"Not so fast," says Dr. Jung, while the dreamer remains nonplussed at the foregoing example of the reductive method. "It is not good for the health to overvalue the past, as my colleague does. Nous avons change tout cela, in Zurich. Your curiosity, according to the constructive method, is a demand for satisfaction in new and better ways than those of infancy. I will prove this to be so, by an investigation of the dream material. This Dr. X., what of him and his handwriting?"

The dreamer then explains that Dr. X. had consented to have his dreams analyzed, and that the outcome had been the uncovering of his secret intention to be married; the dreamer also states that Dr. X. had written some very original papers on periosteal reflexes.

"Ah," says Dr. Jung, as it were, making quotations from his own writings, (as indicated in italics) "one has only to hear this dream material in order to understand at once that the dream is not so much the fulfilment of infantile desires as it is the expression of biological duties hitherto neglected because of . . . infantilism.([6]) To be sure these are sexual objects that you are looking at in the dream, as Freud would have it. But your interest in them is not so primitive as it would seem. For do you not, symbolically speaking, 'look down upon' them in your fancy. And moreover, since you are looking at these emblems of parental union 'from the right side,' does it not therefore mean that you are contemplating something legitimate; namely, marriage on your own account— not exhibitionism on the part of others. One infers you wish to put away childish sex-curiosity and fulfil your destiny as a parent. In this case symbolical value, not concrete value must be attached to the sexual phantasy."

At this point, the dreamer makes free to admit that he is a bachelor, and that he would not be averse to marriage if he could manage to take a wife and at the same time keep up his research work.

"Precisely," Dr. Jung might say, rapidly turning these clues to account, "your interest in future advancement is clearly reflected in your anxiety to decipher the handwriting of Dr. X., with whom you have identified yourself. You desire to emulate his scientific achievements; his published work on reflexes excites your ambition. The handwriting on the label, which perplexes you, is an allusion not only to his authorship but to the difficulties in the way of your own contribution to the science of dream interpretation. By imitating Dr. X's triumph you wish to make your marriage possible. Your Horme or elan vital is pushing you to evolve new and higher forms of the Libido. You are sublimating!"[26]



THE RECONSTITUTIVE METHOD

"No, gentlemen," the dreamer replies at last, "your reductions and your constructions are too easy-going, too conjectural, too much dominated by prepossessions and the 'will to interpret.' The alleged sources or determinants for this dream may or may not have played the parts you assign to them; the mystery of the matter must remain inscrutable. But what your methods, so plausible in effect, certainly do show is how easy it may be to confabulate an explanation that goes no deeper than a phrenological reading of cranial bumps or than a seance in the cabinet of a palmist. Let us turn away from all this and consider what really happened, as by the grace of luck I can bear witness. Permit me to reconstitute the dream as an actual event, by the employment of certain clues which I was about to give when the ready-made symbolism of Dr. Freud was interposed."



OUTLINE OF THE RECONSTITUTION

Inasmuch as the dream is one of my own, I may be permitted to testify that it was unmistakably connected with a scratching sensation at my ear, as I distinctly perceived on awaking. This stimulation proceeded obviously from a mouse, which I had time to observe in close proximity, as it remained perched on the bedclothes, until my own startled movements put it to flight. Tracing the stimulation from this external source, I shall try to maintain the following interpretation:—

First, that the dream is an associative reaction to the sensation of scratching, in the form of evocations of imagery related in experience to this sensory element; and that the dream-process was a part of the perception, or recognition or apperception of the stimulus.

Second, that this reaction—let us name it apperception of the stimulus— took place slowly and imperfectly, owing to the state of sleep, so that the reaction was, to begin with, only remotely relevant to the stimulus, but improved in relevancy with successive evocations, until the mental representation closely approximated the character of the stimulus.

Third, that in and among the secondary images[27] so evoked, incidental processes of thought, tertiary compoundings of these images, were immediately set up; the selection and re-arrangement of these secondary and tertiary features, constituting the revelation of a significant state of mind which had preceded the dream.

Specifically, in addition to the mental response to the external stimulus, there was a phantasy representing an imaginary wish-fulfilment: namely the desire to forsake the study of histology, with the eye-straining search through the microscope, in favor of the study of reflex-action or reflexology.

My contention is that this blended response[28] to a physical and to a psychic cue arose very naturally and simply out of a single context, prepared by events of the night before; and I would show that by comparing the phantasy with this context, it is possible to reconstitute the dream in a way that amounts to a refutation of the two other interpretations, which I have essayed in accordance with the methods of Freud and of Jung, respectively.



THE REAL CONTEXT OF THE DREAM

Our constant consideration should be for the fact, emphasized by William James, that there is "no recall without a cue."[29] Here we have a scratching sensation provoked by a mouse as the immediate and demonstrated cue. The images that followed in serial response, proved upon investigation to have been wholly derived from a certain conversation with Dr. X., the night before. The subject had been reflex-action and especially the scratch-reflex of the guinea-pig[30] as investigated by Sherrington; we had discussed also the attempts of other authors to explain the higher mental functions in terms of reflex-action.([31]) My own preference for such studies as applied to the explanation of dreams had been touched upon. This preference had in turn been contrasted with the fact that I was at the time of the dream called upon to spend much time studying histological specimens through the microscope. Incidentally, I told him that this was bad for my eyes, and likewise, I had complained that his dreams were not written out clearly enough to suit my purpose to study them carefully. Such interest had been aroused in the subject of reflexology, that Dr. X. and I had stayed up late that night discussing it.

A study of the dream in the light of these facts will show how perfectly the dreaming mind appears to have "taken advantage of" them—in reality following cues along the lines of least resistance.



THE DREAM AS A RESPONSE TO A CUE

The Scratch-Reflex dream is then to be reconstituted first of all as a memory-reaction determined by factors of recency, frequency and intensity in the dreamer's experience. The operation of these factors determines the evocation of a specific context or apperception-mass, namely the conversation in question, whose affinity with the external stimulus (scratching) is now made evident. The course of events can be followed so concretely as to permit the logical exclusion of other supposed determinants; confining the explanation as stated. The principle of the parsimony of causes is here applied. I contend that the dream is neither an infantile nor a sexual wish-fulfilment, all plausible analogies to the contrary notwithstanding. Should anyone wish to urge the more remote interpretations which I first manufactured, then the burden of proof rests with him. And no proof is conclusive that rests on mere precedent or on mere reasoning by analogy. The only psychological proof of an interpretation is fundamentally the ability of the interpreter to reconstitute the dream beyond peradventure. This I propose to accomplish more in detail, showing the dream to be a reaction to specific cues, through a process of trial-and-error, and to a limited degree, of trial and success.



TRIAL PERCEPTS

Consider the sequence of events: the dream pictures are all related, at least individually, to the conversation in question: microscope, slide, reflex and "scratchiness" are all so many pictures jig-sawed out from this very context or apperception-mass. The scratching sensation, we must suppose, evoked these pictures serially, in the order stated. If these images were what the psychologist calls "trial percepts," we would expect from them just what we do find, namely, an increasing degree of correspondence (relevancy) between the stimulus-idea and the images, as they appear.[33] Precisely so, the images of microscope, slide, reflex and scratchy handwriting, as they successively come into focus, conform more and more to the nature of the stimulus, until the approximation ends in the idea of an all-absorbing interest in "scratchy" marks. This visual image hardly reaches precision before it becomes translated and transposed to the tactile field of my ear; smoothly, as if it were one magic lantern view dissolving into another. In fine, the presentation of each image in the dream amounts to a groping effort of the dreamer's nervous system to find a proper experiential EQUIVALENT for the arriving stimulus. It is a trial-and-error method of perceiving or apperceiving a stimulus by marshelling associated ideas; in this case they are serially evoked; (what might be called "oniric echelon"); in other cases the trial apperceptions are blended smoothly (oniric fusion) or heaped together in rough-and-tumble fashion, a kind of confusion (conveniently called "oniric entassement") which testifies sufficiently to the failures of the Unconscious t o dispose smoothly of arriving excitations, and so emphasizes; the theory of trial-and-error, as applied to dreams.



APPERCEPTIVE DELAY IN TRIAL-AND-ERROR PROCESS

The delay in arriving at the correct apperception of the stimulus may be referred to as "finding-time" or simply as apperceptive delay. It represents time occupied with the reproduction of erroneous apperceptive images—apperceptive errors. Meanwhile the stimulus-idea, that mental element most closely connected with the original stimulus, is operating somewhere in the brain, determining the evocation of the secondary images that appear in the dream.[33] This wire-pulling is done in the dark; the primary stimulus-idea is not itself imaged, at first; neither is the context or apperception-mass which meets it half-way, that is, becomes conjoined with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, the images that come into the dream are only emerging peaks of a submerged island of memory. What shall emerge is determined by the interplay of stimulus-idea and apperception-mass, below the level of consciousness. (A and Z are working together.)

