Since 1896 I have studied my own dreams,
writing down the most interesting in my diary. In 1898 I began to
keep a separate account for a particular kind of dream which seemed
to me the most important, and I have continued it up to this day.
Altogether I collected about 500 dreams, of which 352 are the particular
kind just mentioned. This material may form the basis of what I hope
may become a scientific structure of some value, if leisure and strength
to build it up carefully do not fail me.
In the meantime, with a pardonable anxiety
lest the ideas should not find expression in time, I condensed them
into a work of art--a novel called The Bride of Dreams. The
fictitious form enabled me to deal freely with delicate matters, and
had also the advantage that it expressed rather unusual ideas in a
less aggressive way--esoterically, so to speak. Yet I want to express
these ideas also in a form that will appeal more directly to the scientific
mind, and I know I cannot find a better audience for this purpose
than the members of the Society for Psychical Research, who are accustomed
to treat investigations and ideas of an unusual sort in a broad-minded
and yet critical spirit.
This paper is only a preliminary sketch,
a short announcement of a greater work, which I hope to be able to
complete in later years.
I will as much as possible avoid speculation,
and limit myself to facts; yet these facts, as I have observed them,
bring me in a general way to the firm conviction that the theories
on dream-life, as brought forward up to today, within my knowledge,
are unable to account for all the phenomena.
Let me now give you an attempt at classification
of the different forms of dreams, which I myself personally experienced
and observed during a period of sixteen years. I have been able to
distinguish nine different kinds of dreams, each of which presents
a well-defined type. There are of course intermediate forms and combinations,
but the separate types can still be recognized in their intermingling.
The first type of dreams I call initial
dreams. This kind of dream is very rare; I know of only half-a-dozen
instances occurring to myself, and have found no clear indication
of them in other authors. Yet it is very characteristic and easily
distinguishable. It occurs only in the very beginning of sleep, when
the body is in a normal healthy condition, but very tired. Then the
transition from waking to sleep takes place with hardly a moment of
what is generally called unconsciousness, but what I would prefer
to call discontinuity of memory. It is not what Maury calls a hypnagogic
hallucination, which phenomenon I know well from my own experience,
but which I do not consider to belong to the world of dreams. In hypnagogic
hallucinations we have visions, but we have full bodily perception.
In the initial dream type I see and feel as in any other dream. I
have a nearly complete recollection of day-life, I know that I am
asleep and where I am sleeping, but all perceptions of the physical
body, inner and outer, visceral or peripheral, are entirely absent.
Usually I have the sensation of floating or flying, and I observe
with perfect clearness that the feeling of fatigue, the discomfort
of bodily overstrain, has vanished. I feel fresh and vigorous; I can
move and float in all directions; yet I know that my body is at the
same time dead tired and fast asleep.
As the outcome of careful observations,
I maintain my conviction that the bodily conditions of the sleeper
have, as a rule, no influence on the character of dreams, with the
exception of a few rare and abnormal cases, near the moment of waking
up, or in those dreams of a second type which I have classified as
pathological, in which fever, indigestion, or some poison, plays a
role, and which form a small minority. For myself as the observer,
I may state that I have been in good health all the time of observation.
I had no important complaints of any nervous or visceral kind. My
sleep and digestion both are usually good. Yet I have had the most
terrible nightmares, while my body was as fresh and healthy as usual,
and I have had delicious peaceful dreams on board ship in a heavy
storm, or in a sleeping-car on the railway.
I wish, therefore, to define the true
dream as that state wherein bodily sensations, be they visceral, internal,
or peripheral, cannot penetrate to the mind directly, but only in
the physical, nonspatial form of a symbol or an image.
I purposely avoid as much as possible
the words "consciousness" and "unconsciousness."
They may be convenient in colloquial language, but I am not able to
attach any clear meaning to them. I have no idea what "unconsciousness,"
as a substantive, may stand for. And I found that I could do with
the words memory and recollection and the word personality or person,
in the primitive sense of persona (a mask, i.e., the mask worn by
players). I do not think it accurate to call the body of a sleeper
or a narcotized man unconscious. During my career as a psychotherapist,
having by suggestion produced sleep in many people, I learned that
the human body may act like a self-conscious person, without any participation
of the recollecting mind. We know nowadays that a splitting-up of
human personality is possible, not only into two, but into three or
more. During my sittings with Mrs. Thompson, we observed that after
a trance, in which Mrs. Thompson had been speaking as "Nelly,"
or as some other control, she herself remembered dreams, which had
nothing whatever to do with the things of which she had been speaking
to us. Her being could then be said to have been divided into three
entities--the body in trance, apparently asleep; the "control,"
who spoke through her mouth; and Mrs. Thompson, who was dreaming in
quite different spheres. All these persons or personalities were of
course "conscious" in some way, as everything is probably
conscious. The question is, where do the threads of recollection run
that enable us to identify the persons?
