Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/313

Rh dread of a harmless object may arise as a transposition, on to the secondarily associated idea of this object, of a dread that was fully justified in relation to the primary idea. In short, the process is another form of the displacement mechanism described above. Just as in the psycho-neuroses, so also in the dream the primary underlying idea is of such a nature as to be incapable of becoming conscious (bewusstsemsunfdhig), a matter that will presently be further discussed. Freud explains the regular occurrence in the dream of a recent experience by pointing out that this has not yet had time to form many associations, and therefore is more free to become associated with unconscious psychical processes. The circumstance is of interest as indicating that during sleep, and unnoticed by our consciousness, important changes go on in our memory and conceptual material; the familiar advice to sleep over an important matter before coming to a decision has an important basis in fact.

The third feature, namely the hypermnesia particularly for experiences of early childhood, is of cardinal importance. Early memories, which the subject had completely forgotten, but the truth of which can often be objectively confirmed, not infrequently occur with startling fidelity even in the manifest content. This fact in itself should suggest the ontogenetic antiquity of dream processes. In the latent content the appearance of such forgotten memories is far more frequent, and Freud holds it probable that the latent content of every dream is connected with ancient mental processes that extend back to early childhood. The following instance may be given of this. (7) A patient, a man aged 37, dreamt that ''he was, being attacked by a man who was armed with a number of sharp weapons; the assailant was swarthy, and wore a dark moustache. He struggled and succeeded somehow in inflicting a skin wound on his opponent' s left hand. The name Charles seemed to be related to the man, though not so definitely as if it were his name. The man changed into a fierce dog, which the subject of the dream succeeded in vanquishing by forcibly tearing his jaws apart so as to split his head in two''. No one could have been more astonished at the dream than the patient himself, who is a singularly inoffensive person. The name Charles led to the following free associations: a number of indifferent acquaintances having this as their Christian name a man, named Dr. Charles Stuart, whom he had seen at a Scottish reunion, at which he had been present on the day before (this man, however, wears a beard)–another man present at the reunion whose personal appearance had many traits in common with his assailant in the dream the Scottish Stuart Kings Charles I and Charles II.–again the acquaintance Charles Stuart–