The particular "island of memory" in this case, was an impression of the talk with Dr. X., about histology, reflexology and dream interpretation; it remained subliminal, evidently, except so far as portions of it were raised above the threshold by the reproductive energy of the stimulus of scratching. Necessarily, a process of imageless thought had taken place, whereby the conversation was brought into play as a sub-excited apperception-mass or setting-of-ideas for the stimulus-idea. Furthermore, another process of imageless thought must have taken place whereby the secondary images being raised into consciousness attained to their arrangement as a wish-phantasy, without that preliminary tuning-up which the principal cue (scratching) called forth, on its own account. This remains to be explained.



THE INCIDENTAL WISH-FULFILMENT

The dream, viewed as a mere wish-fulfilment, is plainly a successful allegory. While the action of the principal cue or immediate stimulus had served to evoke the apperception-mass or context out of which this wish-phantasy was constructed, at the same moment, there was an ulterior influence at work, dictating a process of re-arrangement of the secondary images, so as to give expression to my preference for reflexology as against histology. Besides, the ground appears to have already been so well prepared that we can readily explain the absence of evident signs of trial-and-error. For in dreaming that I look away from the microscope and turn with intensive interest to the reflex, I was still only giving effect to a preference which had already attached the emotions of liking and dislike, to these two objects of thought, respectively. The creative fancy in this instance, what Hobbes[34] called the FICTION of the mind, has a very simple task to work upon: achieving the imaginary satisfaction of unadjusted feelings regarding the mental conflict between histology and reflexology. The MICROSCOPE is accordingly reproduced naively with an "endeavor fromward" attached to it, and likewise the REFLEX, with an "endeavor toward" it.[*] Thus is the expression completed of a wish which had been partially outspoken in the conversation with Dr. X.

[*] Hobbes, "Leviathan," Cap. VI: "These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called ENDEAVOUR. This endeavour,. when it is toward something which causes it, is called APPETITE, or DESIRE; . . . And when the endeavour is fromward something, it is generally called AVERSTON. These words appetite and aversion, we have from the Latins, and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So do also the Greek words for the same, which are Horme and Aphorme."

In this connection, I beg leave to suggest that these Greek terms are more usefully applied to dreams and to the passions in general, in their uncomplicated primitive sense, rather than in the new way that Dr. C. G. Jung is suggesting for Horme, as a companion word for Libido or for elan vital. For several years, I have found it useful to employ the coined adjectives hormetic and aphormetic to characterize the tendencies fromward or toward, as exhibited in the association of ideas. For example, in the Scratch Reflex dream, there is shown an aphormetic tendency regarding the microscope and a hormetic tendency regarding the reflex.

While the external physical stimulus (scratching) must be thought of as being represented dynamically somewhere in the arrival platforms of the brain, it is necessary to think of the internal psychic stimulus (or wish) as existing in the form of facilitations, or ready-made connections of ideas and motives, as it were awaiting, in a state of mobilization, the proper signal to discharge into consciousness. The expression of the wish thus became accessory to the apperception of the principal cue. The accessory wish-cue wrought its effect coetaneously, during the apperceptive delay.

Granted the correctness of this explanation, does it not clearly conform to the statement of Emerson that "dreams are the maturation often of opinions not consciously carried out to statements, but whereof we already possessed the elements."[*]

[*] Emerson, R. W., "Lectures and Biographical Sketches," Vol. X, Complete Works, p. 8; Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1904.



THE PERSEVERATION OF THE UNADJUSTED

In the foregoing words of Emerson, there is brought to bear on dreams an energic conception of mind-action similar to that which Hobbes had developed in his Leviathan in 1651. The latter, by analogy with conceptions of mechanical inertia new in his time, had compared the persevering effect of nervous stimuli to the continued agitation of waves of the sea after a storm: "When a body is once in motion, it moveth, unless something else hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, quite extinguish it; and as we see in water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of man, then, when he sees, dreams, et cetera." (Cap. II)

The Delage-Woodworth conception that dreams are due to persevering effects of unadjusted mental elements is not, therefore, entirely novel; but is itself a maturing of opinions which have been more or less loosely entertained by writers on dreams since Hobbes first formulated the modern doctrine of the association of ideas,—not to go back any further. The fertility of the conception of the "perseveration of the unadjusted" has been emphasized in my mind by illustrations obtained by an extended study of the dreams of normal people, and notably, by the agreement of my conclusions with those of Professor Woodworth and of Dr. Morton Prince. And I am led to believe that a development of this conception should harmonize with accepted principles of psychology, normal and abnormal, as formulated in Ladd and Woodworth's text-book, and in Prince's "The Unconscious."

Greater precision must be conferred upon this conception by showing specifically in what ways, and by what associative mechanisms, the persevering and unadjusted stimuli evoke the dream-images. Granting that unadjusted stimuli persist in their effects upon dream life, or in other terms, that primary stimulus-ideas may evoke secondary dream-images, and so on unto the third and fourth "generations;" then, in what manner does the process go on or come to an end? The answer to this question is an eminently practical one, to which Psycho-analysis has already brought the complication of its own still immature formulation of Ab-reaction and of Catharsis.[35] The matter still requires further study. In particular, it is necessary to formulate, through specific examples, a conception which shall be the pendant or complement of the theory of the perseveration of the unadjusted, and which I will call the "resolution of the unadjusted."

Already, I have taken the preliminary steps in this direction by adopting the physiological conception of trial percepts and applying it to dream interpretation. As a result, I have come to regard the successive evocations of imagery in the dream and even their reciprocal adaptations under the influence of creative fancy, as being trial apperceptions or attempted responses to one or more cues, either sensory or psychic.



RESOLUTION OF THE UNADJUSTED

The operation of any cue, waking or sleeping, implies the endeavor of the organism to provide a channel of escapement for the nervous excitation emanating from the stimulus. The best channels, of course, are furnished by those neurograms, or vestiges of previous experience, originally constellated with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, as in the Scratch-Reflex dream, we find that the stimulus does immediately tend to pass into such channels. But the same example shows that it takes time for the excitation to raise into consciousness the image most closely related to, or agglutinated with, the stimulus; this being, no doubt, due to the passive inertia in the corresponding neurogram. Meantime, during the apperceptive delay, the energy spills over into less appropriate neurograms, albeit they are more quickly mobilized, with the result of evoking bizarre imagery; what I have called trial apperceptions.[36] Sometimes, too, this is adequate to meet the situation; for the resolution of the unadjusted is complete so soon as the stimulus is drained off, re-distributed and dynamically absorbed, as in the case of mechanical "lost motion." A useful and intelligent solution is by no means requisite: mere rambling often suffices.

Yet in sleep the process of trial-and-error may often result in highly constructive resolutions, as in what the French call reve utile. This is especially true in case the unadjusted cues are highly persistent psychic stimuli. Here, the excitation rises instead of seeming to wear down and can be followed in its working up, through trial-and-error, to the elaboration of a more or less logical response to the demands of the mental situation;—after which, the excitation appears to trouble the sleeper no further. Unfortunately, time does not permit my giving the examples I would like of the varieties of resolutions in dreams—with their every degree of relevancy and irrelevancy, of a propos and bizarrerie. Instead, I will briefly dwell on a suggestive example of mental adjustment to specific cues, in the waking state.

A Japanese poetess is asked to combine into one word-picture the ideas of a triangle, of a square and of a circle. After a short pause, taken up (as we may believe) by what Ernst Mach calls the conflict of ideas, and which I think of as imageless trials and errors, the poetess evolves the following phantasy: "Detaching one corner of the mosquito netting, lo, I behold the moon." This resolution left nothing to be desired.

All resolutions of problems, of riddles, of charades, and, according to my experience, most dreams if not all, represent a trial-and-error method of working out a reconciliation among unadjusted mental tendencies, the goal of which is illustrated by the case of the Japanese poetess. Dreams, however, usually exhibit only the preliminary efforts. Those are hidden in this example, which stands midway between the severe reasoning of Euclid and the free-play of a dreamer's response to the reproductive tendencies playing upon his memory.

As to the theory of the resolution of the unadjusted, I must resist the temptation to dwell on its many attractive phases, in bringing this discussion to a close. One of its neglected aspects, however, may be indicated within the present context, by remarking upon the feeling of incompleteness that would at this stage, be left in the mind of the hearer, if I should make an end, abruptly, like a phonograph stopped in the middle of a tune. My discourse would inevitably be left at loose ends, owing to the persistency of a number of questions which have been raised, agitated, but not fully set at rest. These would continue to act as so many persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas. These are embodied in the feeling we now have, that a summary should be made of what has gone before concerning the Scratch-Reflex dream and the various methods of interpreting it. Thus, our "unfinished feeling" represents in itself an obscure demand for a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake—as I trust you all still remain. The present demand for the resolution of the unadjusted must be met without going deeper into the theory of the matter.[37]



THE RECONSTITUTION SUMMARIZED

Accordingly, I will now point out the fact that the analysis of the Scratch-Reflex dream has been carried to the stage where the dream stands reconstituted as follows:—

It is an attempt of the nervous mechanism to resolve a specific sensory stimulus-idea (A) by the discharge of nervous energy into a previously prepared or "facilitated" set-of-the-mind or context (Hidden Z). This, in the premises, happened to possess associative affinity for the stimulus, and was therefore, by the same token, chosen, i. e., brought into play, as a spillway for the stimulus. The secondary images (C) in the dream, evoked by the derivation of excitement through the channels of the given context (conversation with Dr. X.) are explained as forming—in the order of their appearance— a chain of apperceptive pictures, or trial-and-error series, whose links or steps approximate gradually to the characteristic features of the primary stimulus-idea (scratching sensation). But while regarding this immediate influence as the principal cue to memory (calling it A), we must admit an ulterior influence or motive-power, itself in the nature of an accessory cue, namely a wish (B), revived along with the memory of the conversation. This wish (to substitute reflexology for histology) contributes a special configuration or phantastic, wishful arrangement to the group of successive trial apperceptions called forth by the physical stimulus (A). The corresponding motives of desire and of aversion, (concisely pictured as positive interest in the reflex and disinterest in the microscope), although seeming to spring out of the system of memories (Z), which form the context, are none the less separate from it as self-acting sources of stimulus, as a wish apart from the mere brute memory of the talk about reflexes. The wish is thus an accessory cue (B) operating in conjunction with the external stimulus, although revived by the energy of the latter. In this case, the imaginary wish-fulfilment achieves an immediate, though limited, success. Correspondingly, it does not exhibit on its own account the feature of trial-and-error which we have learnt to recognize in the working of the unadjusted sensory stimulus (scratching).