I know that Mr. Havelock Ellis and many
other authors will not accept my definition, because they deny the
possibility of complete recollection and free volition in a dream.
They would say that what I call a dream is no dream, but a sort of
trance, or hallucination, or ecstacy. The observations of the Marquis
d'Herve, which were very much like mine, as related in his book, Les
Reves et les moyens de les diriger, were discarded in the same way.
These dreams could not be dreams, said Maury.
Now this is simply a question of nomenclature.
I can only say that I made my observations during normal deep and
healthy sleep, and that in 352 cases I had a full recollection of
my day-life, and could act voluntarily, though I was so fast asleep
that no bodily sensations penetrated into my perception. If anybody
refuses to call that state of mind a dream, he may suggest some other
name. For my part, it was just this form of dream, which I call "lucid
dreams," which aroused my keenest interest and which I noted
down most carefully.
I quite agree with Mr. Havelock Ellis,
that during sleep the psychical functions enter into a condition of
dissociation. My contention, however, is that it is not dissociation,
but, on the contrary, reintegration, after the dissociation of sleep,
that is the essential feature of dreams. The dream is a more or less
complete reintegration of the psyche, a reintegration in a different
sphere, in a psychical, nonspatial mode of existence. This reintegration
may go so far as to effect full recollection of day-life, reflection,
and voluntary action on reflection.
The third type, ordinary dreaming, is
the usual well-known type to which the large majority of dreams conform;
probably, it is the only kind that occurs to many people. It is not
particularly pleasant or unpleasant, though it may vary according
to its contents. It may occur in any moment of sleep, in daytime or
in the night, and it does not need any bodily disturbance to produce
it.
These dreams show dissociation, with
very imperfect reintegration, and, as several authors have pointed
out, they have in many respects a close likeness to insanity. The
true conditions of day-life are not remembered; false remembrance--paramnesia--is
very common in them; they are absurd and confused, and leave very
faint traces after waking up.
The fourth type, vivid dreaming, differs
from ordinary dreaming principally in its vividness and the strong
impression it makes, which lasts sometimes for hours and days after
waking up, with a painfully clear remembrance of every detail. These
dreams are generally considered to be the effect of some abnormal
bodily condition. Yet I think they must undoubtedly be distinguished
from the pathological dreams. I have had them during perfectly normal
bodily conditions. I do not mean to say, however, that some nervous
disturbance, some psychical unrest, or some unknown influence from
the waking world may not have been present. It may have been, but
it escaped my observation in most cases. These vivid dreams are generally
extremely absurd, or untrue, though explicit and well-remembered.
The mind is entirely dissociated and reintegration is very defective.
As a rule I find dreams of this kind
unpleasant because of their absurdity, their insane character, and
the strong lasting impression they make. Happily they are rare, at
least with me. Sometimes they leave a strong conviction that they
"mean something," that they have a premonitory, a prophetic
character, and when we read of instances of prophetic dreams we find
generally that they belong to this type. In my case I often found
that they really could "mean" nothing; sometimes, however,
I was not so certain. It depends in what direction we are looking
for causes. One night, when I was on a lecturing tour, I was the guest
of a family in a provincial town, and slept in what I supposed to
be the guest room. I had a night full of the most horrid dreams, one
long confused nightmare, with a strong sentiment that it "meant
something." Yet I felt in perfect health, cheerful and comfortable.
I could not refrain from saying next morning at the breakfast table
what an unpleasant night I had had. Then the family told me I had
slept in the room of a daughter who was now in a sanatorium with a
severe nervous disease, and who used to call that room her "den
of torture."
It will be remarked that such vivid
dreams are sometimes of a very pleasant character, filling whole days
with an indescribable joy. This is true, but, according to my experience,
my vividly pleasant dreams are now always of another and higher type.
As a child I had these delicious vivid dreams. Now they have changed
their character altogether and are of the lucid type.
