The Psychology Of Dreams | by William S. Walsh
This volume was written with the interests of the general reader particularly in mind; for this reason the subject matter has been treated in a more or less popular style. With a view toward aiding sufferers from nervous affections, as well as toward promoting a better understanding of various normal and abnormal mental processes, an effort has been made to make the book as practical as possible.
| Title | The Psychology Of Dreams |
| Author | William S. Walsh |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead And Company, Inc |
| Year | 1920 |
| Copyright | 1920, Dodd, Mead And Company, Inc |
| Amazon | The Psychology of Dreams |
William S. Walsh, M.D., Fellow American Medical Associtation; Member American Medico-Psychological Association; American Genetic Association, etc.
Dedicated To My Mother
Preface- This volume was written with the interests of the general reader particularly in mind; for this reason the subject matter has been treated in a more or less popular style. With a view toward aiding su...
- Chapter I. Historical Sketch
- Dreams have from all times aroused universal interest. As students of history know, they have often decided the destinies of nations and of individuals. Modern studies show us that they have made many...
- Historical Sketch. Continued
- The assumption that some unnatural agency must be responsible for dreams was, doubtless, due to the following : During the day man found that he could control his thoughts, direct them at will; at nig...
- Chapter II. The Mind In Sleep
- In an effort to explain the mechanism by which sleep is brought about, many theories have been offered, the best known of which are the so-called physiological, chemical, pathological, and histologica...
- The Mind In Sleep. Part 2
- 1Ibid., Dec., 1911-Jan., 1012. Richard Q. Badger, publisher. We can see, therefore, that the sleep producing mechanism is still a mooted question. It is very probable that when we attempt to explain ...
- The Mind In Sleep. Part 3
- The interesting feature for us is the condition of the mind during sleep. That it is still capable of activity is shown by the fact that we dream. Since noises capable of exciting our attention when a...
- The Mind In Sleep. Part 4
- First Experiment: He caused himself to be tickled with a feather on the lips and inside the nostrils. He dreamed that he was subjected to a horrible punishment. A mass of pitch was applied to his face...
- Chapter III. The Material Of Dreams
- In order to understand the amount of material available for use by the dream, it may be well for us to consider, briefly, some aspects of our mental life, particularly as regards the mind's retentiven...
- The Material Of Dreams. Part 2
- When you are writing out anything, when you are writing as you are now, for example (taking notes), you seem to think that the only thing you see is the thing you are writing. Well, it isn't so. You...
- The Material Of Dreams. Part 3
- This example relates to a young woman, twenty-four years of age, unable to read or write, who contracted a fever, and who, while delirious, was heard to utter a great number of intelligible but discon...
- Chapter IV. The Instigators Of Dreams
- It is customary to divide dreams into two classes, namely presentative dreams and representative dreams. The first or presentative group are dreams instigated by some stimulus reaching the brain from ...
- The Instigators Of Dreams. Part 2
- Altitude is said not only to influence the quality of the sleep but the dreams as well. Thus, one who sleeps several thousand feet above sea level is said to have a pleasant thrill as sleep comes on, ...
- The Instigators Of Dreams. Part 3
- 1 Independent, Oct. 23, 1913, p. 160. Published in book form (Dreams) by B. W. Huebsch & Co. Next to vision most dreams are auditory. These dreams may arise from outside sources, as noises, the hum o...
- The Instigators Of Dreams. Part 4
- Catarrh, adenoids, enlarged tonsils may suggest dreams of suffocation. Cardiac and respiratory disturbances aid in suggesting dreams of falling and flying. Poisoning, whether the result of diseased gu...
- The Instigators Of Dreams. Part 5
- 1 It has long been known that certain stimuli will cause awakening quicker than others. Thus, we are awakened when our own name is called sooner than when an indifferent name is uttered; a mother will...
- Chapter V. Peculiarities Of Dreams
- Rapidity of Dreams - Motion in Dreams - Invention in Dreams-Memory in Dreams - Reality of Dreams - Sense of Reality and Unreality Following Dreams - Condensation in Dreams - Symbolism in Dreams - Leng...