While this dream does not exemplify trial-and-error processes in response to a psychic cue, it is proper to state that the same mechanism can be demonstrated in the more purely psychic dreams, as well as in this one, wherein we have followed the trial apperceptions of a stimulus, from their incipience, to the point of awaking to a conscious recognition of the source of excitation. Moreover, by a more delicate and intricate use of the reconstitutive method it is possible to discover the stimulus-ideas in those cases where the dreamer is not able to testify to their character, as I was in this simple instance; purposely chosen, I may add, to outline the method in its simplest aspect.

According to the reconstitutive method, a dream is sufficiently interpreted and explained by having formulated the operation of the several specific factors, as in the foregoing example; that is, no preconceptions as to content or meaning or transcendental symbols are imported into this sort of purely mechanistic interpretation.



THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC DILEMMA

Unfortunately, the psycho-analyst, if he applies the current conceptions of symbolism, may well doubt whether the reconstitution has gone far enough, and whether ALL the stimulus-ideas, or all the wish-factors have been found. This is because he does not make it a rule to check up his guesses as to meaning, by specific investigations of the settings-of-ideas, by auscultating the so-called "fringe of thought," or by laying out crucial tests for his own hypothesis in the given case. Such methods, which belong no less to general psychopathology than to the reconstitutive method, do not leave one free to argue from analogy; a privilege which most psycho-analysts enjoy, and have been known to abuse, as Freud and Jung themselves have done.

It follows that one might properly expect the psychoanalyst to dwell especially upon the seemingly phallic "symbols" in the Scratch-Reflex dream, which could be made out in the geometrical features of the microscope and cover-glass. He would thus, as I have shown, be led to unearth a sexual motive—which might be a mare's nest. This searching for sexual symbolism on a purely a priori basis, when no evidence internal or external, and no real clues to a sex idea exist, may become a mere obsession, a habit of interpretation which is not scientific at all. Unable to distinguish the subconscious operation of a non-sexual context, from that of the more familiar sexual context, the interpreter is at the mercy of superficial resemblances between the properties of the dream-objects and those of the well-known sexual symbols. The ambiguity which has resulted from this condition of affairs, maintains the Psychoanalytic Dilemma: that of not knowing when to stop in apperceiving sexual allusions. Indeed, it is part of the interpretative policy of psycho-analysts not to exclude sexual meanings, in case of doubt; but rather to take the sexual sense for granted.

How far this policy has been carried may perhaps be suggested by the following instance: A well-known physiological psychologist, attempting to show the absurdity of extreme sexual interpretations, remarked to a well-known psycho-analyst that even the geometry of Euclid would, according to the methods under criticism, be open to the imputation of sexual motive. To this the psycho-analyst replied that he did not feel at all sure that Euclid might not have been inspired to write his Geometry by the sexual ideas which men have, from time immemorial, embodied in circles and triangles and diameters.—This instance, be it said, implies no criticism of Psycho-analysis beyond the fact that its conception of symbols in dreams and elsewhere is transcendental and historical rather than truly psychological as it purports to be; a state of opinion which the use of the reconstitutive method is calculated to correct.

The difference between the psycho-analytic methods and the reconstitutive method, in a given case, is that the former assume the validity of sexual symbolism unless it can positively be proved absent, which is rarely attempted; whereas, the reconstitutive method assumes no symbolism and no meaning to be present in the mind of the dreamer except as the probability can be demonstrated by specific investigations and inferences as to the interplay of CUES and CONTEXTS or apperception-masses. Moreover, a special technique is used to study the "fringe."[1]

Reverting for a moment to the sexual interpretations of the Scratch-Reflex dream that I manufactured by applying the Freudian ready-made symbolism, and, again, by imitating the constructive fancy of Jung; they must both be judged as having no merit beyond, perhaps, that of coinciding with inherent probabilities in the premises. That is, what they purport to reveal might be made out of whole cloth to fit almost any unmarried man, barring a few individual adaptations, to suit the known circumstances of the dreamer. As these interpretations stand, they do not fit the psychogenesis of the dream. They are rank confabulations on my part; yet they appear to hold water, psychoanalytically.

Enough has been said to suggest, I think, that while Dr. Freud may be honored as the father of dream analysis, with Dr. Jung as its foster-father, yet, to neither of these gentlemen of psycho-analytic fame should be conceded the right to bring up the "child!" That is a task for the psychologist, because he can afford to go deeper into normal processes than has so far been possible in psycho-analytic practice. But he must take pains to employ those scientific methods which comport the rigorous application of logic even to the vagaries of dreams, and the rejection of the argument from mere authority. Of such methods, the exemplars are to be found only among those writers who today are worthily carrying forward the mechanistic traditions originated by Descartes. In so far as psycho-analysts depart from these traditions and, relying on the authority of their leaders, follow them into metaphysical speculations about the Libido, and transcendental notions of symbolism, they are wandering on ground full of pitfalls to common sense.



SUMMARY

The question here considered is whether dream interpretations shall represent the state of the dreamer's mind or the mere fancy of the interpreter. Criticism is directed at the aprioristic and oftentimes hit-or-miss practices of the Vienna and Zurich schools of Psycho-analysis.

For illustration, a simple dream is interpreted by the current methods of Psycho-analysis: first, according to the "reductive method" of Freud, it is made out as symbolizing an infantile and sexual wish-fulfilment, expressing a "voyeur" component of the Libido. Secondly, the dream is re-interpreted by Jung's "constructive method" so as to gloss over the gross Freudian phallicism. It is now made to mean that the dreamer is impelled to higher biological duties, namely marriage and professional success.

The plausibility of these interpretations once shown, they are next proved to be wide of the mark, by the fact that the dream can be more adequately accounted for in another way, i. e., by a proposed "reconstitutive method." This method aims to "reconstitute" the dream-thought (both imaged and imageless) by tracing the wave of nervous excitation from its origin in primary stimulus-ideas (sensory or psychic) through a specific apperception-mass into a consequently derived system of secondary images, which form the manifest dream content. The derivation of the secondary images must be concretely followed through the authenticated channels of association—not assumed on the basis of "fixed symbolism," or any other a priori conception.

The reconstitution of this particular dream illustrates the reductio ad absurdum of the two previous psycho-analytic "solutions." The fact that either of them would apparently have satisfied the demands of the problem, is characterized as an artifact evolved through the interpreter's deliberate confabulation and forcing of analogy; thus causing the scant data of the dream to fall into artificial agreement with the preconceived notions of the Vienna and Zurich schools, respectively. As a guarantee of scientific accuracy, it is urged that the interpreter trace the process of imageless thought (Woodworth) back of the dream, and, in particular, seek the meaning in the Unconscious Settings-of-Ideas (Prince). The reconstitutive method is the extension of these two formulations from normal and abnormal psychology into the field of dream analysis, through the study of Individual Differences (Cattell) and the Application of Logic (Alfred Sidgwick).

It is not denied that Freud's dream theories serve very well to interpret a considerable proportion of common dreams; but the psycho-analytic technique embodies a fallacious assumption that there is a transcendental symbolizing activity in the Unconscious, as it were a language of dreams. This gives rise to a biased "will to interpret." The alleged meaning may thus often be the work of the interpreter's mind although not that in the dreamer's mind.

The reconstitutive method brings into relief the trial-and-error character of the dreaming process: the organism as attempting the physiological resolution of persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas. Psychologically speaking, the images evoked in the dream are called trial percepts or trial apperceptions of the stimulus-ideas, corresponding more or less closely to the latter; not through analogy necessarily, but through mere contiguity, as the case may be.

In certain cases, the erroneous apperceptions are observed to form a series of approximations to the correct apprehension of one of the stimulus-ideas at a time. In other cases, the apperceptive errors may take the form of a blended reaction to two or more cues, more or less perfectly achieved.