In the fifth type, the symbolic or mocking
dreams, the characteristic element is one which I call demoniacal.
I am afraid this word will arouse some murmurs of disapproval, or
at least some smiles or sneers. Yet I think I can successfully defend
the use of the term. I will readily concede at once that the real
existence of beings whom we may call "demons" is problematic,
and yet men of science find the conception very useful and convenient.
I hope to satisfy even the most skeptical
of my audience by defining the expression "demoniacal" thus:
I call demoniacal those phenomena which
produce on us the impression of being invented or arranged by intelligent
beings of a very low moral order.
To me it seems that the great majority
of dreams reported by Freud and his adherents, and used for the building
up of his elaborate theory, belong to this type.
It may indeed be called a bold deed
to introduce the symbolism of dreams into the scientific world. This
is Freud's great achievement.
But now let us consider what the word
"symbol" implies. A symbol is an image or an imaginary event,
standing for a real object or event whereto it has some distant resemblance.
Now the invention of a symbol can only be an act of thought--the work
of some intelligence. Symbols cannot invent themselves; they must
be thought out. And the question arises: who performs this intelligent
act; who thinks out the symbol? The answer given by the Freudian school
is: the subconscious. But here we have one of those words which come
in "wo die Begriffe fehlen." To me the word "subconscious,"
indicating a thinking entity, is just as mysterious, just as unscientific,
just as "occult" as the word "demon." In my view
it is accurate to say only that in our dreams we see images and experience
events, for which our own mind--our "person" as we remember
it--cannot be held responsible, and which must therefore come from
some unknown source. About the general character of these sources,
however, we may form some judgment and I feel justified in calling
them in the dreams of this type "demoniacal"--that is of
low moral order.
It is in this class also, that the erotic
element, or rather the obscene element, plays such an important part.
And it is no wonder that some adherents of Freud's school, studying
only this kind of dream, come to the conclusion that all dreams have
a sexual origin.
The sixth type, which I call general
dream-sensations, is very remarkable but not easy to describe. It
is not an ordinary dream; there is no vision, no image, no event,
not even a word or a name. But during a long time of deep sleep, the
mind is continually occupied with one person, one place, one remarkable
event, or even one abstract thought. At least that is the recollection
on waking up. One night I was constantly occupied by the personality
of an American gentleman, in whom I am not particularly interested.
I did not see him, nor hear his name, but on waking up I felt as if
he had been there the whole night. In another instance it was a rather
deep thought, occupying me in the deepest sleep, with a clear recollection
of it after waking up. The question was: Why can a period of our life
be felt as very sad, and yet be sweet and beautiful in remembrance?
And the answer was: Because a human being knows only a very small
part of what he is. Question and answer never left me; yet my sleep
was very deep and unbroken. These dream-sensations are not unpleasant
and not absurd, so long as the body is in good health.
They often have an elevating or consoling
effect. In pathological dreams, however, they may be extremely strange
and harassing. The sleeper may have a feeling as if he were a square
or a circle, or other sensations of an utterly indescribable character.
The seventh type of dreams, which I
call lucid dreams, seems to me the most interesting and worthy of
the most careful observation and study. Of this type I experienced
and wrote down 352 cases in the period between January 20, 1898, and
December 26, 1912.
In these lucid dreams the reintegration
of the psychic functions is so complete that the sleeper remembers
day-life and his own condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness,
and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts
of free volition. Yet the sleep, as I am able confidently to state,
is undisturbed, deep and refreshing. I obtained my first glimpse of
this lucidity during sleep in June, 1897, in the following way. I
dreamt that I was floating through a landscape with bare trees, knowing
that it was April, and I remarked that the perpective of the branches
and twigs changed quite naturally. Then I made the reflection, during
sleep, that my fancy would never be able to invent or to make an image
as intricate as the perspective movement of little twigs seen in floating
by.
Many years later, in 1907, I found a
passage in a work by Prof. Ernst Mach in which the same observation
is made with a little difference. Like me, Mach came to the conclusion
that he was dreaming, but it was because he saw the movement of the
twigs to be defective, while I had wondered at the naturalness which
my fancy could never invent. Professor Mach has not pursued his observations
in this direction, probably because he did not believe in their importance.
I made up my mind to look out carefully for another opportunity. I
prepared myself for careful observation, hoping to prolong and to
intensify the lucidity.