- Motion In Dreams
- In our dreams we seem to walk, talk, and perform various other actions, yet we do not actually do any of these things. As Cicero remarks, if it were required that we actually do all we dream of doing ...
- Invention In Dreams
- As Addison remarks (Spectator 487), There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention, yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible of when the faculty is e...
- Memory In Dreams
- It has long been known that in dreams we are often able to recall more than when awake, of course involuntarily. Maury states that as a child he used to go from his native city, Meaux, to the neighbou...
- Reality Of Dreams
- That we should accept all dream images and incidents as real, however absurd they are to waking judgment, has caused some discussion. It is, however, necessary that we accept all that happens in dream...
- Sense Of Reality And Unreality Following Dreams
- A rather distressing sequela of some dreams is the feeling that what has been dreamed has teen actually experienced before; but the individual is unable to place the experience. Thus a questioning spi...
- Condensation In Dreams
- One of the most interesting features of dreams is their wonderful condensation of persons, places, and things. For example, a dream scene may really be made up of several places we have seen: a dream ...
- Symbolism In Dreams
- Another of the many interesting peculiarities of dreams is their language, namely symbolism. At times the dreamer is able to recognize the symbolism but most often it escapes him. For example, a thoug...
- The Length Of A Dream
- How long is a dream f This is a question not answered easily. It is probable that we dream many different dreams in the same night. Usually, dreams are ever changing, incomplete, moving swiftly from o...
- Morality In Dreams
- The fact that we are often ourselves guilty of crime in dreams without feeling remorse, and that we calmly look upon others performing evil, has prompted some writers, as Schopenhauer, and Scholz, to ...
- Morality In Dreams. Continued
- Each individual is constantly at odds with the many sides of his nature which seek to control his actions and his thoughts. Naturally, most mentally normal persons endeavour to live true to their idea...
- Chapter VI. Dreams As Wishes
- In dreams we are often the exact opposites of ourselves. Thus, the grave are facetious, the quiet are loquacious, the shy are bold, the fearful are courageous, the unloved maid is surrounded by a gala...
- Dreams As Wishes. Part 2
- I seemed to be looking at a post-card which a lady was showing me. I read: It's all over. Mrs.------. I understood that the lady who wrote the post-card was leaving her position, and felt gratified...
- Dreams As Wishes. Part 3
- 1 Traumdetung, by Prof. Dr. Sigmund Freud. Authorized English translation (The Interpretation of Dreams) of 3rd edition by Dr. A. A. Brill. London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.; New York, The Macmillan ...
- Dreams As Wishes. Part 4
- Dr. Frederick Peterson, in a recent article,2 censures Freud's theories very severely. The attempt to trace every dream to the fulfilment of a wish he regards as a kind of harking back in a very crud...
- Chapter VII. The Effects Of Dreams
- Dreams are looked upon by a great many people as disturbers of sleep. This view is hardly just, considering that we spend at least one-third of our lives in sleep, dreaming the greater part or all of ...
- The Effects Of Dreams. Part 2
- Many people have reason to thank dreams for the restoration of the affections of their loved ones. Sometimes, when one has been out-of-sorts or angry, a half-wish is made that the one with whom there ...
- The Effects Of Dreams. Part 3
- Ancient and modern literature credits many more serious effects to dreams, though modern literature interprets these effects properly in most cases. Thus, many of the older writers, as Livy, tell us t...
- Chapter VIII. Typical Dreams
- Dreams of Hying - Fallings - Insufficient Clothing - Murder - Examination - Missing a Train - Death of Relatives - Losing a Tooth. There are certain dreams which occur in practically the same form an...
- Dreams Of Flying
- Dreams of flying, associated at times with dreams of falling, are probably the commonest of dreams. Usually they leave behind them a distinct remembrance of a pleasurable nature. So impressed have bee...
- Dreams Of Falling
- Dreams of falling are far from pleasurable. Generally they cause a shock which awakens the dreamer. A superstition has it that if the dreamer falls to the bottom of the precipice, or whatnot, death wi...
