Dream interpretation

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 6

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I remember watching an intriguing film, A Dangerous Method, years ago, directed by David Cronenberg. It’s based on Christopher Hampton’s play and is “drawn from true-life events.” The film offers a fictionalised account of the complex six-year relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, including a period when they shared a patient, Sabina Spielrein. I find the dynamic between Freud and Jung fascinating, and their connection with the remarkable Sabina Spielrein adds even more intrigue.

Before I proceed with my translation of Freud’s dream analysis (The last part, here!), I want to begin with a brief essay by Susan E. Schwartz, a Jungian Analyst, on the intriguing relationship between Jung and Freud. My thanks go to Laura London for sharing it on @JungianLaura on X. It is definitely included in an episode of Speaking of Jung: Interviews with Jungian Analysts.

“From Jung’s point of view, Freud initially fulfilled the role of a respected father figure. Jung hoped to have the autonomy and freedom to pursue his scientific enquiry, based on Freud’s ideas but revised in light of his own research. This research led to his interpretations, revisions, and additions, including his views on the nature and function of libido, and to the broadening of ideas about the complex and the collective unconscious. Jung’s ideas meant departing from the Freudian focus on the Oedipus complex by incorporating universal archetypal themes and by elaborating and reinterpreting the concept of the Self.

Jung and Freud ended their powerful, earth-shaking connection, leaving a compelling residue of feelings, concepts, and differences that influenced subsequent followers. Their mutual, unconscious and unmet expectations left the profession in opposition. Over the years, they have remained polarised like those dysfunctional fathers and sons who cannot communicate, include each other or share ideas.”
(Though I tend more towards Tesla and Edson as examples, mine!)

~Susan E. Schwartz, PhD, Absent Fathers, Yearning Sons: A Jungian Analysis of the Father-Son Dynamic, p. 61

Photo by Liam Daniel. From the film, A Dangerous Method (since we don’t have many photos of Jung and Freud together).

Let’s explore Freud’s attempt to interpret dreams. Although it might seem somewhat primitive, there’s much to learn from these basic perspectives. As Dr Jung states,

“one of the most important sources of the primitive belief in spirits is dreams. People often appear as actors in dreams, and primitive individuals easily believe these figures to be spirits or ghosts. For them, dreams hold a much greater significance than they do for civilised people.” ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 574

Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources (Traumreize und Traumquellen)

What is meant by “dream stimuli” and “dream sources” can be illustrated by referring to the popular saying, “Dreams come from the stomach.” Underlying these concepts is a theory that views the dream as the result of a disturbance to sleep. One would not have dreamed had something disturbing not stirred during sleep, and the dream is the reaction to that disturbance.

Discussions of the precipitating causes of dreams occupy the greatest space in authors’ accounts. It goes without saying that this problem could only arise once the dream had become a subject of biological research. The ancients, who regarded the dream as a divine message, had no need to seek a source of stimulation for it; the dream originated in the will of a divine or demonic power, and its content derived from that power’s knowledge or intention. For science, the question immediately arose as to whether the stimulus for dreaming was always the same or could be manifold, and with this came the consideration of whether the causal explanation of the dream fell within the province of psychology or, rather, of physiology. Most authors seem to assume that the causes of sleep disturbance—that is, the sources of dreaming—can take many forms, and that somatic stimuli, no less than mental excitations, can serve as dream instigators. Opinions, however, diverge widely on which of these dream sources should be prioritised and how they should be ranked by their significance in the dream’s formation.

When the enumeration of the sources of dreams is complete, four types emerge—which have also been used to classify dreams:
1) External (objective) sensory excitation.
2) Internal (subjective) sensory excitation.
3) Internal (organic) bodily stimulus.
4) Sources of stimulation that are purely psychic.

Sigmund Freud in his study.