These mechanisms, when they go wrong, as they often do, produce the incoherency and bizarrerie of the dream; but they do not preclude a significant reconstitution of the process of which the dream is a by-product. Such reconstitutions require to be validated by specific tests and inferences, of such logical character as to bear comparison with the methodology of other sciences. The psychoanalytic arguments from analogy, from precedent and from authority are alike to be rejected.



REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Emerson, R. W., "Demonology," 1839; Vol. X, Complete Works, 1904; Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston.

2. Freud, Sigmund, "Die Traumdeutung;" Three editions, 1900, 1909, 1911; Franz Deutike, Leipzig und Wien.

3. Same work, A. A. Brill trans., "The Interpretation of Dreams," 1914; The Macmillan Company, New York.

4. Jung, C. G., "Studies in Psychoanalysis," Psychoanalytic Review and Monograph, 1914; Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Company, New York.

5. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Aerztliche Psychoanalyse, Officielles Organ der Internat. Psychoanalitischen Vereinigung; first number, 1913; Heller pub., Leipzig und Wien.

6. Jung, C. G., "Psychoanalysis," An address before the Psycho-Medical Society of London, 1913, August; Transactions of the Society.

7. Prince, M., "The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams"—A Reply to Dr. Jones; Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1910; See especially pp. 248 et seq.

8. Jung, C. G., "Morton Prince, M. D.: 'The Mechanism. etc.,'—A Critical Treatment;" Jahrbuch fur Psychoanalytischen Forshungen, 1910-11.

9. Freud; See (3) page 81, on symbolical method.

10. Freud, "Ueber den Traum;" translator M. E. Eder, "On Dreams," 1914, Rebman Co., New York; compare views in (6) with Chapter XII, esp. page 105. cf. p. 106, "unconscious thinking."

11. Emerson, R. W., "The Poet," Complete Works, Vol. III pp. 34-5.

12. Freud, "Interpretation of Dreams," p. 243.

13. Russell, Bertrand: Lowell Lectures, 1914; Cf. Lect. VIII, pp. 219, sec. 2, 222, sec. 2; Title, "Scientific Method in Philosophy," Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, London.

14. James, William, "Principles . . . .," I, 270; Algebra-analogy; see also "Fringe," p. 258.

15. Hobbes, Thomas, "Leviathan," Chapt. III.

16. Sidgwick, Alfred, "The Application of Logic," 1910; The Macmillan Co.; especially pp. 93-94.

17. Delage, Ives, "Une Theorie de Reves," Revue Scientifique, II, July, 1891.

18. Prince, "The Unconscious," 1914; The Macmillan Co.; (a) "The Meaning of Ideas as Determined by Unconscious Settings;" (b) Role of same in phobia: especially p. 389, footnotes pp. 392-3, 408. Also, Journ. Ab. Psychology; (a) Oct.-Nov., 1912; (b) Oct.-Nov., 1913.

19. Ebbinghaus, "Abriss der Psychologie;" Max Meyer's version, Cf. pp. 94-5; "Ebbinghaus's Psychology," 1908; D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.

20. "Inventorial Record Forms of Use in the Analysis of Dreams," Jour. Ab. Psychology, Feb.-Mar., 1914.

21. Descartes, Rene, "Discours de la Methode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la verite dans les sciences;" Leyde, 1637.

22. Spencer, Herbert, "The Physiology of Laughter," 1860; in Essays.

23. Fontenelle, B. le B. de, "Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes," 1686.

24. Freud, "Interpretation of Dreams," pp. 237-9.

25. Freud, "Drei Abhandlungen . . . ," trans.: "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory," Monograph, Journ. Nerv. and Mental Dis. Co., New York, 1909.

26. Jones, Ernest, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," Chapter XX; W. Wood & Co., 1913.

27. Prince, "The Unconscious;" doctrine of secondary images.

28. Galton, Francis, "Inquiries into Human Faculty," 1883; Macmillan; see essays on association, doctrine of blends.

29. James, William, "Principles . . . ;" The Mental Cue, II, 497, 518; for phrase, "Talks to Teachers," p. ix—118, 1900; Henry Holt & Co., New York.

30. Sherrington, C. S., "Integrative Action of the Nervous System," 1906; Scribners, New York.

31. Bechterew, W. von, "Objective Psychologie oder Psychoreflexologie," 1913; from the Russian, B. G. Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin.

Pavlow, "Study of the Higher Mental Functions," British Medical Journal, October, 1913.

32. Ladd & Woodworth, "Elements of Physiological Psychology," 1911; p. 594; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

33. Woodworth, R. S., "A Revision of Imageless Thought," in Psychological Review, January, 1915; Presidential Address, American Psychological Association, Philadelphia, 1914, December. See esp. pp. 26-27.

34. Hobbes, "Leviathan," Chapter II; cf. Compound imagination.

35. Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses;" trans. A. A. Brill, Monograph, Journ. Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Co., 1909, New York; pp. 5, and 177.

36. Spencer's conception of the escapement of nervous excitation is fundamental in connection with the dream theory here sketched: see the essays on Laughter and on Music, also many passages in the Synthetic Philosophy (Biology, Psychology). This conception is not to be confused with Janet's idea of "derivation," as stated in "Obsessions et Psychasthenie." The present formulation of the meaning of "apperceptive delay" in dreaming is based on the neurographic hypothesis, ("The Unconscious," Chapt. V.), and may be more precisely stated as follows:—

In the given instance, the original or primary neurogram possessed a certain passive inertia in responding to the stimulus, and it took a relatively long time for the excitation to raise the neurogic tonus of this primary neurogram so as to attain the level requisite for conscious imagination. But it was otherwise with the secondary or sequential neurograms, whose inertia had already been overcome by the facilitation (Bahnung) of the recent conversation about scratch-reflexes. For these neurograms to flash their imaged (conscious) equivalents into the dream-thought, it was enough that there should be a slight spill-over of excitation from the original neurogram.

Many examples could be cited from dreams, drowsy states and lapses of thought, showing the ways in which sequential neurograms produce trial apperceptions, pending the final revelation, through consciousness, of the original neurogram. The phenomenon of mental groping, here alluded to, is familiar in certain aspects; but, as an explanation of cryptic dreams, has not received the recognition that it deserves. Hence, the trial-and-error theory of dreams.

37. "Perplex," neologism of the writer; used to indicate a phenomenon frequent in both normal and psychopathic subjects; to wit, a group of delimitable stimulus-ideas, persisting as such, and unadjusted—a complex of persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas, demanding resolution; not the same as "complex" in Psycho-analysis. Cf. Prince's definitions of the varieties of complexes ("The Unconscious").



A CASE OF POSSESSION

BY DONALD FRASER, M. D., GLASGOW

THE Demonaic possession of the middle ages and of times nearer to our own was largely hysterical in character, and generally occurred in Epidemics.

It was associated with the more superstitious and emotional side of religious beliefs, where a real Hell fire and a personal Devil with attendant Angels or Demons were believed in, and feared, much more intensely and widely than they are today even amongst the ignorant and superstitious, while suggestion and contagion played a large part in its spread, as it did in that other and more hateful form of it known as witchcraft.

Esquirol who wrote clearly about it in his "Maladies Mentales" under the heading of "Demonomania,"[1] spoke of it as being propagated "by contagion, and by the force of imitation." This was illustrated in the Epidemic of Loudun, amongst others referred to by him. This epidemic spread to neighbouring towns menaced all the high Languedoc, but was arrested by the wisdom of a Bishop, who did this by depriving the movement of its marvellous elements. In this epidemic form it was in its bodily and mental manifestations really hysteria with characteristic stigmata and convulsions. An excellent example of this religious hysteria was presented as recently as 1857 in an epidemic at Morzines in upper Savoy. It began with two little girls, pious and precocious, who had convulsive attacks. It spread to other children and then to adults. Amongst the younger of those affected, ecstasy, catalepsy, and somnambulism were seen, and later, convulsions only; convulsive attacks returned several times a day. An attack usually began with yawning, restless movements, the aspects of fear passing into fury with violent and impulsive movements, with vociferations and cries that they were lost souls in hell, the mouth-piece of the devil, etc. These attacks would last from ten minutes to half an hour. A feature of this epidemic was the absence of coarse and erotic speech or gestures. Between the convulsions the victims were restless, idle and inattentive, being altered in character for the worse. In our day such epidemics are represented, though in tamer fashion, by Revivalism in its more noisy and extravagant eruptions. At all times, even when such manifestations are not much if at all out of harmony with ordinary religious feeling and action, there is a tendency to pathological conditions. Often its subjects, in the words of Professor James[2] "carry away a feeling of its being a miracle rather than a natural process, voices are often heard, lights seen, or visions witnessed; automatic motor phenomena occur; and it always seems after the surrender of the personal will as if an extraneous higher power had flooded in and taken possession." These are some of the more striking phenomena of mysticism, and are also largely pathological being amongst the major symptoms of hysteria. The history and course of our case illustrated very well this mixed condition. It has been pointed out that the ecstasies, trances, etc., of the mystic, while essentially pathological, have the evil effects of such morbid manifestations modified or largely neutralized by the idealism behind them, by that measure of true religious faith and feeling which dominates the whole process in the case at least of the higher mystics. The ore may be rough and very mixed, but the precious metal is there also, as it was in our patient, though the divine influence for which she craved was perverted into that of the "Evil one." In the individual cases described by Esquirol we recognize a more profound mental disturbance than is shown in the epidemic or hysterical variety. We indeed see many similar cases in our asylums though we generally speak of them as Religious Melancholics rather than as Demonomaniacs. In such cases recovery is slow or may not occur, the patient passing into a state of chronic mania, or of Dementia. There are other cases where the religious emotions and ideals are completely subordinated to or become identified with feelings of fear or remorse, the result of fixed ideas of a shameful, distressing or frightsome character. A good example of this condition though essentially hysterical in its nature, is detailed by Pierre Janet.[3] The patient, a neurotic, respectable business man thirty-three years of age, a good husband and father, on his return from a business journey of some weeks' duration is found to have become depressed and taciturn, and as the days pass his melancholy deepens. At first he would not speak, but soon when he wished to speak could not, making vain attempts at articulation. Under the influence of medical ideas suggested to him his symptoms simulate first Diabetes next Heart disease and his prostration becomes profound. By and bye he passes into a state only to be described as acute Demonomania marked by maniacal outbreaks in which he cried out and blasphemed, lamenting in quieter intervals his powerlessness to resist the Devil who was, he believed, actually not figuratively within him, who spoke and blasphemed through him, prevented him sleeping, etc. After some months he was sent to the Salpetriere where he came under the observation of Charcot and Pierre Janet. He was cured by means of suggestion by the latter, who also ascertained by his methods that the illness was the result of remorse for an offence committed during the business journey which preceded the outbreak.