- Dreams Of Insufficient Clothing
- These are also common dreams. In them the dreamer walks about wholly naked, or partly clothed, as in a bathrobe. In a dream related to the writer the dreamer walked about the principal streets dressed...
- Dreams Of Murder
- In nightmare the individual seems as if about to be done to death by some fiend, or to be killed in some other way; these dreams are often accompanied by emotion. In other dreams the dreamer acts the ...
- The Examination Dream
- This is a fairly common dream of students, college graduates particularly, the dream often following them throughout life. Thus a staid professor, or lawyer, or doctor, etc., dreams that he is back at...
- Dreams Of Missing A Train
- In these dreams the dreamer is beset by all kinds of difficulties in an effort to catch a train. There is a delay in leaving the house, in packing the grips, in finding the key of the trunk; there are...
- Dreams Of Death Of Relatives
- Two varieties of these dreams are recognized. In one form the relative appears as living, and then it is realized that the person is dead. Some wonder is created, but not marked. In the second class, ...
- Chapter IX. Prodromic Dreams
- That a dream will sometimes reveal in symbolic form the presence of an illness of which there is no awareness in the waking state has been known from earliest times. Such dreams are called prodromic. ...
- Prodromic Dreams. Continued
- As will be noted, dreams predicting physical illness are portrayed in symbolic form. Symbolism is used because this is the language of dreams. The sleeping consciousness attempts to explain the stimul...
- Chapter X. Prophetic Dreams
- Dreams of Discovery - Dreams and Literature - Dreams of Persons Met Later - Dreams of Station in Life - Resolution Dreams - Repeated Dreams - Dreams of Warning and Death - Telepathy and Clairvoyance. ...
- Dreams Of Discovery
- In dream lore, especially ancient, one will find many references to discoveries made in dreams. For example, Synesius (370-413 a. d.) tells us in his curious, yet interesting, book on dreams, De Insom...
- Dreams Of Discovery. Part 2
- We should be mindful, too, that many of the supposedly remarkable performances of dreams are impositions on our gullible sleeping judgment. Frequently we think that we have made some wonderful discove...
- Dreams Of Discovery. Part 3
- The fact that discovery is a matter of education should show the folly of striving to dream of soma wonderful thing outside the individual's abilities. Soma persons attempt this; they make up their mi...
- Dreams And Literature
- Many dreams are said to have produced, directly or indirectly, excellent stories, poetry, music. Hennas is said to have had his Pastor dictated to him by a voice when he slept. It is claimed that Volt...
- Dreams Of Persons Met Later
- Dreams alleged to have pictured persons actually met with for the first time days, weeks, months, or years after the dreams are often cited as proof of the prophetic nature of dreams. None of these dr...
- Dreams Of Station In Life
- Sometimes a person dreams of being a physician, lawyer, artisan, etc., and in later life find that the dream has come true. We have many wishes, known and unknown to consciousness, and that we should ...
- Resolution Dreams
- Certain dreams, called resolution dreams, often come true. A person resolves when awake to do, or believes he ought to do a certain thing, and finds a dream corresponding to this occurring nightly unt...
- Repeated Dreams
- As previously mentioned, the dreams of the same night are often concerned with the same theme or aspects of it. Usually we fail to recognize this, especially when the dream has been dealing with commo...
- Dreams Of Warning And Death
- Of all dreams, those in which warnings of one kind or another have been given have most hold on popular fancy. Literature, ancient and modern, abounds in references to them. Among such dreams, the fol...
- Telepathy And Clairvoyance
- The critical reader, especially one who believes in the reality of so-called supernormal dreams, may take exception to what the writer has dealt with in this chapter; he may state, and rightly, that t...
- Telepathy And Clairvoyance. Part 2
- By many persons the visions seen in crystals or the products of automatic writing are looked upon as of a telepathic or clairvoyant nature. Crystal gazing, in which a person, while keeping as passive ...
- Telepathy And Clairvoyance. Part 3
- To give a few more common examples which strike many of us as telepathic. I am seated at my desk, deeply engaged in my book. For no apparent reason I stop work to think of a friend who lives far away;...