Ad 1) The external sensory stimuli (Die äußeren Sinnesreize)

The younger Strümpell—son of the philosopher whose work on dreams has already served us several times as a guide to the problems of dreaming—famously reported the case of a patient suffering from general anaesthesia of the body surface and paralysis of several higher sense organs. Whenever the few remaining sensory gateways to the outside world were closed off for this man, he would fall asleep. When we wish to go to sleep, we all tend to seek a situation resembling the one in Strümpell’s experiment: we close the most important sensory gateways—our eyes—and try to shield the other senses from any stimulus or any change in the stimuli acting upon them. We then fall asleep, even though we never fully succeed in this endeavour; we can neither completely keep stimuli away from our sense organs nor entirely eliminate the excitability of those organs. The fact that we can be awakened at any time by stronger stimuli serves as proof that “the mind remains in continuous connection with the external world even during sleep.” The sensory stimuli that reach us during sleep can very well become sources of dreams.

There is a wide range of such stimuli—from the inevitable ones inherent in the state of sleep (or those that sleep merely allows to occur occasionally) to the chance stimulus capable of, or destined to, put an end to sleep. Intense light may penetrate the eyes, a noise may become audible, or an odoriferous substance may irritate the nasal mucosa. During sleep, we may expose parts of the body through involuntary movements—thereby subjecting them to a sensation of cold—or generate sensations of pressure and touch by shifting our position.

A fly might sting us, or a minor nocturnal mishap might assail several senses at once. Observers have collected a series of dreams in which the stimulus was identified upon waking, and a portion of the dream content corresponded closely enough to the stimulus for it to be recognised as the source of the dream.

I cite here a collection of such dreams—stemming from objective, more or less accidental, sensory stimulation—following Jessen (p. 527): Any indistinctly perceived noise evokes corresponding dream images; the rolling of thunder transports us into the midst of a battle; the crowing of a rooster can transform into a person’s scream of terror; and the creaking of a door can trigger dreams of burglaries. If we lose our bedcovers during the night, we might dream that we are walking about naked or have fallen into water. If we lie askew in bed with our feet protruding over the edge, we might dream that we are standing at the brink of a terrifying abyss or plunging from a steep height. If our head happens to slip beneath the pillow, a massive rock looms over us, on the verge of burying us under its weight. An accumulation of semen produces voluptuous dreams; localised pain gives rise to the notion of suffering abuse, hostile attacks, or physical injury…

“Meier (*Attempt at an Explanation of Sleepwalking*, Halle 1758, p. 33) once dreamt that he was set upon by several individuals who laid him flat on his back on the ground and drove a stake into the earth between his big toe and the next. As he imagined it in his dream, he awoke to find a straw wedged between his toes. According to Hennings (*On Dreams and Sleepwalkers*, Weimar 1784, p. 258), on another occasion—when he had pinned his shirt somewhat tightly around his neck—he dreamt that he was being hanged. Hoffbauer dreamt in his youth of falling from a high wall, and upon waking, noticed that the bed frame had come apart and that he had indeed fallen… Gregory reports that he once placed a hot-water bottle at his feet before going to bed and subsequently dreamt of a journey to the summit of Mount Etna, where he found the ground’s heat almost unbearable. Another person, after having a blister plaster applied to his head, dreamt that he was being scalped by a band of Native Americans; a third, sleeping in a damp shirt, believed he was being dragged through a river. A gout attack occurring during sleep led a patient to believe he was in the hands of the Inquisition and enduring the agonies of torture (Macnish).”

The argument based on the resemblance between a stimulus and the content of a dream can be further substantiated if one can induce dreams corresponding to a specific stimulus by deliberately applying sensory stimuli to a sleeping person. According to Macnish, Giron de Buzareingues had already conducted such experiments. “He left his knees uncovered and dreamed that he was travelling on a mail coach at night; he noted that travellers would be well aware of how cold one’s knees get in a carriage at night. On another occasion, he left the back of his head uncovered and dreamed that he was attending an open-air religious ceremony—for it was the custom in the country where he lived to keep one’s head covered at all times, except on occasions such as the one just mentioned.”

Maury shares new observations on dreams induced in himself. (A series of other attempts met with no success.)

1) His lips and the tip of his nose are tickled with a feather. – He dreams of a terrible torture; a pitch mask is placed on his face and then torn off, taking the skin with it.