In January 1898 I was able to repeat
the observation. In the night of January 19-20, I dreamt that I was
lying in the garden before the windows of my study, and saw the eyes
of my dog through the glass pane. I was lying on my chest and observing
the dog very keenly. At the same time, however, I knew with perfect
certainty that I was dreaming and lying on my back in my bed. And
then I resolved to wake up slowly and carefully and observe how my
sensation of lying on my chest would change into the sensation of
lying on my back. And so I did, slowly and deliberately, and the transition--which
I have since undergone many times--is most wonderful. It is like the
feeling of slipping from one body into another, and there is distinctly
a double recollection of the two bodies. I remembered what I felt
in my dream, lying on my chest; but returning into the day-life, I
remembered also that my physical body had been quietly lying on its
back all the while. This observation of a double memory I have had
many times since. It is so indubitable that it leads almost unavoidably
to the conception of a dream-body.
Mr. Havelock Ellis says with something
of a sneer that some people "who dabble in the occult" speak
of an astral body. Yet if he had had only one of these experiences,
he would feel that we can escape neither the dabbling nor the dream-body.
In a lucid dream the sensation of having a body--having eyes, hands,
a mouth that speaks, and so on--is perfectly distinct; yet I know
at the same time that the physical body is sleeping and has quite
a different position. In waking up the two sensations blend together,
so to speak, and I remember as clearly the action of the dream-body
as the restfulness of the physical body.
In February 1899 I had a lucid dream,
in which I made the following experiment. I drew with my finger, moistened
by saliva, a wet cross on the palm of my left hand, with the intention
of seeing whether it would still be there after waking up. Then I
dreamt that I woke up and felt the wet cross on my left hand by applying
the palm to my cheek. And then a long time afterwards I woke up really
and knew at once that the hand of my physical body had been lying
in a closed position undisturbed on my chest all the while.
The sensation of the voice during a
lucid dream is most marvellous, and after many repetitions still a
source of amazement. I use my voice as loudly as I can, and though
I know quite well that my physical body is lying in profound sleep,
I can hardly believe that this loud voice is inaudible in the waking
world. Yet, though I have sung, shouted, and spoken loudly in hundreds
of dreams, my wife has never heard my voice, and in several cases
was able to assure me that I had slept quite peacefully.
I cannot in this paper give even a short
and superficial account of the many interesting details of these dreams.
I must reserve that for my larger work. And I fear that only a repeated
personal acquaintance with the facts can convince one of their significance.
I will relate a few more instances in order to give some idea of their
character.
On Sept. 9, 1904, I dreamt that I stood
at a table before a window. On the table were different objects. I
was perfectly well aware that I was dreaming and I considered what
sorts of experiments I could make. I began by trying to break glass,
by beating it with a stone. I put a small tablet of glass on two stones
and struck it with another stone. Yet it would not break. Then I took
a fine claret-glass from the table and struck it with my fist, with
all my might, at the same time reflecting how dangerous it would be
to do this in waking life; yet the glass remained whole. But lo! when
I looked at it again after some time, it was broken.
It broke all right, but a little too
late, like an actor who misses his cue. This gave me a very curious
impression of being in a fake-world, cleverly imitated, but with small
failures. I took the broken glass and threw it out of the window,
in order to observe whether I could hear the tinkling. I heard the
noise all right and I even saw two dogs run away from it quite naturally.
I thought what a good imitation this comedy-world was. Then I saw
a decanter with claret and tasted it, and noted with perfect clearness
of mind: "Well, we can also have voluntary impressions of taste
in this dream-world; this has quite the taste of wine."
There is a saying by the German poet,
Novalis, that when we dream that we dream, we are near waking up.
This view, shared as it is by the majority of observers, I must decidedly
reject. Lucid dreams occur in deep sleep and do not as a rule end
in waking up, unless I wish it and do it by an act of volition. I
prefer, however, in most cases to continue dreaming as long as possible,
and then the lucidity vanishes and gives place to other forms of dream,
and--what seems remarkable--the form that follows is often the "demon-
dream," of which I will speak presently.
Then it often happens that I dream that
I wake up and tell my lucid dream to some other person. This latter
is then a dream of the ordinary form. From this dream I wake up in
the real waking world, very much amazed at the curious wanderings
of my mind. The impression is as if I had been rising through spheres
of different depths, of which the lucid dream was the deepest.