- Telepathy And Clairvoyance. Part 4
- In several places the writer has stated that certain occurrences could be regarded as coincidences. While it would not do to emphasize the frequency or impor-tance of coincidences, it must be admitted...
- Telepathy And Clairvoyance. Part 5
- Probably some of us may wonder why belief in the supernormal appeals to so many. At present, the interest in the subject is more intense than usual, attested by the great number of books and magazine ...
- Chapter XI. Nightmare
- And as when heavy sleep has closed the sight, The sickly fancy labours in the night: We seem to run; and, destitute of force Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course; In vain we heave for breath; in...
- Nightmare. Part 2
- In the popular mind posture in sleep and indigestion are regarded as the chief causes of nightmare. Generally a person who has nightmare awakens to find himself sleeping on his back, and thus sleeping...
- Nightmare. Part 3
- In many cases the characters and incidents figuring in nightmare seem absurd. However, they are not as absurd as they seem to be. Analysis will show that the dream figures and incidents are identifiab...
- Chapter XII. Nightmare Terrors
- Night terrors, or pavor nocturnus, comparable to the nightmare of adults, is a fairly common sleep disorder of childhood. It occurs between the third and seventh year. One attack in the night is most ...
- Nightmare Terrors. Part 2
- Pictures such as are found in some editions of Pilgrim's Progress, Dante's Inferno, etc., often cause terrifying dreams; they may, also, induce fears when the child is awake. For an instructive essay ...
- Nightmare Terrors. Part 3
- It is natural to fear the unknown, the unfamiliar, especially when the unknown produces mysterious effects which command our questioning attention. Once the unknown is explained, the fear it once insp...
- Nightmare Terrors. Part 4
- From what has been said it will be noted that an apparently insignificant experience which has an association with another thing which has caused pleasure or pain is sufficient, when again met with, t...
- Nightmare Terrors. Part 5
- Should the child be troubled by night terrors or in other ways give evidences of abnormality, the best advice is to take the child to a competent medical psychologist. Sometimes the parent may be able...
- Chapter XIII. Somnambulism. Walking in Sleep
- Walking in Sleep - Talking in Sleep - Laughing and Crying in Sleep - Eneuresis. Using the term in a broad sense, somnambulism is applied to any movement which occurs in sleep. There is, probably, no ...
- Eneuresis
- Eneuresis, or bed-wetting, is a fairly common disorder of childhood which sometimes persists into adult life. It is in many cases the result of a dream, and since it is accomplished by activity of the...
- Chapter XIV. Miscellany
- Dreams of Animal - The Blind and Deaf - Criminals - Cripples - Drug Fiends - Feeble-Minded - Infanta and the Aged - Soldiers - Dreaming and Insanity - Dream States - Sleep Drunkenness. It has been a ...
- Dreams Of The Blind And Deaf
- The dreams of the blind and deaf have been investigated by Prof. Jastrow.1 Prior to Jastrow, Heermann had considered the subject; the studies of both, taken up independently, were practically identica...
- Dreams Of Criminals
- Many of us believe that a criminal is a criminal because of sheer badness solely; also, that our methods of dealing with him are too lenient inasmuch as our prisons, reformatories, and institutions of...
- Dreams Of Cripples
- The dreams of those who have lost an arm, leg, or both resemble those of the blind'; that is, the earlier in life the loss occurs the less likely is the absent member to appear in the dreams. As is we...
- Dreams Of Drug Fiends
- There are many drugs, as opium, cocain, cannabis in-dica, the coal tar products, alcohol, which may have an influence upon dreams. Much depends, however, upon the physiological action of the drug take...
- Dreams Of Infants And The Aged
- In the human species it is probably true that dreaming is present from early childhood to the time of death. Some writers believe that infants do not dream; Aristotle thought that dreaming was abeyant...
- Dreams Of Soldiers
- One would naturally think that the dreams of soldiers would be concerned with warfare. This is true in many cases, especially during the first few weeks or months of actual combat. No matter how brave...
- Dreaming And Insanity
- Dreaming and insanity are often compared. In both the sense of time is wahting; events that would really take days or months to occur appear to transpire in a very short time. In both illusions, delus...