2) Scissors are sharpened against a pair of tweezers. – He hears bells ringing, then the alarm bell, and is transported back to the June Days of 1848.

3) He is made to smell Eau de Cologne. – He is in Cairo, in the shop of Johann Maria Farina. This is followed by wild adventures that he cannot recall in detail.

4) He is lightly pinched on the back of the neck. – He dreams that a blister plaster is being applied to him and thinks of a doctor who treated him as a child.

5) A hot iron is brought close to his face. He dreams of the “Chauffeurs” (bands of robbers in the Vendée who employed this form of torture) who have sneaked into the house and are forcing the residents to hand over their money by thrusting their feet into a brazier. Then the Duchess of Abrantés appears; in the dream, he is her secretary.

8) A drop of water is poured onto his forehead. – He is in Italy, sweating profusely and drinking white Orvieto wine.

9) Candlelight is repeatedly shone on him through red paper. – He dreams of the weather and heat, and finds himself once again in a storm at sea—one he had actually experienced on the English Channel.

D’Hervey, Weygandt, and others made further attempts to experimentally induce dreams.

The “remarkable ability of the dream to weave sudden impressions from the sensory world into its fabric in such a way that they form a catastrophe—one for which the ground had already been gradually prepared—within that dream” has been noted by several observers (Hildebrandt). “In my younger years,” this author recounts, “I would sometimes use the familiar alarm clock—usually attached to a timepiece—to ensure I rose at a specific hour each morning. It happened to me fully a hundred times that the sound of this instrument fitted into a seemingly very long and coherent dream in such a way that the entire dream appeared to have been constructed solely for that moment, finding in it its true, logically indispensable climax—its natural, predestined conclusion.”

I will quote three of these waking dreams again for a different purpose.

Volkelt (p. 68) recounts: “A composer once dreamed that he was holding class and was about to explain something to his students. He had already finished and turned to one of the boys with the question: ‘Did you understand me?’ The boy shouted like a madman: ‘Oh yes.’ Annoyed by this, he told him to stop shouting. But then the whole class shouted: ‘Orja!’ To which they replied:

‘Eurjo!’” And finally: ‘Fire whoop!’ And now he awakens to real fire whoop shouts in the street.”

Garnier (Traité des facultés de l’âme, 1865), in Radestock, reports that Napoleon I was awakened by the explosion of the infernal machine from a dream he had while sleeping in his carriage, which allowed him to relive the crossing of the Tagliamento and the Austrian cannonade, until he awoke with the startled cry: “We are undermined!”

A dream experienced by Maury has become famous (*Le sommeil*, p. 161). He was ill and lying in bed in his room; his mother was sitting beside him. He dreamt of the Reign of Terror during the Revolution, witnessed gruesome scenes of murder, and was finally summoned before the tribunal himself. There he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the tragic heroes of that ghastly era—he answered for his actions, was sentenced after various incidents that left no imprint on his memory, and was then led to the place of execution, accompanied by a vast multitude. He climbed the scaffold; the executioner strapped him to the plank; it tipped over; the guillotine blade fell; he felt his head being severed from his body, woke up in sheer terror—and discovered that the bed’s headboard had fallen down and struck his cervical vertebrae, in a manner strikingly similar to the guillotine blade.

Linked to this dream is an interesting discussion—initiated by Le Lorrain and Egger in the *Revue philosophique*—about whether and how the dreamer can compress such an apparently vast wealth of dream content into the brief interval between the perception of the waking stimulus and the act of waking up.