[1] For a detailed account of it see the "Dictionary of Psychological Medicine" under the heading "Demonomania."

[2] The Varieties of Religious Experience; William James p. 228.

[3] "Nevroses et Idees Fixes" Vol. I, p. 377.



In many ways our case differs from cases of this type. An important difference was in the intermittent character of the symptoms. For a period of two years the patient alternated between a condition of acute misery from the delusion that the evil one had entered into her body, and one of apparent sanity. At the end of two years she was dismissed cured, and has remained well for several years. She differed also in the absence of blasphemous, extravagant or obscene speech or action. The Devil never at any time used her as the mouthpiece for devilish words or thoughts. He was there, and as she insisted, in bodily form within her, making her intensely miserable by his presence, and with the feeling that she was cast away from "grace" and the privileges of the religious life. Nor were there, as in the case above referred to shameful or remorseful complexes at the root of her mental condition. In presenting the facts of the case, names and special marks of identification have been altered.

Mrs. A., a widow, aged fifty-two years, was admitted to the Paisley District Asylum in 1910 with a history of having suffered for a month previously from mental depression said to be due to distressing delusions of a religious character such as that she was lost, was past forgiveness and dominating and originating all such thoughts was the belief that she was possessed by Satan or an evil spirit, who was in bodily form within her. This delusion caused her acute misery, and so absorbed her thoughts that she had ceased to take any interest in her household affairs, and had even talked of suicide.

Her condition on admission and for two years subsequently was that of recurring states of this acute mental distress, when she would rock to and fro, moaning and crying out, often with tears over her lost and dreadful state, and the presence in her inside of Satan or the "Evil one" whom she said she felt within her, and who made her "repulsive." This condition was varied with intervals of usually from one to three days of apparently complete sanity, when though quiet and somewhat reserved in manner, she was quite cheerful. When questioned at such times as to her delusion, she would admit its absurdity, but refer to an uneasy sensation in the region of the left hypochondrium, which, as she put it, surely meant that there was something wrong there. She would be occasionally normal in this way for a week or more, and on more than one occasion was so well as to be allowed out on parole, but had often to be brought back next day as depressed and delusive as ever. She was always worse in the mornings, and often improved as the day went on. She was a stout, pleasant featured and intelligent woman, somewhat anaemic, and with a slight bluish tinge of lips, though beyond a lack of tone in sounds, the heart was normal. Her anaemic condition was accounted for by her having suffered from menorrhagia for the greater part of two years, which only stopped a few months before her admission to the Asylum. It had during its continuance brought on breathlessness on exertion, and what she called spasms or "grippings at the heart," no doubt the basis of her uneasy feelings in left hypochondrium. There was a slight enlargement of the thyroid gland, but no symptoms referable to it. None of these physical conditions beyond the "grippings at the heart" it maybe, appeared to have any appreciable influence on her mental condition, which as has been noted above was normal until a month before her admission. An interesting feature of the case was the relation between her blood pressure and her varying mental states. Her blood pressure was taken with a Riva Rocci Sphygmomanometer morning and evening, sometimes oftener, during the greater part of 1912-13, and it was noted that her depressed or delusional states were marked by a low pressure, while a high or relatively high pressure marked her sane and cheerful states, contrary to what is usually observed in melancholia, though similar to what is seen in agitated melancholia and mania.[4] Thus at a pressure of 130" HGs, she was generally very well; at or about 120" HGs she was often well; at 110" HGs or 100" HGs she was always ill. When recovering, and few weeks before dismissal there was a fairly steady pressure of 118" HGs to 120" HGs day after day. It had been also noted throughout, that during a continuous period of depression, or of well-being, the pressure kept steadily high or low day after day according to the mental condition. There was obviously then a constant and close relationship between her blood pressure and her mental states. At first sight it looked as though those states were directly affected by the varying pressure as it may have influenced the nutrition and therefore the functions of the brain, and on physiological grounds it is difficult to exclude such an influence altogether, even though we come to the conclusion as we did that the variations followed the emotional conditions, and did not precede or cause them. The broad general statement has been made that "each pleasurable emotion raises the general blood pressure and increases the blood flow through the brain and each painful emotion: brings about the opposite result."[5] It cannot be said, however, that increased blood pressure will give pleasurable emotion. The splanchnic area can be acted on so as to raise the blood pressure without influencing the emotions. We know also that when it is raised in melancholia the increased pressure is associated with the reverse of pleasurable emotion. Still on therapeutical as well as on other grounds it appeared to us important to determine what, if any, influence the raising of her blood pressure by drugs or otherwise would have on her mental state. We did this by baths, by abdominal pressure by means of a large sand-bag laid over the abdomen, and by such drugs as adrenalin and pituitrin. The results were disappointing so far as therapy was concerned though of interest otherwise. The pressure was raised by all these measures without any improvement following such as occurred when it rose naturally. The rise by abdominal pressure was marked and occurred quickly, but without any apparent effect on her mental condition. When it was raised to 140"HGs under the influence of pituitrin there was marked depression as is shown in the chart for July, 1912. Pituitrin given in m. v. hypodermically three times a day, and after some days in larger doses by the mouth, kept the pressure between 125" HGs and 130" HGs, but with no corresponding mental improvement. For some days after the pituitrin was stopped its influence seemed to persist as the pressure kept high while the mental condition was low. One of her longest spells of continuous mental depression which lasted for twenty-seven days, occurred while her pressure was high under the influence of adrenalin. Digitalis, by the way, had no influence in any way on either her blood pressure or her mental condition. The only drug we found of any value was tinctopii in moderate doses three times a day, but it gradually ceased to do any good.

[4] Maurice Craig, Lancet June 25, 1898.

[5] Leonard Hill, "Cerebral Circulation" p. 74.

Four charts from a very large number are given which illustrate the above points.

