Psychology Part 54

Or shall we say that it is merely a mechanical play of a.s.sociation, with no motivation behind it? Dreams are interesting while they last, sometimes fearful, sometimes angry, sometimes amorous, otherwise not very emotional but distinctly interesting, so that many people hate to have a dream broken up by awaking. It seems likely, then, that dreams are like daydreams in affording gratification to desires. They are "wish-fulfilling", to borrow a term from Freud's theory of dreams, soon to be considered.

A boy dreams repeatedly of finding whole barrels of a.s.sorted jackknives, and is bitterly disappointed every time to awake and find the knives gone; so that finally he questions the reality of the dream, but pinching himself (in the dream) concludes he must be awake this time. An adult frequently dreams of finding money, first a nickel in the dust, and then a quarter close by, and then more and more, till he wakes up and spoils it all. Such dreams are {502} obviously wish-fulfilling, as are also the s.e.x dreams of s.e.xually abstinent persons, or the feasting dreams of starving persons, or the polar explorer's recurring dream of warm, green fields. An eminent psychologist has given a good account of a dream which he had while riding in an overcrowded compartment of a European train, with the window closed and himself wedged in tightly far from the window. In this uncomfortable situation he dropped asleep and dreamed that he had the seat next to the window, had the window open and was looking out at a beautiful landscape. In all these cases _the wish gratified in the dream is one that has been left unsatisfied in the daytime_, and this is according to the famous pa.s.sage, slightly paraphrased, "What a man hath, why doth he yet dream about?" The newly married couple do not dream of each other. We seldom dream of our regular work, unless for some reason we are disturbed over it. The tendencies that are satisfied during the day do not demand satisfaction in dreams; but any tendency that is aroused during the day without being able to reach its conclusion is likely to come to the surface in a dream.

Any sort of desire or need, left unsatisfied in the day, may motivate a dream. Desire for food, warmth, s.e.x gratification, air, money, etc., have been exemplified in dreams already cited. Curiosity may be the motive, as in the case of an individual, who, having just come to live in Boston, was much interested in its topography, and who saw one day a street car making off in what seemed to him a queer direction, so that he wondered where it could be going and tried unsuccessfully to read its sign. The next night he dreamed of seeing the car near at hand and reading the sign, which, though really consisting of nonsense names, satisfied his curiosity during the dream.

The mastery motive, so prominent in daydreams, can be detected also in many sleep dreams. There are dreams in {503} which we do big things--tell excruciatingly funny jokes, which turn out when recalled next day to be utterly flat; or improvise the most beautiful music, which we never can recall with any precision, but which probably amounted to nothing; or play the best sort of baseball. The gliding or flying dream, which many people have had, reminds one of the numerous toys and sports in which defiance of gravity is the motive; and certainly it gives you a sense of power and freedom to be able, in a dream, to glide gracefully up a flight of stairs, or step with ease from the street upon the second-story balcony. One dream which at first thought cannot be wish-fulfilling perhaps belongs under the mastery motive: The dreamer sees people scurrying to cover, looks up and sees a thunderstorm impending; immediately he is struck by lightning and knocked down in the street; but he finds he can rise and walk home, and seems to have suffered no harm except for a black blotch around one eye. Now, any man who could take lightning that way would be proud to wear the scar. So the dream was wish-fulfilling, and the wish involved was, as often, the self-a.s.sertive impulse.

This last dream is a good one, however, for pointing another moral. We need not suppose that the dreamer was aiming at the denouement from the beginning of the dream. Dreams have no plot in most instances; they just drift along, as one thing suggests another. The sight of people running to cover suggested a thunderstorm, and that suggested that "I might get struck", as it would in the daytime. Now, the dream mentality, being short on criticism, has no firm hold on "may be" and "might be", but slides directly into the present indicative. The thought of being struck is _being_ struck, in a dream. So we do not need to suppose that the dreamer pictured himself as struck by lightning in order to have the satisfaction of coming off {504} whole and bragging of the exploit. In large measure the course of a dream is determined by free a.s.sociation; but the mastery motive and other easily awakened desires act as a sort of bias, facilitating certain outcomes and inhibiting others.

