sleep

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 11

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“Every dream, if it is really understood, not only with the intellect but really emotionally understood, has such a shot-like “Aha” effect upon one. If you do not have that, then you have not understood the dream yet…Every understood dream is like a slight electric shock into higher consciousness.” ~ Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemical Active Imagination, pp. 55-56

via Carl Jung Psychology blog

Dreams: Portals to an Unfamiliar Realm! For centuries, dreams have captivated humans, acting as both a source of awe and enigma. Every night, when we sleep, we enter a realm beyond reality—a space where logic gives way to imagination and the impossible becomes normal. This mysterious world has its own rules, landscapes, and inhabitants, often reflecting our deepest fears, hopes, and desires.
The true essence of dreams remains unknown. Researchers and philosophers have long debated their origins and significance. Some believe dreams are the mind’s way of processing memories and emotions, while others see them as glimpses into the subconscious that reveal our innermost thoughts. Regardless of their purpose, dreams remind us that parts of ourselves—and possibly reality—are still unexplored and mysterious.
Dreams encourage us to explore our inner world and foster curiosity and self-awareness. Night after night, they show us that life is more intricate and fascinating than it appears during our waking hours. Through dreams, we glimpse a world beyond our understanding—one that often fills us with wonder or reminds us of things we’ve forgotten.

The psychological characteristics of dreams (Die psychologischen Besonderheiten des Traumes)

In this section of Freud’s book, Interpretation of Dreams, he examines the unique qualities and behaviors of dreams from a psychological viewpoint. Freud states that dreams possess distinctive characteristics that differentiate them from waking thoughts.

Since this section is lengthy, I will divide it into several parts in my translation. I hope you enjoy reading it. 🙏💖

In the scientific study of dreams, we proceed from the assumption that dreams are products of our own mental activity. Yet, the finished dream appears to us as something alien—something we feel so little urge to claim as our own creation that we are just as likely to say “Me had a dream” (mir hat geträumt) as “I dreamed” (ich habe geträumt). What is the source of this “mental alienness” of the dream? Based on our discussions regarding the sources of dreams, we might conclude that dreams do not stem from the material that finds its way into dream content; for the most part, this material is common to both dream and waking life. One might ask whether it is, in fact, alterations in the psychological processes occurring during the dream that give rise to this impression, and thus attempt to outline the dream’s psychological characteristics.

No one has emphasised the fundamental difference between dreaming and waking life more strongly, or drawn more far-reaching conclusions from it, than G. Th. Fechner in certain remarks within his Elements of Psychophysics (Vol. II, p. 520). He argues that “neither the simple depression of conscious mental life below the principal threshold nor the withdrawal of attention from external influences suffices to explain the distinctive characteristics of the dream state as opposed to waking life. Rather, he argues that the arena of dreams differs from that of waking mental imagery. “If the arena of psychophysical activity were the same during sleep and wakefulness, then, in my view, the dream could be nothing more than a continuation of waking mental imagery maintained at a lower level of intensity, and would necessarily share its content and form. But the reality is quite different.”

It has likely not become clear what Fechner meant by such a relocation of mental activity; nor, to my knowledge, has anyone else pursued the path whose trail he indicated in that remark. One would presumably have to rule out an anatomical interpretation in terms of physiological brain localisation, or even one referring to the histological layering of the cerebral cortex. Yet the idea might one day prove ingenious and fruitful if applied to a mental apparatus composed of several agencies arranged in sequence.

Other authors have contented themselves with highlighting one or another tangible psychological peculiarity of dream life and using it, for instance, as a starting point for more far-reaching attempts at explanation.
It has rightly been noted that one of the principal characteristics of dream life manifests itself as early as the process of falling asleep and can be described as a phenomenon that ushers in sleep. According to Schleiermacher (p. 351), the defining feature of the waking state is that the activity of thought proceeds in terms of concepts rather than images. Now, the dream thinks primarily in images, and one can observe that, as sleep approaches—and to the same extent that voluntary activities become difficult—involuntary mental images emerge, all of which belong to the class of visual images. The inability to perform the kind of mental work we perceive as intentional, combined with the emergence of images regularly associated with this state of mental drift—these are two characteristics that remain with the dream, and that we must recognise as essential features of dream life during psychological analysis. We have learned that these images—hypnagogic hallucinations—are identical in content to dream images.