It must be understood that these experiments while accurate so far as they go, and carefully conducted under my supervision by a competent assistant, were not made in a well appointed laboratory, but were clinical observations made in the crowded ward of a hospital for the insane. The central disturbance here was the result of shock from sudden and excessive fear acting on a highly sensitive subject as will appear later. It has been shown by Cannon[6] that such major emotions as fear, rage, or pain acting upon the adrenal glands through the autonomic nervous system are accompanied by an increased discharge of adrenalin into the blood, and by a passing of stored glycogen from the liver for circulation through the body as dextrose, the object of which is the increasing and liberation of muscular energy for the animal's successful flight or fight. This discharge takes place very quickly, and we are told that fright exhausts the adrenal glands, a somewhat puzzling statement at first sight, but borne out by the experience of our case where a fall of pressure occurred under the paralyzing effect of extreme fear and distress continued not merely for minutes but for hours at a time. By and bye as her distress lessened and her expression of it became more and more automatic, there was a return to the normal adrenal discharge and consequent normal rise in pressure. It is possible, of course, that there may be another explanation in the inhibition of metabolism caused by fear. Most of us have experienced the arrest of salivation and digestion under the influence of fear or rage. This inhibition would affect the products upon which the adrenal secretion depends, but the more likely cause is where this fear, in this case really a recurring representation of the original shock, acts through the autonomic nervous system on the adrenal glands. The emotional disturbance here then was primarily of central origin, and was certainly not originated by circulatory or visceral changes which were secondary to it, and the facts do not support the James, Lange theory of the emotions as it is generally understood. In this connection we may refer very briefly to the laboratory experiments of Sherrington[7] and Bechterew.[8] The former by spinal and vagal transection in a dog removed "completely the sensation of the viscera, of all the skin and muscle behind the shoulder. The procedure at the same time cuts from connection with the organs of consciousness the whole of the circulatory apparatus of the body. Yet the dog exhibited rage, fear, disgust, etc., under appropriate stimuli as a normal dog might do." The conclusion reached after admitting possible objections to them is that, "the vasomotor theory of the production of emotion becomes, I think untenable, also that visceral presentations are necessary to emotion." Bechterew, discussing this question as to whether the vascular changes are anterior to the other processes, which determine the alterations of the neuropsychic tone according to the James, Lange theory, states that the experiments in his laboratory by Dr. Serenewsky, appear to lead to an opposite conclusion having shown that under the effects of fear the alteration of the neuropsychic tone is produced before the appearance of the cardiovascular phenomena. There are no doubt objections to accepting laboratory experiments upon inferior animals as conclusive where the psychic part of the process in question is after all the dominant one, nor must we forget that biochemical changes may be as important as the integrity of nerves. We have however referred to these experiments because of their bearing on the conclusions to be drawn from the above described clinical facts which so far as the initiation of the emotional process is concerned confirm them; though we feel that the bodily concomitants of the emotion are essential to its full development, and that we owe much to James's presentation of his theory even admitting its "slap dash"[9] character to use his own phrase. It was to be expected that the artificially raised blood pressure would have had some effect in improving the patient's mental condition, and in the case of adrenalin, at any rate, some such effect should have occurred if we are to accept the recently published conclusions of Crilel[10] to the effect that "adrenalin causes increased brain action," "that brain and adrenalin action go hand in hand, that is, that the adrenal secretion activates the brain, and that the brain activates the adrenals." More in harmony with the clinical experiences here is the fact according to Biedl[11] "that the adrenalin affects the intracranial and the pulmonary vessels only slightly if at all." We presume that what is true of adrenalin in this respect will be true of all drugs which increase blood pressure. And while the rise of the arterial pressure generally will accelerate the flow of blood through the brain, yet we know that the cerebral circulation is in "all physiological conditions, but slightly variable."[12] Besides, while that increased flow must necessarily lead to increased cerebral activity, that activity may be pathological as well as physiological, as in our patient, who was quite uninfluenced mentally by the rise of blood pressure which followed the administration of those drugs. The nature and genesis of the emotional disturbance in this case may be understood from the following history and observations.

[6] The interrelations of emotion as suggested by W. B. Cannon. Recent physiological researches, The American Journal of Psychology, April, 1914.

[7] The Integration of the Nervous System—Sherrington.

[8] Bechterew "La psychologic objective," p. 312.

[9] Psychological Review, Vol. I, where Prof. James admits the defective presentation of his theory and uses the above words to express it. He gives all due importance to the associated memories, and ideas to which are related the incoming currents as well as all pleasure and pain tone connected with them, etc.

[10] S. W. Crile, "The Origin and Nature of the Emotions," 1915.

[11] Biedl innere secretion—Quoted by Cannon, 2 ed. 1913.

[12] Leonard Hill—The Cerebral Circulation.

She had married happily at the age of nineteen years, had a family of eight children, but had been a widow for about twenty years. Her husband died suddenly abroad, where she had lived with her family for two years after his death, and acting on the advice of her friends, she came back to this country bringing all her children with her. This involved her in years of struggle and anxiety to bring them up creditably, which she managed to do. During all these years of widowhood and stress she was mentally well, and latterly she described her life as a happy one surrounded as she was by an affectionate and well doing family. She had been brought up in a puritan household. Her father and her husband had been deeply and consistently religious though strict in their belief and observance of the letter. This upbringing favoured a natural tendency towards religious mysticism which was also promoted by the creed of the church to which she latterly belonged, and of which she was a deaconess. In this church the "gift of tongues" and of "prophesying" was recognized as a part of its heritage, and as she informed me in one of her normal times, she occasionally spoke or prophesied in the public assemblies of the congregation. I gathered that her utterances were generally but a word or two of exhortation or pious aspiration, given expression to in a moment of exaltation. From her description of her state at such times, she was carried out of herself, was oblivious for the moment of the presence and actions of those about her, was in short in a state of ecstasy when she "prophesied." A natural tendency to self-depreciation, and to ideas of unworthiness asserted themselves outside of those periods of exaltation, which were generally followed by doubts as to her fitness to take part in such work, and by the feeling as she expressed it "that she had presumed as she was unworthy," and that God would be angry with her for her presumption. Throughout her religious life she had been always lacking in "assurance." Latterly this feeling had grown in her and was evidently part of a deeper feeling of mental depression, as she began to think often, and with a feeling of dread that she had been surely too happy these later years which stood in such contrast to the poverty, struggles and disappointments of the early years of her widowhood. This was her mental condition for some little time before her attack of acute mental disturbance which began one night a month before admission to the asylum. She went to bed feeling ill and shivering as if from a chill. In the middle of the night she woke up in a fright from a vivid dream the contents of which merged in a strong sensation as of a hand being pressed on her shoulder. She described the sensation as being that of a positive feeling of pressure, and with it came a feeling of dread, and the conviction that it was the hand of Satan, so that she cried out aloud to him to go out of the house, as it was blessed, referring to the fact, as is the custom in her church that the minister had blessed the house when she went to live in it. She thought of calling to her daughter who was asleep near her, but did not, and after a time fell asleep again being "comforted by the feeling that the Lord would take care of her." Next morning the effects of the "chill" had passed off, but there was left a more or less constant feeling of vague dread and fear of death, and with this a haunting idea born of this strongly felt hallucination of external touch that Satan was within her. The feelings of dread and fear grew steadily and became too strong for her faith in the Lord taking care of her, and very quickly her obsession as to possession by Satan, became the definite delusion it was on admission to the asylum. Hallucinations of what might be termed internal touch leading to this idea of possession, are not unknown in the annals of mysticism of the more morbid types of it. Indeed the more ecstatic the mystic becomes, the more he merges himself in his feelings and tends to develop hallucinatory sensations. He is possessed, and desires to be possessed, fortunately for him, by the Divine and not the evil spirit. Hallucinations of external touch are as might be expected more rare, though not uncommon we understand in the more abnormal types, and occur in people supposed to be normal. Havelock Ellis tells of a "Farmer's daughter who dreamt that she saw a brother, dead some years, with blood streaming from his fingers. She awoke in a fright and was comforting herself with the thought that it was only a dream when she felt a hand grip her shoulder three times in succession. There was no one in the room, the door was locked and no explanation seemed possible to her. She was very frightened, got up at once, dressed, and spent the rest of that night downstairs working. She was so convinced that a real hand had touched her, that although it seemed impossible, she asked her brothers if they had not been playing a trick on her. The nervous shock was considerable, and she was unable to sleep well for some weeks afterwards." The writer's[13] explanation is:—"it is well recognized that involuntary muscular twitches may occur in the shoulder, especially after it has become subject to pressure, and that in some cases such contractions may simulate a touch." In illustration of this he quotes from the Psychical Society's Report on the "Census of Hallucination" the case of an overworked, and overworried man who, a few minutes after leaving a car, had the vivid feeling that someone had touched him on the shoulder, though on turning round he had found no one near. He then remembered that on the car he had been leaning on an iron bolt, and therefore what he had experienced was doubtless a spontaneous muscular contraction excited by the pressure. Touches felt on awakening in correspondence with a dream are not so very uncommon. We think as to this likely enough explanation, that whatever the local sensation may have been, or however slight, as it probably was, it could only give rise to an hallucination of having been touched by some external personality when it was absorbed into, and became a part of a considerable emotional disturbance as in the case of the girl above referred to, and of my patient, in both cases associated with a frightsome dream. The illness of the latter began with a dream, and its continuance was in our opinion, largely due to dreams of a painful character. During the whole period of her residence it was noted that she dreamt a great deal, and that they were terrifying or alarming dreams, and that her bad days were generally preceded by a bad dream. Notes of her dreams were regularly made, at one time for ten consecutive nights, and only three of them were so far as she remembered free from dreams. All of her dreams she described as "awful." Many of them were of being mixed up with objectionable people who behaved roughly and used profane language, but, and of this she was very certain, who never talked or acted obscenely. She frequently dreamt of being on high precipitous places from which she was either falling, or could not get away from. She described one vivid dream during which she suffered great misery, and awoke from in great distress. She dreamt that she was listening to a preacher with open Bible in his hand, that he spoke about Peter whom he was accusing of disobedience; a number of people were present but she saw particularly only one man who looked very happy; the sermon ended, and she awoke in "agony," this feeling being due, she said, to the conviction present with her, that the sermon, and the man's happiness were intended to show her how much she had lost since she was cut off from "grace" by Satan dwelling in her body. Again she dreamt of a near relative whom she heard singing, "And they all speak in tongues to magnify the Lord." This brought sorrow to her of which she was conscious during the dream and after she awoke as she thought Satan was putting this before her to show her what she had lost. In another dream she saw three unpleasant looking men talking together. The worst looking of them of Jewish appearance, came close to her face, and argued with her about the evil spirit. She said "he was in her body," and he answered "away with him." She fell asleep and dreamt the same dream again. These dreams were obviously governed by her dread and fear as to her religious position. The following one is somewhat different:—"A big brown beast came up to her and pressed against her face; she slept again and dreamt she was in a big ship sailing in black and dirty water; that she tried hard to get out of the ship, but could not, and awoke in great distress." We presume Freudians would find in the latent content of all these dreams, particularly in this last one, evidence in favour of their positions, though to us they reveal only, in the blurred and broken way dreams do, the prevailing trend of thoughts governed by morbid religious fears and garbed in the phraseology and symbolism of a judaic faith. The sameness of their ending and meaning to her being obviously due to their relation to the dream which ushered in her illness to which indeed most of them were closely related in geneses and content. No doubt Freudian psychoanalysis would be able to carry her memory back into the region of long forgotten infantile or early sex memories where, as in every normal human being they lie, the shadowy outlines of instinctive feelings whose roots are in a far away, phylogenetic past, having apart from suggestion no role as factors in the production of morbid fears or fancies. The fantastical and too often repulsive dream interpretations of this school forcibly remind us of the words of Lord Bacon, "With regard to the interpretation of natural dreams it is a thing that has been laboriously handled by many writers, but it is full of follies." All kinds of trivial incidents of childhood and early youth are stored up by all of us, and are recalled in sudden and unexpected ways, but not because of any relaxation of a supposed "censor," nor necessarily because of any content of a sex nature, but because they are more often than not associated with fear, chief of the coarser emotions, and a more primitive and more enduring emotion than any of those connected with reproduction, and more alien to the organism than sex memories even of a perverse order, their resurrection being due to some subtle association between the present and the past, generally a sensory one, visual or auditory most frequently. In our own case the earliest recollections of childhood are so associated and recollected. Sunshine amongst trees, and birds singing bring back to us at very long intervals a country scene where as a child we were frightened by threats of a "bogie man." The only childish incidents which unexpectedly recur with us were associated with childish fears and disappointments of a usual and ordinary character never with morbid elements or emotional complexes which were repressed or censored in the Freudian sense, and in this we are not singular.