But there are unpleasant dreams, as well as pleasant. There are fear dreams, as well as wish dreams. A child who is afraid of snakes and constantly on the alert against them when out in the fields during the day, dreams repeatedly of encountering a ma.s.s of snakes and is very much frightened in his sleep. Another child dreams of wolves or tigers. A person who has been guilty of an act from which bad consequences are possible dreams that those consequences are realized.

The officer suffering from nervous war strain, or "sh.e.l.l shock", often had nightmares in which he was attacked and worsted by the enemy.

Since Freud has never admitted that dreams could be fear-motived, holding that here, as in worry, the fear is but a cloak for a positive desire, some of his followers have endeavored to interpret these sh.e.l.l-shock nightmares as meaning a desire to be killed and so escape from the strain. To be consistent, they would have also to hold that the child, who of all people is the most subject to terrifying dreams, secretly desires death, though not avowing this wish even to himself.

This would be pushing consistency rather far, and it is better to admit that there are real fear dreams, favored by indigestion or nervous strain, but sometimes occurring simply by the recall of a fear-stimulus in the same way that anything is recalled, i.e., through a.s.sociation.

A large share of dreams does not fit easily into any of the cla.s.ses already described. They seem too fantastic to have any personal meaning. Yet they are interesting to the dreamer, and they would be worth going to see if they could be reproduced and put on the stage.

Isn't that sufficient {505} excuse for them? May they not be simply a free play of imagination that gives interesting results because of its very freedom from any control or tendency, and because of the vividness of dream imagery?

Freud's Theory of Dreams

Just at this point we part company with Freud, whose ideas on dreams as wish-fulfilments we have been following, in the main. Not that Freud would OK our account of dreams up to this point. Far from it. It would seem to him on too superficial a level altogether, dealing as it does with conscious wishes and with straightforward fulfilments. It has left out of account the "Unconscious" and its symbolisms. The Freudian would shake his head at our interpretation of the lightning dream, and say, "Oh, there is a good deal more in that dream. We should have to a.n.a.lyze that dream, by letting the dreamer dwell on each item of it and asking himself what of real personal significance the stroke of lightning or the scar around the eye suggested to him.

He would never be able by his unaided efforts to find the unconscious wishes fulfilled in the dream, but under the guidance of the psychoa.n.a.lyst, who is a specialist in all matters pertaining to the Unconscious, he may be brought to realize that his dream is the symbolic expression of wishes that are unconscious because they have been suppressed".

The Unconscious, according to Freud, consists of forbidden wishes--wishes forbidden by the "Censor", which represents the moral and social standards of the individual and his critical judgment generally. When the Censor suppresses a wish, it does not peaceably leave the system but sinks to an unconscious state in which it is still active and liable to make itself felt in ways that get by the Censor because they are disguised and symbolic. An abnormal worry {506} is such a disguise, a queer idea that haunts the nervous person is another, "hysterical" paralysis or blindness is another.

In normal individuals the dream life is held by Freud to be the chief outlet for the suppressed wishes; for then the Censor sleeps and "the mice can play". Even so, they dare not show themselves in their true shape and color, but disguise themselves in innocent-appearing symbolism. That lightning may stand for something much more personal.