Thus, the dream thinks predominantly in visual images, though not exclusively so. It also operates with auditory images and, to a lesser extent, with impressions from the other senses. Much is also simply thought or imagined in the dream (likely represented by traces of word-presentations), just as in the waking state. Yet the only elements of content characteristic of the dream are those that behave like images—that is, those that more closely resemble perceptions than memory-images. Setting aside the debates regarding the nature of hallucinations—discussions well known to psychiatrists—we can state, in agreement with all expert authors, that the dream hallucinates, that it replaces thoughts with hallucinations. In this respect, there is no difference between visual and auditory presentations; it has been observed that the memory of a sequence of notes with which one falls asleep transforms, as one drifts off, into a hallucination of that same melody, only to give way again—upon the return to consciousness (which may alternate several times with dozing)—to the quieter and qualitatively different memory-image.

The transformation of a mental image into a hallucination is not the only way in which a dream deviates from a corresponding waking thought.
From these images, the dream constructs a situation; it presents something as present and dramatises an idea—to use Spitta’s expression (p. 145). However, the characterisation of this aspect of dream life is only complete if one adds the fact that, while dreaming—as a rule (exceptions require special explanation)—one believes oneself to be experiencing events rather than thinking about them, and thus accepts the hallucinations with complete conviction. The critical realisation that one has not actually experienced anything, but merely thought—or dreamed—in a peculiar way, arises only upon waking. This characteristic distinguishes the genuine sleep dream from daydreaming, which is never confused with reality.

To be continued!

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Here is another quick health update: I visited my doctor—not just because I felt weak, but because my head would spin whenever I read or looked at anything online. I was experiencing vertigo. He ran blood tests and found high inflammation. I need to start antibiotics. We all must stay strong!
Looking forward to seeing what the next steps bring!

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 9

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Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources (Traumreize und Traumquellen)

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?
~Carl Jung, The Red Book

Carl Jung believed that dreams are direct messages from the unconscious mind. According to Jung, these nightly visions are not random or meaningless; instead, they offer valuable insight into our deepest thoughts, feelings, and truths. By paying attention to dreams, he argued, we can better understand aspects of ourselves that are usually hidden from conscious awareness. He saw dream interpretation as an important tool for personal growth and self-discovery. Through understanding our dreams, Jung believed we could achieve greater harmony within ourselves and that dreams serve as direct messages from the unconscious mind.

“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse.”
~Carl Jung, CW, Vol.10, para 317

However, since Jung is more advanced in his ideas on this issue, we return to the basic findings that Freud had begun to explore and move on to the next level of his book, Dreams’ Meaning. (Preview here!)

“The painting at the top: Andrew Ferez, a surreal Russian illustrator”

In July 1931, the sculptor Oscar Nemon created a bust of Sigmund Freud. Freud posed for Nemon in a garden in Pötzleinsdorf, Vienna, captured here by an unknown photographer.
Source: Freud Museum London

Ad 4) Sources of psychological irritation

When we discussed the relationship of dreams to waking life and the origin of dream material, we learned that it is the view of dream researchers—both the earliest and the most recent—that people dream about what occupies them during the day and what interests them while awake. This interest, carried over from waking life into sleep, constitutes not only a psychological link connecting the dream to real life but also provides a source of dreams that should not be underestimated; alongside the stimuli that become significant during sleep—namely, those acting upon the sleeper—it should suffice to explain the origin of all dream images. However, we have also heard the objection to the above claim—namely, that the dream detaches the sleeper from the interests of the day, and that we—for the most part—only dream of the things that gripped us most deeply during the day once they have lost their immediate relevance to waking life. Thus, in analysing dream life, one constantly gains the impression that it is impermissible to lay down general rules without introducing qualifications such as “often,” “as a rule,” or “mostly,” and without preparing for the validity of exceptions.

If waking interests, together with internal and external sleep stimuli, sufficed to account for the aetiology of dreams, we ought to be able to give a satisfactory explanation for the origin of every element within a dream; the riddle of dream sources would be solved, leaving only the task of distinguishing the respective contributions of psychic and somatic dream stimuli in individual dreams. In reality, however, such a complete resolution of a dream has never been achieved; anyone who has attempted it has almost invariably been left with a substantial number of dream elements whose origins could not be determined. Evidently, waking interests as a psychic source of dreams do not go as far as one might expect, given the confident assertions that people continue to pursue their daily business in their dreams.