[13]"The World of Dreams," p. 182.

Again and again, association tests, as prescribed by Jung, and repeated examinations of a psychological character were made without our being able to obtain the slightest indication of their being erotic or similar influences of the slightest value as factors in the causation of her mental disturbance. The chief value of Jung's Tests we have found to be the suggestion of lines of inquiry or the confirmation of evidence obtained in other ways. The results here were negative and in that confirmed what we knew from the history and character of our patient as a pure minded woman of blameless life. She was constitutionally timid, and all her life liable to doubts and fears of a morbid type. As an instance of this she told us that when twelve years of age while influenced by the death of her step-mother, which had just taken place, one morning early her father went out to his work leaving her in bed, and alone in the house. Immediately after he left she heard or more likely thought she heard, someone lift the latch of the door, as if to come in, but though no one came in she was left in a state of great fear, so marked that for long afterwards she dreaded being left alone, and still remembers vividly her feelings during that experience. This temperament she carried into her religious life which as we have seen was marked by fears and doubts. "No one will deny that fear is the type of asthenic manifestations. Yet is it not the mother of phantoms of numberless superstitions, of altogether irrational and chimerical religious practices."[14] The strength and character of her beliefs as well as the religious teachings and influences to which she had been subjected from her earliest years, all tended to develop the mystical in a temperament ready for the dissociation necessary to enable the mystic to attain to that ecstasy or absorption in something outside and beyond the self which is the essence of that state. Why the ecstasy which she knew and desired should pass into its opposite is not difficult to understand when the above history is considered.

[14] Ribot "The Creative Imagination." p. 34.

The shock which originated the attack gave form and reality to fears and doubts which had been assailing her for some time, and to the influence of which she was specially liable at this time by the lowered physiological tension, the result of her previous menorrhagia, and by the fact that the comparative ease and comfort of her later life had given her opportunities for introspection absent during her previous life of struggle for and interest in others. She was then scrupulous, timid and superstitious, a mystical, a psychopathic temperament, taking her place all the same with John Bunyan and other chief of sinners whose self-depreciation and absorption in the struggle for salvation from sin and the power of the Devil, though morbid in character was not pathological. But when Satan became not merely a spirit influencing her, but had entered bodily into her, the border was crossed, and she was to herself literally possessed, and became filled with fear, a fear pathological in action, dominating her mentally and physically during her dissociated states. Once initiated it is not difficult to see how these dissociated states which recurred so regularly and persisted so long were kept up by her temperament, and her constantly recurring dreams of a terrifying or depressing character, which were, as we have already indicated, but representations of the original shock. The following quotation applies closely to her case. "On this view an intense, sudden painful experience, especially if the significance of it can be dimly felt, but not understood, may persist long and latently unassimilated by the central consciousness and without fusion with it, almost as if it were a foreign body in the psychic system."[15] Professor James has termed the pathological emotion an objectless emotion, but as Professor Dewey puts it "from its own standpoint it is not objectless; it goes on at once to supply itself with an object, with a rational excuse for being."[16] Here the sensations in the left hypochondrium which she had described as "grippings at the heart," became the object which, under the influence of the initial shock with its unusual and alarming sensations and feelings, she interpreted as she did.

[15] Stanley Hall on Fear—The American Journal of Psychology, April 1914.

[16] Psychological Review, Vol. I, page 562.

Her recovery was very gradual and marked by many relapses. In her treatment as in our ideas as to the causation of the disorder, we put the accent on the psychic rather than on the physical factors. We did not however underrate the latter but constantly sought to improve her bodily health and condition. When at her worst in 1911 her weight, taken monthly, was round about one hundred and sixty pounds. In 1912 it went up from one hundred and sixty-six to one hundred and eighty-eight pounds and averaged one hundred and seventy-six pounds. But as in the case of her blood pressure, the rise was due largely to her mental improvement. It may be of interest to note here that during and after a somewhat severe attack of diarrhoea with hemorrhage from the bowels, her mental condition was better than usual, as might even have been expected considering the mental distraction the attack involved.

We were satisfied that we could have shortened materially the duration of her illness—two years,—by hypnotic suggestion, but unfortunately her friends objected to this mode of treatment. Suggestion in the waking state had been abundantly used, but with little apparent effect of an immediate kind.



THE SEX WORSHIP AND SYMBOLISM OF PRIMITIVE RACES

(CONCLUSION)

BY SANGER BROWN II., M. D.

Assistant Physician—Bloomingdale Hospital

PLANT AND FLOWER SYMBOLISM

A number of plant and flower symbols have a different significance from that which is generally given to them. We are all quite familiar with the grape vine of Bacchus and the association of that deity with grapes. According to R. P. Knight, this too, symbolizes a sexual attribute. Speaking of Bacchus, he writes, "The vine was a favorite symbol of the deity, which seems to have been generally employed to signify the generative or preserving attribute; intoxicating liquors were stimulative, and therefore held to be aphrodisiac. The vase is often employed in its stead to express the same idea and is often accompanied by the same accessory symbol."

We have often seen in sculptures and paintings, heads of barley associated with the God of the Harvest. This symbol would appear to be self explanatory; yet we are told by more than one writer that it contains another symbolic meaning as well. H. M. Westropp, speaking of this says, "The kites or female organ, as the symbol of the passive or productive power of nature, generally occurs on ancient Roman Monuments as the Concha Veneris, a fig, barley corn, and the letter Delta." We are told that the grain of barley, because of its form, was a symbol of the vulva.

A great many other female symbols might be mentioned. The pomegranate is constantly seen in the hands of Proserpine. The fig-cone is carried by the Assyrian Baal, and the fig in numerous processions has a similar significance. When we add to these the various forms of tree worship described above, we see to what an extent the products of nature were used as symbols in the worship of sex.

Among flower symbols there is one which recurs constantly throughout the art and mythology of India, Egypt, China, and many other Eastern countries. This is the lotus, of which the Easter lily is the modern representative. The lotus appears in a number of forms in the records of antiquity. We have symbolic pictures of the lion carrying the lotus in its mouth, doubtless a male and female symbol. The deities of India are depicted standing on the lotus, or are spoken of as being "born of the Lotus." "The Chinese,"[1] says the author of Rites and Ceremonies, "worship a Goddess whom they call Puzza, and of whom their priests give the following account;—they say that 'three nymphs came down from heaven to wash themselves in the river, but scarce had they gotten in the water before the herb lotus appeared on one of their garments, with its coral fruit upon it. They were surprised to think whence it could proceed; and the nymph upon whose garment it was could not resist the temptation of indulging herself in tasting it. But by thus eating some of it she became pregnant, and was delivered of a boy, whom she brought up, and then returned to heaven. He afterwards became a great man, a conqueror and legislator, and the nymph was afterwards worshipped under the name of Puzza.' " Puzza corresponds to the Indian Buddha.

[1] O'Brien: The Round Towers of Ireland.

In Egyptian architecture the lotus is a fundamental form, and indeed it is said to he the main motive of the architecture of that civilization. The capitals of the column are modelled after one form or other of this plant. That of the Doric column is the seed vessel pressed flat. Earlier capitals are simple copies of the bell or seed vessel. The columns consisted of stalks of the plant grouped together. In other cases the leaves are used as ornaments. These orders were copied by the Greeks, and subsequently by western countries.