Examples of this kind make objective sensory stimuli during sleep appear to be the most reliably established of all dream sources. Indeed, this is the only source that plays a role in the layperson’s understanding. If one asks an educated person—otherwise unfamiliar with the literature on dreams—how dreams originate, they will undoubtedly answer by citing a case known to them in which a dream was explained by an objective sensory stimulus recognised after waking. Scientific inquiry, however, cannot stop there; it finds grounds for further questions in the observation that the stimulus acting upon the senses during sleep does not appear in the dream in its actual form. Still, it is represented instead by another idea that bears some relationship to it. Yet the relationship connecting the dream stimulus and the resulting dream is, in Maury’s words, *une affinité quelconque, mais qui n’est pas unique et exclusive* [a certain affinity, though not a unique and exclusive one] (Analogies, p. 72). Consider, for instance, three of Hildebrandt’s “alarm-clock dreams”; one is then compelled to ask why the same stimulus produced such diverse dream outcomes, and why it gave rise to precisely these particular ones:

(p. 37) “So, I am out for a walk on a spring morning, strolling through the greening fields towards a neighbouring village; there, I see the inhabitants—dressed in their Sunday best, with hymnbooks tucked under their arms—making their way in large numbers to the church. Of course! It is Sunday, and the early service is about to begin. I decide to attend, but first—feeling somewhat overheated—I pause to cool off in the cemetery surrounding the church. While reading various epitaphs there, I hear the bell-ringer ascending the tower and spot the small village bell high up—the one that will signal the start of the service. It hangs motionless for quite a while, then begins to swing—and suddenly its strokes ring out, bright and piercing—so bright and piercing, in fact, that they put an end to my sleep. For the sound of the bell is actually coming from my alarm clock.”

“A second scenario. It is a bright winter day; the streets are piled high with snow. I have agreed to go on a sleigh ride, but must wait a long time for the announcement that the sleigh is waiting outside. Now come the preparations for boarding—the fur coat is put on, the footmuff brought out—and finally I am seated in my place.

Yet departure is delayed a moment longer, until the reins give the waiting horses the signal they can feel. Then they pull away; the vigorously shaken bells strike up their familiar Janissary music with such intensity that it instantly tears apart the gossamer web of the dream. Once again, it is nothing more than the shrill sound of the alarm clock.”

“One more example! I see a kitchen maid walking down the corridor toward the dining room, carrying several dozen stacked plates. The column of porcelain in her arms looks to me as if it is about to lose its balance. ‘Watch out,’ I warn, ‘the whole load is going to crash to the floor.’ Naturally, the inevitable objection follows—that she is used to this sort of thing, and so on—all the while I continue to watch the woman with anxious eyes. Sure enough, she stumbles at the threshold—the fragile crockery falls, clattering and crashing into a hundred shards across the floor. But—as I soon realise—the sound that continues endlessly is not actually a clatter, but a distinct ringing; and the person now waking up recognises that this ringing is simply the alarm clock doing its job.”

The question of why the mind misinterprets the nature of an objective sensory stimulus during a dream has been answered by Strümpell—and, to much the same effect, by Wundt—by stating that, when faced with such stimuli while asleep, the mind operates under conditions that give rise to illusions. We recognise and correctly interpret a sensory impression—that is, we assign it to the category of memories where, based on all prior experience, it belongs—provided the impression is sufficiently strong, distinct, and enduring, and we have the time necessary for this mental process. If these conditions are not met, we misinterpret the object that gives rise to the impression; we form an illusion based upon it.

“If someone is walking in an open field and perceives a distant object indistinctly, they might initially mistake it for a horse.” Upon closer inspection, the interpretation of a resting cow might suggest itself, and finally, the image might resolve with certainty into that of a group of seated people. The impressions the mind receives from external stimuli during sleep are similarly indeterminate in nature;

It forms illusions based on them, as the impression awakens a greater or lesser number of memory images, through which the impression acquires its psychological significance. Which of the many relevant spheres of memory yields the associated images, and which of the possible associative connections come into play,

remains—even according to Strümpell—impossible to determine and is left, as it were, to the caprice of the mind’s own workings.