I may state that without exception all
my lucid dreams occurred in the hours between five and eight in the
morning. The particular significance of these hours for our dreams
has often been brought forward--among others by Dante, Purg. IX.,
where he speaks of the hour when the swallows begin to warble and
our mind is least clogged by the material body.
Lucid dreams are also symbolic--yet
in quite a different way, I never remarked anything sexual or erotic
in them. Their symbolism takes the form of beautiful landscapes--different
luminous phenomena, sunlight, clouds, and especially a deep blue sky.
In a perfect instance of the lucid dream I float through immensely
wide landscapes, with a clear blue, sunny sky, and a feeling of deep
bliss and gratitude, which I feel impelled to express by eloquent
words of thankfulness and piety. Sometimes these words seem to me
a little rhetorical, but I cannot help it, as it is very difficult
in dreams to control emotional impulses. Sometimes I conceive of what
appears as a symbol, warning, consoling, approving. A cloud gathers
or the light brightens. Only once could I see the disc of the sun.
Flying or floating may be observed in
all forms of dreams, except perhaps the class of general dream sensations;
yet it is generally an indication that lucid dreams are coming.
When I have been flying in my dreams
for two or three nights, then I know that a lucid dream is at hand.
And the lucid dream itself is often initiated and accompanied all
the time by the sensation of flying. Sometimes I feel myself floating
swiftly through wide space; once I flew backwards, and once, dreaming
that I was inside a cathedral, I flew upwards, with the immense building
and all in it, at great speed. I cannot believe that the rhythm of
our breath has anything to do with this sensation, as Havelock Ellis
supposes, because it is generally continuous and very swift.
Difficult, spasmodic floating belongs
to dreaming of a lower class, and this may depend on morbid conditions
of the body; but it may also be symbolic of some moral difficulty
or distress.
On Christmas Day 1911 I had the following
dream. It began with flying and floating. I felt wonderfully light
and strong. I saw immense and beautiful prospects--first a town, then
country-landscapes, fantastic and brightly colored. Then I saw my
brother sitting--the same who died in 1906--and I went up to him saying:
"Now we are dreaming, both of us." He answered: "No,
I am not!" And then I remembered that he was dead. We had a long
conversation about the conditions of existence after death, and I
inquired especially after the awareness, the clear, bright insight.
But that he could not answer; he seemed to lack it.
Then the lucid dream was interrupted
by an ordinary dream in which I saw a lady standing on a bridge, who
told me she had heard me talk in my sleep. And I supposed that my
voice had been audible during the lucid dream.
Then a second period of lucidity followed
in which I saw Prof. van't Hoff, the famous Dutch chemist, whom I
had known as a student, standing in a sort of college-room, surrounded
by a number of learned people. I went up to him, knowing very well
that he was dead, and continued my inquiry about our condition after
death. It was a long, quiet conversation, in which I was perfectly
aware of the situation.
I asked first why we, lacking our organs
of sense, could arrive at any certainty that the person to whom we
were talking was really that person and not a subjective illusion.
Then van't Hoff said: "Just as in common life; by a general impression."
"Yet," I said, "in common
life there is stability of observation and there is consolidation
by repeated observation."
"Here also," said van't Hoff.
"And the sensation of certainty is the same." Then I had
indeed a very strong feeling of certitude that it was really van't
Hoff with whom I talked and no subjective illusion. Then I began to
inquire again about the clearness, the lucidity, the stability of
this life of shades and then I got the same hesitating, dubious, unsatisfactory
answer as from my brother. The whole atmosphere of the dream was happy,
bright, elevated, and the persons around van't Hoff seemed sympathetic,
though I did not know them.
"It will be some time probably
before I join you," I said. But I took myself then for younger
than I was.
After that I had several ordinary dreams
and I awoke quite refreshed, knowing my voice had not been audible
in the waking world.
In May 1903 I dreamed that I was in
a little provincial Dutch town and at once encountered my brother-in-law,
who had died some time before. I was absolutely sure that it was he,
and I knew that he was dead. He told me that he had much intercourse
with my "controller," as he expressed it--my guiding spirit.
I was glad, and our conversation was very cordial, more intimate than
ever in common life. He told me that a financial catastrophe was impending
for me. Somebody was going to rob me of a sum of 10,000 guilders.