Let your mind play about that "being knocked down by lightning and getting up again", and ask yourself what experience of childhood it calls up.--Well, I remember the last time my father whipped me and I came through defiant, without breaking down as I always had before on similar occasions.--Yes, now we are on the track of something. The lightning symbolizes your father and his authority over you, which as a child you resented. You were specially resentful at your father's hold on your mother, whom you regarded as yours, your father being a rival with an unfair advantage. Your s.e.x impulse was directed towards your mother, when you were a mere baby, but you soon came to see (how, Freud has never clearly explained) that this was forbidden, and that your father stood in the way. You resented this, you hated your father, while at the same time you may have loved him, too; so this whole complex and troublesome business was suppressed to the Unconscious, whence it bobs up every night in disguise. You may dream of the death of some one, and on a.n.a.lysis that some one is found to represent your father, whom as a child you secretly wished out of the way; or that some one may stand for your younger brother, against whom you, had a standing grudge because he had usurped your place as the pet of the family. These childish wishes are the core of the Unconscious and help to motivate all dreams, but more recently suppressed {507} wishes may also be gratified in dream symbolism. A man may "covet his neighbor's wife", but this is forbidden, unworthy, and false to the neighbor who is also his friend. The wish is disavowed, suppressed, not allowed in the waking consciousness; but it gratifies itself symbolically in a dream; the neighbor's wife not appearing at all in the dream, but the neighbor's automobile instead, which the neighbor cannot run properly, while the dreamer manages it beautifully.

Freud has claimed the dream as his special booty, and insists that all dreams are wish-fulfilments, even those that seem mere fantastic play of imagination, since, as he sees it, no mental activity could occur except to gratify some wish. Further, he holds, most if not all dreams are fulfilments of suppressed wishes, and these are either s.e.x or spite wishes, the spite wishes growing out of the interference of other people with our s.e.x wishes.

The objection to Freud's theory of dreams is, first, that he fails to see how easy-running the a.s.sociation or recall mechanism is. It isn't necessary to look for big, mysterious driving forces, when we know that A makes you think of B, and B of C, with the greatest ease. The dreamer isn't laboring, he is idly playing, and his images come largely by free a.s.sociation, with personal desires giving some steer.

Another objection is that Freud overdoes the Unconscious; suppressed wishes are usually not so unconscious as he describes them; they are unavowed, unnamed, una.n.a.lyzed, but conscious for all that. It is not so much the unconscious wish that finds outlet in dreams and daydreams, as the unsatisfied wish, which may be perfectly conscious.

Another very serious objection to Freud is that he overdoes the s.e.x motive or "libido". He says there are two main tendencies, that of self-preservation and that of reproduction, but that the former is ordinarily not much subject to suppression, while the latter is very much under the {508} social ban. Consequently the Unconscious consists mostly of suppressed s.e.x wishes. Evidently, however, Freud's a.n.a.lysis of human motives is very incomplete. He does not clearly recognize the self-a.s.sertive tendency, which, as a matter of fact, is subjected to much suppression from early childhood all through life, and which undoubtedly has as much to do with dreams, as it has with daydreams.

Freud has given an "impressionistic" picture, very stimulating and provocative of further exploration, but by no means to be accepted as a true and complete map of the region.

Autistic Thinking

Dreaming, whether awake or asleep, is free imagination. It does not have to check up with any standard. So long as it is interesting at the moment and gratifies the dreamer in any way, it serves its purpose. Sometimes the daydreamer exercises some control, breaking off a spiteful or amorous dream because he thinks it had better not be indulged; but in this he ceases to be simply a daydreamer.

Daydreaming, by itself, is an example of what is called "autistic thinking", which means thinking that is sufficient unto itself, and not subjected to any criticism. Autistic thinking gratifies some desire and that is enough for it. It does not submit to criticism from other persons nor from other tendencies of the individual, nor does it seek to square itself with the real world.