No other sources of psychological dreams are known. Thus, all explanations of dreams found in the literature—with the possible exception of Scherner’s, to be mentioned later—leave a significant gap regarding the derivation of the imagery most characteristic of the dream. Faced with this difficulty, the majority of authors have tended to minimise as much as possible the psychological component of dream formation, which is so elusive. While they do distinguish—as a primary classification—between dreams triggered by nervous stimuli and those arising from association (the latter deriving exclusively from reproduction; Wundt, p. 365), they cannot shake the doubt as to “whether they occur without an initiating somatic stimulus” (Volkelt, p. 127). The characteristic of the pure association dream also fails: “In true association dreams, such a firm core is no longer present. Here, the loose grouping penetrates even the centre of the dream. The imaginative life, already freed from reason and intellect, is no longer held together by those more weighty bodily and mental arousals and is thus left to its own colorful pushing and shoving, its own loose, chaotic tumbling” (Volkelt, p. 118). Wundt then attempts to downplay the psychological component of dream excitation by stating that “the phantasms of dreams are probably wrongly regarded as mere hallucinations. Most dream representations are likely in reality illusions, in that they originate from the faint sensory impressions that never cease during sleep” (pp. 359 ff.). Weygandt adopted this view and generalised it. He claims that for all dream representations, “their immediate cause is sensory stimuli; only then do reproductive associations follow” (p. 17). Tissié goes even further in suppressing the psychic sources of stimuli (p. 183): “Dreams of absolute psychic origin do not exist,” and elsewhere (p. 6): “The thoughts of our dreams come from outside…”

Authors who, like the influential philosopher Wundt, occupy an intermediate position do not fail to note that in most dreams, somatic stimuli and the—unknown or recognised as matters of daytime interest—psychic instigators of the dream interact.

We shall learn later that the riddle of dream formation can be solved by uncovering an unsuspected source of psychic stimulation. For the moment, we need not be surprised by the tendency to overestimate the role of stimuli originating outside mental life in the formation of dreams. Not only are these stimuli easily identified and even verifiable through experimentation, but the somatic view of the origin of dreams also aligns entirely with the prevailing school of thought in psychiatry today. While the brain’s dominion over the organism is emphasised most strongly, anything that might demonstrate the independence of mental life from demonstrable organic changes—or spontaneity in its manifestations—alarms psychiatrists today, as if acknowledging such things would inevitably bring back the era of natural philosophy and the metaphysical soul. The psychiatrist’s mistrust has, as it were, placed the psyche under guardianship, demanding that none of its stirrings betrays a capacity of its own. Yet this attitude reveals nothing so much as a lack of confidence in the durability of the causal link extending between the physical and the mental. Even when investigation reveals the mental as the primary cause of a phenomenon, deeper inquiry will eventually trace the path all the way to the organic basis of the mental. Yet where the mental represents the limit of our current knowledge—what ought to be the final station—it need not be denied on that account.

It will continue. I might update my condition here shortly: it’s been about 10 days since my surgery, but I still don’t feel fully well. Still, I need to improve, as I have to work on Tuesday! Take care, everyone.🙏✌

There is always a Beginning to Grasp the Whole! P 7

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Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources (Traumreize und Traumquellen)

While reading and translating this study from Freud’s work on dreams, I was reminded of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Night Terrors,” due to its similarities to REM sleep. Of course, Freud was unaware of this concept; REM sleep was officially identified in 1953 by Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of Chicago. Aserinsky, then a graduate student, observed rapid eye movements during sleep in both infants and adults and linked these active sleep phases to vivid dreaming.
Anyway, in the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Night Terrors” (Season 4, Episode 17), the USS Enterprise crew becomes trapped in a space anomaly called a Tyken’s Rift. This Rift prevents them from entering REM sleep, leading to widespread paranoia, intense hallucinations, and aggressive behaviour unless they find a remedy. As a result, they are unable to sleep or dream and begin to daydream.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is a unique sleep phase marked by quick eye movements, increased brain activity, and vivid dreams. It happens several times each night, making up 20-25% of an adult’s sleep. REM sleep is essential for both mental and physical health, boosting cognitive abilities such as memory, learning, and emotional regulation by helping the brain process and organise information, consolidate memories, and discard unnecessary data. Good REM sleep enhances problem-solving, creativity, and emotional stability. It also plays a role in physical recovery, especially in brain development during infancy and childhood. Disruptions to REM sleep are associated with mood disorders, memory issues, and weakened immune function. Long-term REM deprivation may lead to irritability, concentration problems, and increased stress sensitivity. Overall, REM sleep is crucial for brain function, emotional health, and physical well-being.

