The Interwoven Sources of Dreams

Umberto Barcaro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429921148
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The subject of this book is the study of dreaming from a specific point of view, one that provides useful and enlightening results: the analysis of the complex patterns of links among the memory sources of dreams. The significance of these patterns is logical and emotional at the same time. This approach is interdisciplinary: it directly involves the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, linguistics, computer science, mathematics (graph theory), history of psychology, literature, and motion pictures. However, no specific advanced expertise in any of these fields is required for understanding the various contents. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 is dedicated to theories and methodologies regarding dream functions and dream interpretations: these theories and methodologies are considered in the perspective of their implications for the study of links among dream sources. Some meaningful examples of dreams, or metaphors or dreams, that can be found in poetry or motion pictures, are also considered.

Part One
Theories of dreaming and methodologies of dream analysis; their connection to the study of the memory sources of dreams

A “minimalist” theory of dreaming

To start our reflections upon the variety of dream theories, let us express a very trivial theory, which at first sight rejects for dreams any possibility of meaning and function. We will call this theory “minimalist”.

Let us suppose that for some physiological unknown cause, which has nothing to do with dreams, we need to sleep. Therefore, while sleeping we strongly decrease our muscle and sensory activity, in other words our interaction with the environment. But let us suppose that our brain is unable to stop working, or cannot stop (for some practical reason, for example, that otherwise it would be damaged, or could not resume activity). According to this theory, dreaming would occur simply because our brain goes on working, even though its work during sleep is useless. This theory is trivial; let us express it, therefore, with a trivial metaphor: our brain would be like a car without a battery. When it is put into a garage during the night, the engine should not be turned off, otherwise the car will be not be able to work again the following morning. During the night, the engine is still on, even though the car is not in gear and the wheels do not turn round.

A minimalist theory can assume different forms and can be put into more interesting terms. As an example, the theory advanced by Flanagan (2000), which we will consider in the next Section, can be viewed as a variation of the minimalist theory.

The theory of Flanagan

Flanagan (2000) attributes no function to dreaming, and inserts his theory into the frame of the Darwinian notion of Fitness, in the light of the modern Population Genetics. He tackles the problem of whether dreaming is functional, in other words whether there are credible adaptionist accounts for dreaming. The term “adaptionist” clearly puts the problem in the Darwinian perspective: “evolutionary adaptation” indicates any trait which was selected and maintained in the process of Evolution because it was able to increase the fitness of those organisms that had that trait.

Certainly, Flanagan answers, adaptionist explanations exist for the phenomenon of sleep and for the cyclical progression of stages during sleep—“sleep cycling”. But, according to this author, the functional status of dreaming is different. He states that there is reason to believe that dreaming is a by-product of the functions which are performed during both wakefulness and sleep. To express his point of view, Flanagan uses another, much less usual, technical term of the Evolution Theory, “exaptation”: an evolutionary exaptation is “something that first appeared as a side effect of an adaptation and which was then coopted to serve some new adaptative biological function” (Flanagan, 2000, p. 21). But he goes still further: after discarding the idea of dreaming as a product of adaptation, Flanagan supports the hypothesis that dreaming is not even a product of exaptation: dreams may be by-products that have never been subjected to any biological selection pressure. He uses two images in order to express this concept: dreams may be “free riders” which come with sleep, and they may be the “spandrels” of sleep (p. 22).

The “spandrel” metaphor is taken from an article by Gould and Lewontin published in 1978 regarding the theory of Evolutionary Adaptation. This term belongs to the field of architecture. We can find spandrels in churches, where massive vaulted ceilings or domes are mounted on arches: spandrels are the roughly triangular wall spaces between two adjacent arches. They are by-products of the architectural design of the church (and of aqueducts characterized by a long series of arches).

The theory of Flanagan, therefore, credits sleep, but not dreaming, with a functional significance. According to his theory, the systems responsible for wakefulness cognition and sleep were both produced by evolution because they are functional. On the contrary, dreaming is simply a by-product which appears in a system designed for aware cognition and sleep, in the same way as spandrels appear in architectural systems in which arches play a functional role.

Dreaming could be significant without being functional

It should be underlined that the hypothesis that dreaming has no function does not imply that dreams have no significance.

Let us go back to the trivial minimalist theory exposed in Section [A “minimalist” theory of dreaming (1)]. Let us suppose that the human brain during sleep simply keeps on working, with an activity which should be no more than a varied, probably fuzzier, probably also reduced, prosecution of the wakefulness activity. It is clear that the study of this varied activity and of the modalities of its variation would still however be important, and probably extremely useful for the purposes of psychological science, therapy and self-knowledge.

If we now consider the Theory of Flanagan again, we find that Flanagan insists on the issue of significance without functionality, taking advantage of the metaphor of the spandrels: in the same way as in churches spandrels have been exploited for artistic purposes, we are able to exploit dreams in a number of creative and helpful ways.