- Dream States
- Very interesting conditions, in some respects resembling dreams, particularly somnambulism, are the so-called fugees, dream states, multiple personalities, in which persons lose their identities and f...
- Sleep Drunkenness
- This is the name given to a peculiar state in which a person confuses the dream world with the actual world. On being roused from sleep, naturally or artificially, the motor centres awake sufficiently...
- Chapter XV. The Analysis Of Dreams
- Nervous troubles are conceded to be very prevalent. By nervous troubles the well-informed lay person brings to mind neurasthenia, hysteria, nervous indigestion, insomnia, worries of various kinds, etc...
- The Analysis Of Dreams. Part 2
- While attention might be called to other more or less common inciters of nervousness, what we wish to emphasize here are those cases which are not due to causes commonly understood. For instance, we m...
- The Analysis Of Dreams. Part 3
- Still another method is the word association test employed by Jung and others. A list of a hundred common words is prepared, and the patient is asked to mention the first word that comes to his mind w...
- The Analysis Of Dreams. Part 4
- 1From the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1914, Vol. IX. Nos. 2 and 3, Richard G. Badger, Publisher. Also described in The Meaning of Dreams, by Dr. Isador EL Coriat, 1915, pp. 173 ff. Boston, Little,...
- Chapter XVI. Day-Dreams
- The average person would hardly consider ordinary day-dreams, in which practically every one indulges more or less, as matters of any special significance. It happens, however, that they have often a ...
- Day-Dreams. Part 2
- While man wants many things there is usually one thing that he wants most of all, and which, if realized, would content him. So he thinks, but we know from experience when one want is realized a new o...
- Day-Dreams. Part 3
- There is another adaptation to a want that cannot be realized that is as faulty, at least in so far as health is concerned, as that just described. This consists in the absolute repression of the want...
- Chapter XVII. Day-Dreams #2
- Day-Dreams in Childhood - Adolescence - Old Age - Physical Defectives - The Expectant Mother - Day-Dreams and Ethics - Effect on Daily Life - Effect on Health. There is a story told of parents bringi...
- Day-Dreams #2. Continued
- 1 Autobiographic Sketches, 1853. The next point we wish to consider is the sex life of the child. We believe at present, as a result of clinical experience in the treatment of certain nervous disorde...
- Adolescence
- Adolescence is a critical period in the lives of a great many individuals; the same is true of puberty. During these periods certain physiological changes are occurring, which in some instances become...
- Adolescence. Continued
- Undue fixations of the parental images in the child's mind may unfavourably affect the reaction to the love life in another way. The child may be surrounded by every care; in the case of a boy the mot...
- Old Age
- Old age is regarded as a most unhappy season. So general and fixed is the belief that many dread old age's approach; many, as if because of preconceived notions, are unhappy in it; and for the complai...
- Old Age. Continued
- The old, then, should always be occupied with some useful work. It will prevent them from becoming self-centred, introspective, unhappy. If in good health physically, there is no reason why they shoul...
- Physical Defectives
- While it is true that in many instances those who suffer from physical defects are not deserving of much sympathy, since their defects are due to neglect or ignorance of the laws of personal hygiene, ...
- Physical Defectives. Continued
- History is full of examples of those who refused to be conquered by physical misfortune, and from whom we may learn the lesson that work conquers all things. If one has a slight of nature then he migh...
- The Expectant Mother
- If, as is usually the case, the expectant mother spends the days of waiting dreaming of the great things her unborn one will some day accomplish, no one will censure her, however fantastic and impossi...
- Day-Dreams And Ethics
- The unsuspected purpose of many day-dreams is to find justification for a course of action which the individual considers improper. This action would not be permitted to appear in conscious thought; i...
- Effect On Daily Life
- As with night dreams, day-dreams have an influence, of which we are unaware, on our daily activities, the significant as well as the insignificant. We have before considered their usefulness should th...
- Effect On Health
- Ordinary day-dreams do not, as a rule, have a pronounced influence on the health of the average person. Should chronic discontent with one's state result from them naturally they may have the same de...
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