So, let’s now return to Freud’s concerns about dreams, stimuli, and their sources. (previous)

Ad 2) Internal (subjective) sensory excitation (Ad 2) Innere (subjektive) Sinneserregung)

Despite all objections, one must admit that the role of objective sensory excitations during sleep as dream stimuli is indisputable. If, in terms of their nature and frequency, these stimuli appear insufficient to explain all dream images, one is prompted to look for other sources of dreams that operate analogously. I do not know where the idea first arose of invoking internal (subjective) excitations within the sense organs alongside external sensory stimuli; it is a fact, however, that this is done with varying degrees of emphasis in all recent accounts of dream aetiology. “Furthermore,” says Wundt (p. 363), “subjective visual and auditory sensations—those known to us from the waking state as the ‘light chaos’ of the dark visual field, as ringing or buzzing in the ears, etc., and among them especially subjective retinal excitations—play a significant role in dream illusions, explaining the dream’s curious tendency to conjure up before the eye a multitude of similar or identical objects. We see countless birds, butterflies, fish, colourful beads, flowers, and the like spread out before us. Here, the ‘light dust’ of the dark visual field has assumed fantastic shapes; the numerous points of light that compose it are embodied in the dream as an equal number of individual images, which, owing to the mobility of the light chaos, are perceived as moving objects. – It is likely here, too, that the dream’s strong tendency towards a wide variety of animal forms has its roots, as the richness of their shapes readily adapts to the specific forms of these subjective light images.”

As a source of dream images, subjective sensory excitations evidently have the advantage of not being dependent on external chance, as objective ones are.
They are, so to speak, at the disposal of any explanation that requires them. However, they fall short of objective sensory stimuli in that it is difficult, or even impossible, to obtain the kind of confirmation of their role as dream-instigators that observation and experiment yield for the latter. The primary evidence for the dream-inducing power of subjective sensory excitations comes from so-called hypnagogic hallucinations, which Johannes Müller described as “fantastic visual phenomena.” These are often highly vivid, shifting images that tend to appear during the period of falling asleep—quite regularly in many people—and may persist for a time even after the eyes are opened. Maury, who was deeply influenced by them, devoted a detailed study to them and asserted their connection—or rather, their identity—with dream images (a view also held, incidentally, by Johannes Müller). According to Maury, their emergence requires a certain mental passivity, a relaxation of attentional tension (pp. 59 et seq.). Yet it suffices to lapse into such a state of lethargy for even a second—given the appropriate predisposition—to experience a hypnagogic hallucination, from which one may wake up again, until this interplay of drifting off to sleep, repeated several times, finally concludes. If one wakes up after a relatively short time, as Maury notes, it is often possible to identify the very same images in the dream that had appeared as hypnagogic hallucinations before falling asleep (p. 134). That is what happened to Maury once with a series of grotesque figures—featuring distorted expressions and peculiar hairstyles—that pestered him with incredible persistence as he drifted off to sleep, and which he recalled dreaming about upon waking. On another occasion, while suffering from hunger due to a strict diet he had imposed on himself, he saw—hypnagogically—a bowl and a hand armed with a fork, taking some food from the bowl. In his dream, he found himself at a lavishly spread table and heard the sounds the diners made with their forks. Yet another time, as he fell asleep with irritated, aching eyes, he experienced a hypnagogic hallucination of microscopic characters that he had to decipher one by one with great effort; upon being woken after an hour, he recalled a dream featuring an open book printed in tiny type, which he had been obliged to read through laboriously.

Much like these images, auditory hallucinations of words, names, and similar sounds can also occur hypnagogically and then repeat themselves in the dream—acting, as it were, like an overture announcing the leitmotifs of the opera that begins with it. G. Trumbull Ladd, a more recent observer of hypnagogic hallucinations, follows the same path as Joh. Müller and Maury. Through practice, he managed to rouse himself abruptly from sleep—without opening his eyes—two to five minutes after drifting off; this allowed him to compare the retinal sensations, which were just fading, with the dream images persisting in his memory.
He asserts that a close relationship between the two was evident in every instance: the luminous points and lines of the retina’s intrinsic light provided, as it were, the outline or schematic framework for the dream figures perceived by the mind. For example, a dream in which he saw lines of clear print—which he proceeded to read and study—corresponded to an arrangement of luminous retinal points in parallel lines. To use his words: the clearly printed page he had read in his dream dissolved into an object that, to his waking perception, resembled a fragment of an actual printed sheet viewed—from too far away to discern details—through a tiny hole in a piece of paper. Ladd—without, incidentally, underestimating the central role of the phenomenon—suggests that hardly any visual dream occurs within us that does not draw upon the material of the retina’s internal states of excitation. This applies particularly to dreams occurring shortly after falling asleep in a dark room.

A sequel will continue, though I can’t say when I’ll be able to do this or any other post! Thank you all. 💖🙏