I said that I understood him, though after waking up I was utterly
puzzled by it and could make nothing of it. My brother-in-law said
that my guiding spirit had told it to him. I told the story to somebody
else in my dream. Then I asked my brother-in-law to tell me more of
the after-life, and just as he was going to answer me I woke up--as
if somebody cut off the communication. I was not then as much used
to prolonging my dreams as I am now.
I wish to point out that this was the
only prediction I ever received in a lucid dream in such an impressive
way. And it came only too true, with this difference, that the sum
I lost was twenty times greater. At the time of the dream there seemed
not to be the slightest probability of such a catastrophe. I was not
even in possession of the money I lost afterwards. Yet it was just
the time when the first events took place--the railway strikes of
1903--that led up to my financial ruin.
There may be deceit in the lucid dream.
In March 1912 I had a very complicated dream, in which I dreamt that
Theodore Roosevelt was dead, then that I woke up and told the dream,
saying: "I was not sure in my dream whether he was really dead
or still alive; now I know that he is really dead; but I was so struck
by the news that I lost my memory." And then came a false lucidity
in which I said: "Now I know that I dream and where I am."
But this was all wrong; I had no idea of my real condition, and only
slowly, after waking up, I realized that it was all nonsense.
This sort of mockery I call demoniacal.
And there is a connection, which I observed so frequently that it
must have some significance--namely that a lucid dream is immediately
followed by an eighth type of dream I call a demon-dream.
I hope you allow me, if only for convenience
sake, to speak as if these intelligences of a low moral order exist.
Let me call it also a working hypothesis. Then I wish to point out
to you the difference between the symbolic or mocking dreams described
earlier and the demon-dreams.
In the symbolic dreams the sleeper is
teased or puzzled or harassed by various more or less weird, uncanny,
obscene, lugubrious or diabolical inventions. He has to walk in slaughter-houses
or among corpses; he finds everything besmeared with blood or excrement;
he is drawn into obscene, erotic or horrible scenes, in which he even
takes an active part. His moral condition is utterly depraved; he
is a murderer, an adulterer, etc.; in a word, nothing is too low or
too horrible for such dream.
After waking up the effect is, of course,
unpleasant; he is more or less ashamed and shocked; he tries to shake
off the memory as soon as possible.
Now in the demon-dreams--which are always
very near, before or after, the lucid dreams--I undergo similar attacks;
but I see the forms, the figures, the personalities of strange non-human
beings, who are doing it. One night, for instance, I saw such a being,
going before me and soiling everything he touched, such as door-handles
and chairs. These beings are always obscene and lascivious, and try
to draw me into their acts and doings. They have no sex and appear
alternately as a man, or a woman. Their aspect is very various and
variable, changing every moment, taking all the fantastic forms that
the old painters of the Middle Ages tried to reproduce, but with a
certain weird plasticity and variability, that no painting can express.
I will describe one instance of these
dreams (March 30, 1907, in Berlin), following immediately after a
lucid dream. The lucidity had not been very intense, and I had some
doubts about my real condition. Then all at once I was in the middle
of demons. Never before had I seen them so distinct, so impertinent,
so aggressive. One was slippery, shining, limp and cold, like a living
corpse. Another changed its face repeatedly and made the most incredible
grimaces. One flew underneath me shouting an obscenity with a curious
slang-word. I defended myself energetically, but principally with
invectives, which I felt to be a weakness. I saw the words written.
The circle of demons was close to me
and grinning like a mob of brutal street- boys. I was not afraid,
however, and said: "Even if you conquer me, if God wills it I
do not fear." Then they all cried together like a rabble, and
one said: "Let God then speak first!" And then I thundered
with all my might: "He HAS spoken long since!" And then
I pointed at one of them, saying: "You I know for a long time!"
and then pointing to another: "And you!"
Then I awoke at once, and I believe
I made some audible sound in waking up in the middle of my apostrophe.
And then--this will astonish you most--after
this dispute I felt thoroughly refreshed, cheered up and entirely
serene and calm.
This is the principal difference from
the symbolic dreams that in the demon- dreams when I see the demons
and fight them, the effect is thoroughly pleasing, refreshing and
uplifting.
This is the principal point in these
demon-dreams--that, whether these beings have a real existence or
whether they are only creations of my fancy, to see them and to fight
them takes away all their terror, all the uncanniness, the weirdness,
of their tricks and pranks.
I have not yet spoken about the ninth
dream type, which I call wrong waking up, occurring always near awakening.