We are faced with a choice here. We can admit that the underlying principles of dream formation cannot really be pursued any further, and thus forgo asking whether the interpretation of the illusion triggered by a sensory impression is subject to other conditions as well. Or we might be led to suspect that the objective sensory stimulus acting upon the sleeper plays only a modest role in the dream, and that other factors determine which memory images are evoked. Indeed, when one examines the experimentally induced dreams of Maury—which I have recounted in such detail for this very purpose—one is tempted to say that the experiment actually accounts for the origin of only one of the dream elements; the rest of the dream content appears far too autonomous and too specifically detailed to be explained by the single requirement that it must be compatible with the experimentally introduced element. One even begins to doubt the illusion theory and the power of the objective impression to shape the dream when one learns that this impression sometimes undergoes the most peculiar and far-fetched interpretation within the dream. For instance, M. Simon recounts a dream in which he saw gigantic figures at tables and distinctly heard the terrifying clatter produced by their jaws striking together as they chewed. Upon waking, he heard the sound of a horse galloping past his window. If the noise of the horse’s hooves did indeed evoke ideas from the realm of memories associated with *Gulliver’s Travels*—specifically the stay among the giants of Brobdingnag and the virtuous horse-creatures (an interpretation I would venture to offer without any explicit support from the author)—must not the selection of this particular set of memories—so unusual in relation to the stimulus—have been facilitated by other motives as well?

P.S. Thank you for reading, even though this post is a bit longer than usual! I’ll see if I can post again next week—heaven knows. Thanks again, and all the best to you. 🤗🙏💖

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 4

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Stills from the Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence in Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
~Albert Einstein

Today, I will continue from my previous instalment and share the second part of Freud’s chapter on how memories influence dreams.

Dr Freud reviews various researchers’ perspectives on dreams and offers several compelling examples of how human memories shape them.

(The title image I chose depicts a scene from one of my favourite Hitchcock films, in which Salvador Dali designed the sets for the dream sequences.)

The Material of Dreams—Memory in the Dream (Das Traummaterial – Das Gedächtnis im Traum)

The fact that the dream contains memories inaccessible to the waking state is so curious and theoretically significant that I wish to draw further attention to it by recounting other such “hypermnestic” dreams. Maury relates that, for a time, the word “Mussidan” would frequently come to his mind during the day. He knew it was the name of a French town, but nothing more. One night, he dreamt of a conversation with a certain individual who told him that she hailed from Mussidan; when he asked where the town was situated, she replied that Mussidan was a district town in the Département de la Dordogne. Upon waking, Maury placed no credence in the information he had received in his dream; however, a geographical dictionary informed him that it was entirely accurate. In this instance, the dream’s superior knowledge was confirmed, yet the forgotten source of that knowledge remained undiscovered.

Jessen recounts (p. 55) a very similar dream occurrence from earlier times: “To this category belongs, among others, the dream of the elder Scaliger (Hennings, *l. c.*, p. 300), who had written a poem in praise of the famous men of Verona; a man calling himself Brugnolus appeared to him in a dream and complained that he had been forgotten. Although Scaliger could not recall ever having heard of him, he nevertheless composed verses in his honour; his son subsequently learned in Verona that just such a Brugnolus had indeed once been renowned there as a critic.”

In a source to which I unfortunately do not have access (the *Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research*), Myers is said to have published an entire collection of such hypermnestic dreams. I believe that anyone who occupies themselves with dreams must acknowledge that it is a very common phenomenon for a dream to bear witness to knowledge and memories which the waking subject does not suppose themselves to possess. In my psychoanalytic work with neurotic patients—which I shall discuss later—I find myself, several times a week, in a position to demonstrate to patients, based on their dreams, that they know quotations, obscene words, and the like very well, and that they make use of them in their dreams, even though they have forgotten them in their waking lives. I should like to share one harmless instance of dream hypermnesia here, as the source from which this knowledge—accessible only to the dream—originated was very easily traceable.

A patient dreamed—as part of a longer narrative sequence—that he was ordering a “Kontuszówka” for himself in a coffeehouse; however, when recounting the dream, he asked what on earth that might be, saying he had never heard the name before. I was able to reply that Kontuszówka is a Polish spirit—a name he could not possibly have invented in his dream, as I myself had long been familiar with it from posters. At first, the man refused to believe me. A few days later, after he had turned his dream into reality by ordering the drink in a coffeehouse, he noticed the name on a poster—specifically at a street corner he had been obliged to pass at least twice a day for months.

