paragraph 75}
6. The behaviour of a limb may in the dream incite ideas which
bear some relation or other to this limb. Thus, for example, if we are
using our fingers we dream of numerals.
Results such as these would lead me to conclude