We may ask ourselves, what is the meaning of this mystic lotus which was held in sufficient veneration to be incorporated in all the temples of religion, as well as in myths of the deity. This, too, refers to the deification of sex. O'Brien, in the "Round Towers of Ireland" states, "The lotus was the most sacred plant of the Ancients, and typified the two principles of the earth fecundation,—the germ standing for the lingam; the filaments and petals for the yoni."

R. P. Knight states, "We find it (the lotus) employed in every part of the Northern Hemisphere where symbolical worship does or ever did prevail. The sacred images of the Tarters, Japanese or Indians, are all placed upon it and it is still sacred in Tibet and China. The upper part of the base of the lingam also consists of the flower of it blended with the most distinctive characteristics of the female sex; in which that of the male is placed, in order to complete this mystic symbol of the ancient religion of the Brahmans; who, in their sacred writings, speak of Brahma sitting upon his lotus throne."

Alexander Wilder,[2] states that the term "Nymphe" and its derivations was used to designate young women, brides, the marriage chamber, the lotus flower, oracular temples and the labiae minores of the human female.

[2] The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.

The lotus then, which is found throughout antiquity, in art as well as in religion, was a sexual symbol, representing to the ancients the combination of male and female sexual organs. It is another expression of the sex worship of that period.

Our present conventional symbols of art are very easily traced to ancient symbols of religion. We may expect these to be phallic in their meaning, to just the extent that phallicism was fundamental in the religions where these symbols originated. From the designs of some of the ornamental friezes of Nineveh, we find these principles illustrated. On those bas-reliefs is found the earliest form of art, really the dawn of art upon early civilization. Here is the beginning of certain designs which were destined to be carried to the later civilizations of Greece, Rome and probably of Egypt. These friezes show the pine cone alternating with a modified form of the lotus: the significance of which symbols we have explained. There are also shown animal representations before the sacred tree or grove, a phallic symbol. From these forms and others were designed a number of conventional symbols which were used throughout a much later civilization. (See "Nineveh and Its Remains." A. Layard.)



ANIMAL SYMBOLISM

One sees in the religions of antiquity, especially those of India, Assyria, Greece and Egypt, a great number of sacred animal representations. The Bull was sacred to Osiris in Egypt, and one special animal was attended with all the pomp of a god. At one time in Assyria the god was always associated with a sacred animal, often the goat, which was supposed to possess the qualities for which the god was worshipped. Out of this developed the ideal animal creations, of which the animal body and the human head and the winged bulls of Nineveh are examples. The mystic centaurs and satyrs originated from this source. At a later time the whole was humanized, merely the horns, ears or hoofs remaining as relics of the animal form.

We learn that in these religions the animal was not merely worshipped as such. It was a certain quality which was deified. The Assyrian goat attendant upon the deity, was in some bas-reliefs, not only represented in priapic attitudes, but a female sexual symbol was so placed as to signify sexual union. We shall show later that certain male and female symbolic animals were so placed on coins as to symbolically indicate sexual union.

An animal symbol which has probably been of universal use is that of the snake or serpent. Serpent worship has been described in almost every country of which we have records or legends. In Egypt, we find the serpent on the headdress of many of the Gods. In Africa the snake is still sacred with many tribes. The worship of the hooded snake was probably carried from India to Egypt. The dragon on the flag and porcelain of China is also a serpent symbol. In Central America were found enormous stone serpents carved in various forms. In Scandinavia divine honors were paid to serpents, and the druids of Britain carried on a similar worship.

Serpent worship has been shown by many writers to be a form of sex worship. It is often phallic, and we are told by Hargrave Jennings that the serpent possibly was added to the male and female symbols to represent desire. Thus, the Hindu women carried the lingam in procession between two serpents; and in the sacred procession of Bacchus the Greeks carried in a sacred casket the phallus, the egg, and a serpent.

The Greeks also had a composite or ideal figure. Rays were added to the head of a serpent thereby bringing it into relation with the sun god Apollo; or the crest or comb of a cock was added with similar meaning.

Many reasons have been offered to explain why the serpent has been used to represent the male generative attribute. Some have called attention to its tenacity of life; others have spoken of its supposed mystic power of regeneration by casting its skin. Again, it seems probable that the form is of symbolic significance. However this may be, we find that this universal serpent worship of primitive man was a form of phallicism so prevalent in former times.

Many other animals may be mentioned. The sacred bull, so frequently met with in Egypt, Assyria and Greece, was a form under which Bacchus was worshipped. R. P. Knight speaks as follows; "The mystic Bacchus, or generative power was represented under this form, not only upon coins but upon the temples of the Greeks; sometimes simply as a bull; at other times as a human face; and at others entirely human except the horns and ears."

We would probably be in error to interpret all these animal symbols as exclusively phallic although many were definitely so. Thus, while Hermes was a priapic deity, he was also a deity of the fields and the harvests; so the bull may have been chosen for its strength as well as its sexual attributes.

There are many animals which were symbolic of the female generative power. The cow is frequently so employed. The Hindus have the image of a cow in nearly every temple, the deity corresponding to the Grecian Venus. In the temple of Philae in Egypt, Isis is represented with the horns and ears of a cow joined to a beautiful woman. The cow is still sacred in many parts of Africa. The fish symbol was a very frequent representative of woman, the goddess of the Phoenicians being represented by the head and body of a woman terminating below in a fish. The head of Proserpine is frequently surrounded by dolphins. Indeed, the female principle is regularly shown by some representative of water; fire and water respectively being regarded as male and female principles.

Male and female attributes are often combined on coins for purposes of sexual symbolism. R. P. Knight explains these symbols as follows; "It appears therefore that the asterisk, bull, or minotaur, in the centre of a square or labyrinth equally mean the same as the Indian lingam,—that is the male personification of the productive attribute placed in the female, or heat acting upon humidity. Sometimes the bull is placed between two dolphins, and sometimes upon a dolphin or another fish; and in other instances the goat or the ram occupy the same situation. Which are all different modes of expressing different modifications of the same meaning in symbolical or mystical writings. The female personifications frequently occupy the same place; in which case the male personification is always upon the reverse of the coin, of which numerous instances occur in those of Syracuse, Naples, Tarentum, and other cities." By the asterisk above mentioned the writer refers to a circle surrounded by rays, a sun symbol of male significance. The square or labyrinth is the lozenge shaped symbol or yoni of India.

The above interpretations throw much light on the obscurity of the animal worship of antiquity. This explains the partly humanized types, and the final appearance of a human deity with only animal horns remaining, as representing the form under which the deity was once worshipped. The satyrs, centaurs, and other animal forms are all part of these same representations and are similarly explained.

Our main object in giving the above account of these various symbols has been to illustrate the wide prevalence of sex worship among primitive races. Another end as well has been served; our study gives us a certain insight into the type of mind which evolves symbolism, and so a few remarks on the use of symbolism as here illustrated are not inappropriate.

We feel that while this symbolism may indicate a high degree of mechanical skill in execution, it does not follow that it expresses either deep or complicated intellectual processes. In fact, we are inclined to regard such symbolism as the indication of a comparatively simple intellect. It appears obscure and involved to us, because we do not understand the symbols. From those which we do understand, the meaning is graphically but simply expressed.

On coins, bas-reliefs and monuments; we find the majority of these simple emblems. If the desire is to express the union of male and female principles, a male symbolic animal is simply placed upon the corresponding female symbol. Thus, a goat or bull may be placed upon the back of a dolphin or other fish. This is a graphic presentation but certainly one of a most simple nature. Sometimes the male symbol is on one side of the coin and then the female is always on the reverse. Unions are made which do not occur in nature, and the representation is not a subtle one.

In India, if there was a desire to express a number of attributes of the deity, another head or face is added or additional arms are added to hold up additional symbols. In Greece, when the desire was to express the androgyne qualities of the deity, a beard was added to the female face, or one half of the statuette represented the male form, the other the female. Such representations do not indicate great ingenuity, however skillfully they may be executed.



SUN WORSHIP AND SUN MYTHS

As is generally known, traces of sun worship are found in almost every country of which we have a record. In Egypt Ra was the supreme sun god where there was very elaborate worship conducted in his honor. In Greece Apollo was attended with similar festivities. In the Norse mythology, many of the myths deal with the worship of the sun in one form or another. In England, Stonehenge and the entire system of the Druids had to do with solar worship. In Central America and Peru, temples to the sun were of amazing splendor, furnished as they were with wonderful displays of gold and silver. The North American Indians have many legends relating to sun worship and sacrifices to the sun, and China and Japan give numerous instances of the same religion. Sun worship is so readily shown to be fundamental with primitive races that we will not discuss it in detail at this time, but rather will give the conclusions of certain writers who have explained its meaning.

At the present day, the sun is regularly regarded as a male being, the earth a female. We speak of Mother Earth, etc.; in former times, the ancients depicted the maternal characteristics of the earth in a much more material way. Likewise the sun was a male deity, being often the war god, vigorous and all powerful. We readily see to what an extent the male sun god was portrayed in mythology as a human being. In many myths, the god dies during the winter, reappears in the Spring, is lamented in the Fall, etc., all in keeping with the changes in the activity of the sun during the different seasons.