3em">ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE DREAM AS A MEANS OF UNEARTHING THE GENESIS OF PSYCHOPATHIC AFFECTIONS

BY MEYER SOLOMON, MD., CHICAGO

THOSE; of us who have devoted a certain amount of our time and energy to the study of dreams have early come to realize the value of a dream as a starting-point in the analysis of certain mental states, particularly those of an abnormal character.

Frequently, in the hopeless tangle of symptoms, complaints and disconnected facts in the history as originally obtained, especially in old-standing cases, one does not really know just where to begin, what to start with in the first efforts to struggle with the problem of the ultimate genesis and evolution of the condition which is presented to him at the particular moment. Of course, by a careful review of the patient's past life history, gone over by persistent questioning and cross-examination, one can begin with the family history and step by step trace the history of the patient from earliest childhood or infancy through the various stages and phases of activity and development up to the very moment of examination. This may at times appear quite dull, quite uninteresting and entirely unnecessary to certain patients. For this reason and also for many other reasons, which I shall not enumerate at this point it is at times well to resort to dream analysis. And in analyzing dreams it is well to remember a fact, with which I believe all psychoanalysts will agree, namely, that by a most thorough and far-reaching analysis of a SINGLE DREAM, we can, by following out to the ultimate ends the various clues which are given us and the various by-paths which offer themselves to us in the course of the analysis—we can, I repeat, should we be so inclined, root up the entire life history of the dreamer. This may not be necessary in all cases. But, at any rate, if we desired so to do for scientific purposes, we could arrive at such results. In such an analysis we would, of course, first take up, individually, every portion and every element of every portion of the dream, and by means of each such lesser or greater element of the dream, we could arrive at a mass of material, a wealth of information concerning the past experiential, emotional, mental and moral life of the individual whose dream we were at the moment analyzing. In fact, one could ferret out the full life history in great detail, thus obtaining a complete autobiography leading far down into the depths of the dreamer's mental life and into the inner world of his own. With the material so obtained one could truly reconstruct the complete life history, piecemeal, until the wonderful and inspiring structure of the mental world of the dreamer would be reared, reaching far back to early childhood and perhaps even to infancy, extending so far forward as to give us a prophecy, based on the dreamer's dynamic trends and emotional trends and leanings, of the probable future, stretching forth its tentacles in all directions, and, uncovering the psychic underworld in its every part, holding up before our eyes the naked mind, in its length, its breadth and its thickness.

I am not referring here particularly to the employment of the method of hypnosis, especially as practiced by Prince, or to Freud's so-called free association (which is frequently really forced association) or Jung's word association methods. I am speaking only of analysis of the dream by ordinary conversation and introspection, in the normal waking state. Of course, were the latter method supplemented by these other methods, the results would be so much the more complete and far-reaching. I may mention, specifically, that the employment of Freud's free association method would be helpful here in gathering information because, when employing this method, one practically forces the one being analyzed to think by analogy and by comparison, insisting that he tell you what a certain word or name or scene or experience or what not reminds him of, what it resembles, what he can compare it to, no matter how remote its connection, no matter how unrelated, how far-fetched or how silly the association may appear in his own eyes—in other words, we demand that he co-operate by suspending critical selection and judgment. Although, as I say, Freud's, Jung's, Prince's and other methods may be advantageously employed, still, it seems to me, although I cannot yet state this in final or positive terms, that, at least in most cases, such an unravelment and resurrection of the past life history can be obtained by an analysis of the dream conducted in the ordinary, waking state, and the usual conversational mode of history-taking and daily oral intercourse.

It needs no repetition or elaboration to convince psychoanalysts (I use the term "psychoanalyst" in the broad, unrestricted sense of the word, including the supporters of all possible schools or standpoints or methods in psychoanalysis or mental analysis, and not limiting it to Freud's psychoanalysis) of the essential and fundamental truth of this statement. I shall, therefore, not unnecessarily lengthen this paper by endeavoring to bring forth complete evidence of the truth of this assertion.

As a matter of fact, this conclusion or generalization applies not alone to dreams but to any single element in the objective or subjective world which may be seized upon as the initial stimulus and from which, as a starting-point, association of ideas, in ordinary conversation or aided by any of the more or less experimental or artificial but valuable methods heretofore mentioned, may be begun and continued ad libitum or even ad infinitum, under the tactful guidance and judgment of the investigator. For example, if I may be permitted to tread upon the dangerous path of near-sensationalism or extremism, I may mention that were I to take even so common, so widely used, and so relatively insignificant a word as the definite article "the" as the initial stimulus, and have one of my fellowmen or fellow-women (whose full co-operation, it is assumed, I have previously obtained) give me one or more free or random word associations, and thereafter, with these newly acquired elements, continued to forge my way into the thickly wooded and unexplored recesses of the unknown and mysterious forest of the mind, I doubt not but that I should achieve the same results as if I had started upon my journey with a dream. If this be true, and I firmly believe that it is, in the case of that universally used and apparently inconsequential word "the," to which the normal person can be expected to have such a large number of associations, of varying degrees of intimacy or remoteness, how much truer is it when we have such a definite mental fact or mental state as a dream as the starting-point of our hunting expedition?

The dream gives us something tangible to start with, something near at home to the dreamer or patient, something interesting and amusing to him, something baffling and so frequently unintelligible to him, and, as a consequence, a more conscientious, earnest and wholehearted co-operation can be obtained from the person whose mental life is being investigated. Here is something vivid to him, something of personal interest to him. And so we can look to him to lend us his aid in better spirit and in fuller measure than might otherwise be obtainable.

I have been referring in my previous remarks, for the most part, to unravelment of the normal individual's life history. But my remarks are equally applicable to a mentally disturbed individual's life history and to the genesis of abnormal psychic states, particularly those to be met with in the neuroses and psychoneuroses.

So true is the generalization, indeed the truism or dictum here laid down, that, in only the psychoanalyst knows how many instances, by the analysis of a single, even the very first dream, one can arrive at the rock-bottom depth of the trouble at hand—yes, at the very genesis of the condition. It