One of the sources from which the dream draws material for reproduction—material that, in part, is neither recalled nor utilised during waking thought—is childhood life. I shall cite only a few of the authors who have noted and emphasised this:

Hildebrandt (p. 23): “It has already been expressly acknowledged that the dream, at times, with a marvellous power of reproduction, faithfully brings back to our minds events that are quite remote and even forgotten, dating from the distant past.”

Strümpell (p. 40): “The matter becomes even more remarkable when one observes how the dream—at times, as it were, from beneath the deepest and most massive layers of sediment that later life has deposited upon the earliest experiences of youth—brings forth images of specific localities, objects, and persons, entirely intact and with their original freshness. This is not limited merely to such impressions as may have attained a vivid level of consciousness at the moment of their inception, or become imbued with strong psychological significance—impressions that subsequently reappear in the dream as genuine memories, in which the awakened consciousness takes delight. Rather, the depth of dream-memory encompasses also those images of persons, objects, localities, and experiences from earliest times which either possessed only a faint degree of consciousness or no psychological significance whatsoever—or which had long since lost both—and which, for this very reason, appear utterly strange and unfamiliar both within the dream and upon awakening, until their distant origin is finally discovered.”

Volkelt (p. 119): “It is particularly noteworthy how readily memories of childhood and youth find their way into dreams. Things we have long ceased to think about—matters that have long since lost all significance for us—the dream tirelessly reminds us of them.” The dream’s dominion over childhood material—which, as is well known, largely falls into the gaps of conscious memory—gives rise to interesting hypermnestic dreams, of which I shall, in turn, present a few examples.

Maury recounts (in *Le sommeil*, p. 92) that, as a child, he often travelled from his hometown of Meaux to nearby Trilport, where his father was supervising the construction of a bridge. One night, a dream transports him back to Trilport, allowing him to play once again in the town’s streets. A man approaches him, wearing a uniform. Maury asks for his name; he introduces himself as C… and says he is the bridge keeper. Upon waking—still doubting the memory’s reality—Maury asks an old servant, who has been with him since childhood, whether she can recall a man by that name. “Certainly,” comes the reply, “he was the keeper of the bridge your father built back then.”

Maury recounts another beautifully confirmed example of the accuracy of childhood memories surfacing in dreams, concerning a Mr F… who had grown up in Montbrison. Twenty-five years after leaving, this man decided to revisit his hometown and see old family friends he had not encountered since. On the night before his departure, he dreamed that he had arrived at his destination and, near Montbrison, met a gentleman whose appearance was unfamiliar to him; the man identified himself as Mr T., a friend of his father. The dreamer knew he had known a man by that name during childhood, but could not recall what he looked like while awake.
Upon actually arriving in Montbrison a few days later, he rediscovered the location from the dream—which he had previously not recognised—and met a gentleman whom he immediately identified as Mr T. from the dream. The real person had simply aged more than the figure in the dream image had suggested.

To be continued!

PS: I’ll translate and share the rest of this chapter in my next post. However, I’ve been told I need another surgery soon (the old problem is the new problem!), so I’m unsure when I can do so. Wishing all the best! 🤗💖

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 3

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Artwork: “Road Less Travelled 2” by Naked Monkey.

Sigmund Freud believed that memories and dreams are deeply interconnected. According to Freud, dreams are not random or meaningless; rather, they express unconscious desires, fears, and—most importantly—memories. He argued that many dreams are constructed from fragments of past experiences, some of which may be long forgotten or repressed.
Freud introduced the concept of “day residues”, in which events and thoughts from the previous day often appear in dreams, intermingled with older memories from childhood or earlier life. He believed that dreams serve as a way for the unconscious mind to process unresolved conflicts, using both recent and distant memories as material. These memories may be disguised, condensed, or symbolically represented in the dream, making their true meaning difficult to recognise without analysis.