Before leaving Flanagan’s Theory, we should remark that a construction of a theory about dreaming centred on Evolution does not necessarily imply the rejection of any dream function. For instance, Revonsuo (2000) proposed a theory attributing a threat simulation function to dreams. He argued that such a function should have had a very strong evolutionary value for a species developing in a constantly dangerous environment.

The Freudian Theory of Dreams: The unconscious wishful impulse

The Freudian Theory of Dreams can be seen, at least at first sight, as placed at the opposite side of the minimalist theory: it credits dreaming with a very important function and a great specific psychological significance.

For reasons of simplicity, considering that the Freudian Theory presents remarkable variations according to the different works written by Freud, we will now only refer to the Lectures from the 5th to the 15th of the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Freud, 1916–1917). All of these lectures are dedicated to dreams. We will limit ourselves to only some of the main concepts of the Freudian Theory. In the light of the historical importance of the Freudian text, also from the point of view of terminology, we will often literally report excerpts taken from his work.

The main principle of the Freudian Theory of dreams is that dreams are always the fulfilment of an unconscious wish:

“Our view is that [in dreams] something is added to the day’s residues, something that was also part of the unconscious, a powerful but repressed wishful impulse; and it is this alone that makes the construction of the dream possible. The influence of this wishful impulse on the day’s residues creates the further portion of the latent dream-thoughts—that which need no longer appear rational and intelligible as being derived from waking life.” (Lecture 14, p. 226)

Let us now clarify the meaning of two phrases used by Freud in the just quoted excerpt, “day’s residues” and “latent dream-thoughts”:

The day’s residues are “something which is derived from our conscious life and shares its characteristics” (Lecture 13, p. 212). They are elements of a dream that come from ordinary, often trivial, recent experiences of the dreamer. We will provide an example of day’s residues very soon in this Section.

The concept of “latent dream-thoughts” is opposite to the concept of “manifest dream-content”. In fact, according to Freud, the deep meaning of the dream is generally hidden: it is not given, or at least not given easily, by the content of the dream as it is experienced, recalled and reported:

“We will describe what the dream actually tells us as the manifest dream-content, and the concealed material, which we hope to reach by pursuing the ideas that occur to the dreamer, as the latent dream-thoughts.” (Lecture 7, p. 120)

In other words, the latent dream-thoughts can only be reached following a correct method of interpretation; the method proposed and applied by Freud is founded on the associations provided by the dreamer.

The relationship between the manifest dream-content and the latent dream-thoughts is twofold: the dream construction (a complex psychic process which Freud calls “dream-work”) goes from the second to the first, while the dream interpretation tracks back from the first to the second. Of course, dream construction is performed by the dreamer’s mind, while dream interpretation is performed by the therapist or in any case by the one who interprets the dream. It should be stressed, however, that, according to Freud, any interpretation should rely on material provided by the dreamer: he considers the association process something that goes through the same paths of the dream construction, of course in a reversed direction. He writes:

“The work which transforms the latent dream into the manifest one is called the dream-work. The work which proceeds in the contrary direction, which endeavours to arrive at the latent dream from the manifest one, is our work of interpretation. This work of interpretation seeks to undo the dream-work.” (Lecture 11, p. 170)

According to Freud, the wishful impulse which makes the construction of a dream possible belongs to the “unconscious”. This term means much more than simply “not conscious”; it means “belonging to the Unconscious” (which we will write with a capital “U”), a particular realm of the mind which is postulated by the Freudian Theory and plays a major role in its frame. According to Freud, the “dream-work” is characterized by a phenomenon of “regression”. In the following important passage, Freud explains what he means by “regression of the dream-work” and by “Unconscious”:

“As the outcome of our whole inquiry [into the “archaic and infantile features” of dreams], let us grasp two discoveries, though they only signify the beginning of fresh enigmas and fresh doubts. First, the regression of the dream-work is not only a formal but also a material one. It not only translates our thoughts into a primitive form of expression; but it also revives the characteristics of our primitive mental life—the old dominance of the ego, the initial impulses of our sexual life, and even, indeed, our old intellectual endowment, if symbolic connections may be regarded as such. And secondly, all this, which is old and infantile and was once dominant and alone dominant, must today be ascribed to the unconscious, our ideas of which are now becoming altered and extended. ‘Unconscious’ is no longer the name of what is latent at the moment; the unconscious is a particular realm of the mind with its own wishful impulses, its own mode of expression and its peculiar mental mechanisms which are not in force elsewhere.” (Lecture 13, pp. 211–212)

Freud uses the term “unconscious” with two different meanings. He is “conscious”, let us use this term, of the ambiguity of the term “unconscious”:

“‘Are the day’s residues,’ you will ask, ‘really unconscious in the same sense as the unconscious wish which must be added to them in order to make them capable of producing a dream?’ Your suspicion is correct. This is the salient point of the whole business. They are not unconscious in the same sense. The dream-wish belongs to a different unconscious—to the one which we have already recognized as being of infantile origin and equipped with peculiar mechanisms. It would be highly opportune to distinguish these two kinds of unconscious by different names.” (Lecture 14, p. 227)

In the 14th Lecture, in order to give a first example of unconscious wishful impulse, Freud analyses “the dream of the three theatre-tickets for 1 florin 50” (p. 224), which he had previously examined in the 7th Lecture. We will consider this dream more extensively later, in Sections from [The Dream of the Three Theatre Tickets: The manifest dream and its sources (123)] to [The Dream of the Three Theatre Tickets: An analysis of the recognized links among sources (131)], and now will only provide a clear instance of day’s residues and of unconscious wishes.