Of this sort of dream I found an excellent instance described by Mach.
He calls it "Phantasma." We have the sensation of waking
up in our ordinary sleeping-room and then we begin to realize that
there is something uncanny around us; we see inexplicable movements
or hear strange noises, and then we know that we are still asleep.
In my first experience of this dream I was rather afraid and wanted
nervously to wake up really. I think this is the case with most people
who have it. They become frightened and nervous and at last wake up
with palpitations, a sweating brow and so on.
To me now these wrong-waking-up-dreams
have lost their terror. I consider them as demon-pranks, and they
amuse me; they do not tell on my nerves any more.
In July 1906 sleeping at Langen Schwalbach
a deep sleep after a laborious day, I had two or three dreams of this
type. I seemed to wake up and heard a big luggage-box being blown
along the landing, with tremendous bumping. Then I realized that I
had awakened in the demon-sphere. The second time I saw that my sleeping-room
had three windows, though I knew there were only two. Wishing to make
sure, I woke up for a moment voluntarily and realized that my room
had two windows and that stillness had reigned in the house all night.
After that I had a succession of lucid
dreams, very beautiful. At the end of them, while I was still singing
loudly, I was suddenly surrounded by many demons, who joined in my
singing, like a mob of vicious semi-savage creatures. Then I felt
that I was losing my self-control. I began to act more and more extravagantly,
to throw my bedclothes and my pillows about, and so on. I drew myself
up and saw one demon who had a less vicious look than the others and
he looked as if he were saying "you are going wrong." "Yes,"
I said, "but what shall I do?" Then he said, "Give
them the whip, on their naked backs." And I thought of Dante's
shades, who also feared the whip. I at once made--created --a whip
of leathern strings, with leaden balls at the end. And I threatened
them with it and also struck at them a few times. Then suddenly all
grew perfectly quiet around me, and I saw the creatures sneaking away
with hypocritical faces, as if they knew nothing about it at all.
I had many more adventures that night,
lucid and ordinary dreams, and I awoke fresh and cheerful, better
in spirits than I had been for a long time.
This wrong-waking-up type is not to
be confused with the dreams in which I dreamt that I woke after a
lucid dream and told that dream to some listener. Those dreams were
of the ordinary sort. There was nothing uncanny about them. Dreams
of the wrong-waking-up class are undoubtedly demoniacal, uncanny,
and very vivid and bright, with a sort of ominous sharpness and clearness,
a strong diabolical light. Moreover the mind of the sleeper is aware
that it is a dream, and a bad one, and he struggles to wake up. As
I said just now, however, the terror ends as soon as the demons are
seen--as soon as the sleeper realizes he must be the dupe of intelligences
of a low moral order. I am prepared to hear myself accused of superstition,
of reviving the dark errors of the Middle Ages. Well, I only try to
tell the facts as clearly as possible and I cannot do it without using
these terms and ideas. If anybody will replace them by others, I am
open to any suggestion. Only I would maintain that it is not my mind
that is responsible for all the horrors and errors of dream-life.
To say that nobody is responsible for them will not do, for there
is absolute evidence in them of some thought and intention, however
depraved and low. A trick, a deceit, a symbol, cannot be without some
sort of thought and intention. To put it all down to "unconsciousness"
is very convenient; but then I say that it is just as scientific to
use the names Beelzebub, or Belial. I, for one, do not believe in
"unconsciousness" any more than in Santa Claus.
The remark may be made that in introducing
intelligent beings of a low order to explain these phenomena, an element
of arbitrariness is brought in, which excludes the possibility of
finding a scientific order. It is, for instance, convenient to ascribe
all the phenomena of insanity and of pathological dreams to demons,
who make use of the weakness of the body to play their tricks. This
is, in fact, the opinion of no less a man than Alfred Russel Wallace,
as he freely confessed to me in a personal conversation.
I do not think, however, that even this
idea, taken as a working hypothesis, will prevent us from trying to
find a scientific order even in these apparently demoniacal tricks;
the fact, for instance, that certain drugs bring about hallucinations
of a well-defined kind; that cocaine produces delicious expectations
and pleasant dreams, and alcohol causes visions of small white animals.
This suggests that there must be some order behind it, which is not
purely arbitrary.
We are here, however, on the borders
of a realm of mystery where we have to advance very carefully. To
deny may be just as dangerous and misleading as to accept.
