Dreams as a cause of symptoms.

Abstract

M UCH interest has been awakened during the past few years in the analysis of dreams and the psychology of the mechanism of dream formation. As is well known, Freud has been the pioneer in this field, and in his Traumdeutung has given his views to the world in a well-elaborated form. The principles of Freud's work have been too well illustrated in this country by Jones, Putnam, Brill, and Onuf to admit of any attempt on my part to describe them further.The object of this paper is less to discuss the mechanism and interpretation of dream-making than to show how dreams (though often forgotten by the dreamer on awaking) may serve as a cause of symptoms which may persist for varying lengths of time. The former subject is included in the more comprehensive study of dreams by Dr. Prince in this number of the JOURNAL. Nevertheless, in presenting the following dreams as illustrative of how symptoms may develop from dreams, I shall avail myself of the opportunity to call attention to some of the points of mechanism and interpretation which the cases bring out.It is by no means an unusual experience for many of us to wake in the morning feeling blue and depressed, and to have this mood persist until the demands of the day cause it to disappear. This morning depression may sometimes be at once recognized as due to the disturbing dreams of the night before. If, however, on awaking one does not remember the bad dreams of the preceding night, it is not a proof that they have not occurred and are not still acting as the cause of the depression, for not only do dreams fade from the conscious memory with great rapidity, but in some *Read at the first Annual Meeting of the American Psychopathological Association at Washington, May 2, 1910.

The nightmare dream.

“…Some of our NM dreams which have some associations with sex are at the same time much more closely related to and connected with other native drives, and many NM dreams are like soldiers' war dreams in not being related to sex at all. Our results are sharply opposed to Jones' claim (41,(73)(74)(75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81) that every NM dream represents some kind of sexual assault. The majority of our NM dreams have the appearance of not even being associated with sex in spite of the fact that we have arbitrarily used Jones' definition of the NM (41,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24).…”

“…Chideckel (9) believes that " Repeated tormenting dreams will cause even cortical injury in adults leading to cerebral lesions of a serious nature in later life," and that " Patients with heart disease and high blood pressure may be killed in their sleep by a terrifying dream." Walsh (74,398) found that the dream was the common cause of enuresis in the F-M, and Waterman (76) described a number of symptoms that were caused by dreams. Taylor described several examples of false recognition, hysterical paralysis and contractures, and conduct disorders which were the after-effects of dreams (69,(591)(592)(593)(594).…”

“…Conscious and Environmental Factors in the Production of NM Dreams. The NMs of different people are often quite different from each other: the NMs tend to be different for different ages (46,(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81)(82)(83)(84)(85)(86)(87)(88)(89)(90)(91)(92), for the two sexes, for the intelligent and the F-M (74), for the well balanced and the psychotic (57), for the seeing and the blind (12), and for institutional and non-institutional persons (46,(93)(94)(95)(96)(97)(98)(99)(100)(101)(102)(103)(104). The topics of NMs, the general pattern of NMs, and the S's attitude towards his NMs may be and generally are influenced by recent incidents and events, thoughts and affective experiences before going to sleep, romantic episodes, family matters, money, ambitions, moral and religious conflicts, personal problems, social standing, as well as personal success and failure in general (46,(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27).…”

Specters of Social Antagonism: The Cultural Psychodynamics of Dream Aggression among the Tzotzil Maya of San Juan Chamula (Chiapas, Mexico)

“…In his classic article, “Pathogenic Dreams in Non‐Western Societies,” George Devereux () identifies a “widespread cultural conviction” that certain forms of negative dream experience are associated with the onset of physical illness. In other words, in many cultural settings, dreams are described as being “pathogenic.” This connection between certain kinds of dream experience and the onset of illness is not unique to indigenous societies; the Western psychoanalytic literature has long noted a connection between dreams—usually of a distressing nature—and the manifestation of subsequent somatic symptoms, generally assumed to be psychogenic in nature (see Bartemeier ; Kupper ; Leveton ; Waterman ).…”

Dreams.

“…Dr. Waterman (20) makes a short study of dreams as a cause of various symptoms in psychopathic maladies. He finds, as many psychopathologists have shown before him, that dreams may give rise to psychopathic disturbances.…”