One of Freud’s key ideas was that repressed memories—those which are too painful or unacceptable to face consciously—often find their way into dreams. Through the process of “dream work,” the mind transforms these latent memories into the strange and sometimes confusing images we remember upon waking. By analysing dreams, Freud believed we could uncover hidden memories and gain insight into our deepest desires and anxieties.
In summary, Freud saw dreams as a window into the unconscious, built from layers of memories both recent and distant. For him, exploring the connection between memories and dreams was essential for understanding the human mind and the hidden forces that shape our thoughts and behaviours.

Now, following parts one & two, let’s proceed to the next chapter of his book, Dream Interpretation. I divided this chapter due to its length!

The Material of Dreams—Memory in the Dream (Das Traummaterial – Das Gedächtnis im Traum)

That all the material comprising the content of a dream derives in some way from lived experience—that is, that it is reproduced or recalled within the dream—may be accepted, at the very least, as an indisputable fact. Yet it would be an error to assume that such a connection between the dream content and waking life must emerge effortlessly as an immediately obvious result of comparison. Rather, this connection must be sought out with close attention, and in a considerable number of cases, it manages to remain concealed for a long time. The reason for this lies in several peculiarities exhibited by the faculty of memory during dreaming—peculiarities which, though widely noted, have hitherto eluded all explanation. It will be well worth the effort to examine these characteristics in detail.

It happens, in the first place, that the content of a dream features material that, upon waking, one does not recognise as belonging to one’s own knowledge or experience. One may well recall having dreamt the specific item in question, but cannot recall when one actually experienced it. One thus remains in the dark about the source from which the dream drew its material—and is indeed tempted to believe in an independently creative activity on the part of the dream—until, often after a long interval, a new experience restores the lost memory of the earlier event, thereby revealing the dream’s true source. One is then compelled to concede that, in the dream, one possessed knowledge of—and was reminded of—something that had been inaccessible to one’s powers of recollection while awake.

Delboeuf recounts a particularly striking example of this kind, drawn from his own dream experience. In his dream, he saw the courtyard of his house covered in snow; there, he discovered two small lizards—half-frozen and buried beneath the snow—which, being an animal lover, he took in, warmed, and returned to the small niche in the masonry intended for them. Furthermore, he tucked in a few fronds of a small fern growing on the wall—a plant he knew they were very fond of. In the dream, he knew the plant’s name: Asplenium ruta-murale. The dream then continued; after a brief interlude, it returned to the lizards and—to Delboeuf’s astonishment—revealed two new little creatures feasting upon the remnants of the fern. He then turned his gaze towards the open field and saw a fifth, then a sixth lizard, making their way towards the hole in the wall; eventually, the entire street was covered by a procession of lizards, all moving in the same direction, and so on.
In his waking life, Delboeuf’s botanical knowledge encompassed only a few Latin plant names and did not include any familiarity with the genus Asplenium. To his great astonishment, he subsequently verified that a fern of this very name does, in fact, exist.
Asplenium ruta muraria was its correct designation—a name the dream had slightly distorted. One could hardly attribute this to mere coincidence; yet it remained a mystery to Delboeuf how he had acquired knowledge of the name “Asplenium” in his dream.

The dream had occurred in 1862; sixteen years later, while visiting a friend, the philosopher spotted a small album of dried flowers—the kind sold to travellers as souvenirs in certain regions of Switzerland. A memory stirred within him; he opened the herbarium, found the Asplenium from his dream inside it, and recognised his own handwriting in the accompanying Latin names.
The connection could now be established. A sister of this friend had visited Delboeuf in 1860—two years before the lizard dream—while on her honeymoon. At the time, she had with her this album intended for her brother, and Delboeuf had taken the trouble to write out the Latin name beneath each of the dried plants, dictating them from a botanist.

The favour of chance—which renders this example so eminently worth recounting—allowed Delboeuf to trace yet another element of this dream’s content to its forgotten source. One day in 1877, an old volume of an illustrated magazine fell into his hands, and he saw the entire procession of lizards depicted exactly as he had dreamed it in 1862. The volume bore the date 1861, and Delboeuf recalled that he had been a subscriber to the magazine since its inception.

To be continued! 💖🙏