The dream was had by a lady who, despite her young age, had been married for many years. On the day before the dream, she had discovered that a friend of hers had become engaged. According to Freud, the latent dream-thoughts included the following day’s residue:

“… anger at having been in such a hurry to get married which arose when she heard the news that her friend had only just become engaged, putting a low value on her husband and the idea that she might have got a better one if only she had waited.” (Lecture 14, pp. 224–225)

On the other hand, the “old wish” was, according to Freud, the following:

“... her old curiosity to discover at long last what really happens when one is married. This curiosity is, as we know, regularly directed by children towards their parents’ sexual life; it is an infantile curiosity, and, so far as it persists later, an instinctual impulse with roots reaching back into infancy.” (Lecture 14, p. 225)

From this simple example, we see that, while the day’s residues are recent, the unconscious wish belongs to the “old and infantile” realm of the mind called “Unconscious”.

The Freudian Theory of Dreams: The technique of interpretation

In the 6th Lecture Freud describes his technique of interpretation. It is based on asking the subject for associations. For reasons of simplicity, we will use the term “association”, although in the English translation by James Strachey the original German word “Einfall” used by Freud has been translated, as we will see below, in different ways, not always with the same word. It should also be underlined that Freud uses also the word “Assoziation”. In the Freudian Theory, the association method is not restricted to the analysis of dreams: he considers this method as useful for the interpretation of “parapraxes”, that is, “faulty acts”, such as the slips of the tongue. Lectures from the 2nd to the 4th are dedicated to parapraxes. Among the many examples, in the 3rd Lecture Freud gives the one of a parapraxis consisting in the utterance of a non-existent word (“Vorschwein”) unconsciously constructed by joining two existent words, that is, “Vorschein” (from the German phrase “zum Vorschein kommen”, meaning “to come to light”), and “Schweinereien”, which means “disgusting”, literally “piggish”. The man who pronounced that non-existent combined word was speaking of some occurrences he disapproved of: instead of saying that the facts came to light, he said that they came to “Vorschwein”.

In order to explain how the method of the associations works for dream interpretation as well as for parapraxis interpretation, Freud mentions the example of the parapraxis “Vorschwein” and underlines the simplicity of the method:

“It is very probable, then, that the dreamer knows about his [sic] dream; the only question is how to make it possible for him to discover his knowledge and communicate it to us. We do not require him to tell us straight away the sense of his dream, but he will be able to find its origin, the circle of thoughts and interests from which it sprang. You will recall that in the case of the parapraxis the man was asked how he had arrived at the wrong word ‘Vorschwein’ and the first thing that occurred to him [this phrase is the translation of the Freudian text including the word ‘Einfall’] gave us the explanation. Our technique with dreams, then, is a very simple one, copied from this example. We shall once more ask the dreamer how he arrived at the dream, and once more his first remark is to be looked on as an explanation.” (Lecture 6, pp. 104–105)

The Freudian interpretation of dreams does not only exploit the dreamer’s associations: it also applies a method for the recognition of symbols in dreams, according to the following definition:

“A constant relation ... between a dream-element and its translation is described by us as a ‘symbolic’ one, and the dream-element itself as a ‘symbol’ of the unconscious dreamthought.” (Lecture 10, p. 150)

According to Freud, “the very great majority of symbols in dreams are sexual symbols” (p. 153). For instance, he states that the sacred number “three” represents the male genitals, adding that “whether this number owes its sacred character to this symbolic connection remains undecided” (p. 163). He remarks that sometimes the significance of a symbol is not easily understandable. For instance, he considers the symbolic significance of hats, overcoats, and cloaks as male sexual symbols “quite unquestionable”, but observes that it is not easy to guess the reason for this significance. Very soon, we will consider the symbolic value of hats in more detail.

A major difference between the Freudian method and the methods typical of popular dream books is that not every element of the manifest dream is considered by Freud as a symbol:

“In this way we obt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• PERMISSIONS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE Theories of dreaming and methodologies of dream analysis; their connection to the study of the memory sources of dreams
• PART TWO Basic concepts of our analysis of links among dream sources
• PART THREE Study of links among dream sources: Application to dreams reported in the literature
• REFERENCES
• INDEX