Autistic thinking, indulged in by every imaginative person in moments of relaxation, is carried to an absurd extreme by some types of insane individuals. One type withdraws so completely from reality as to be inaccessible in the way of conversation, unresponsive to anything that happens, entirely immersed in inner imaginings. Others, while living in the world about them, transform it into a make-believe {509} world by attaching meanings to things and persons as suits themselves. This inst.i.tution, in which the subject is confined, is his royal palace, the doctors are his officials, the nurses his wives, "thousands of them, the most beautiful women in creation". Or the delusion may take the line of the "suffering hero", the subject imagining himself a great man shut up in this place by the machinations of his enemies; the doctors are spies and enemy agents, and the nurses also act suspiciously; his food is poisoned, and he is kept in a weak and helpless condition, all out of fear of him. It is impossible to argue the patient out of his delusions by pointing out to him how clearly they conflict with reality; he evades any such test by some counter-argument, no matter how flimsy, and sticks to his dream or make-believe.

Autistic thinking is contrasted with realistic thinking, which seeks to check up with real facts; it may be contrasted also with socialized thinking, which submits to the criticism of other people; and it may even be contrasted with self-criticized thinking, in which the individual scrutinizes what he has imagined, to see whether it is on the whole satisfactory to himself, or whether it simply gratified a single or momentary impulse that should be balanced off by other tendencies.

Invention and Criticism

"Criticism"--the word has been used repeatedly, and it is time it gave an account of itself. Criticism evidently demands balancing off one desire by another. One tendency gets criticized by running afoul of another tendency, one idea by conflicting with another idea. We concoct a fine joke to play on our friend; but then the thought comes to us that he may not take it kindly; we don't want to break with our friend, and so we regretfully throw our promising invention on the sc.r.a.p heap. That is self-criticism, the {510} balancing off of one impulse by another. Self-criticism is obnoxious to the natural man, who prefers to follow out any tendency that has been aroused till it reaches its goal; but he learns self-criticism in the hard school of experience. For plenty of criticism is directed upon the individual from without.

Criticism is directed upon him by the facts of the real world, so soon as he tries to act out what he has imagined. Often his invention will not work, his plan does not succeed, and he is involved in chagrin and even pain. He must perforce cast away his plan and think up a new one.

At this point the "weak brother" is tempted to give up trying, and take refuge in autistic thinking, but the stronger individual accepts the challenge of reality. He sees that an invention is not satisfactory unless it will really work, and sets about learning what will work and what not, so acc.u.mulating observations that later enable him to criticize his own ideas, to some extent, before trying them out on real things.

Criticism is directed upon the individual from the side of other people, who from the day he first begins to tell his childish imaginings, are quite free with their objections. Humiliated by this critical reception of his ideas, the individual may resolve to keep them to himself for the future, and draw away, again, towards autistic thinking; or, more forcefully, he may exert himself to find some idea that will command the approval of other people. If he can take rebuffs goodnaturedly, he soon finds that social criticism can be a great help, that two heads are better than one in planning any invention that needs to work. He acc.u.mulates knowledge of what will pa.s.s muster when presented to other people, and thus again learns self-criticism.

Self-criticism is helped by such rules as to "think twice", to "sleep on it before deciding", to "drop the matter for a time and come back to it and see whether it still looks {511} the same". When you are all warmed up over an idea, its recency value gives it such an advantage over opposing ideas that they have no chance, for the moment, of making themselves felt in the line of criticism.

I once heard the great psychologist, and great writer, William James, make a remark that threw some light on his mode of writing. In the evening, he said, after warming up to his subject, he would write on and on till he had exhausted the lead he was following, and lay the paper aside with the feeling, "Good! Good! That's good". The next morning, he said, it might not seem good at all. This calls to mind the old advice to writers about its being "better to compose with fury and correct with phlegm than to compose with phlegm and correct with fury". The phlegmatic critical att.i.tude interferes considerably with the enthusiastic inventive activity. Give invention free rein for the time being, and come around with criticism later.

Some over-cautious and too self-critical persons, though rather fertile in ideas, never accomplish much in the way of invention because they cannot let themselves go. Criticism is always at their elbow, suggesting doubts and alternatives and preventing progress in the creative activity, instead of biding its time and coming in to inspect the completed result. For a similar reason, much of the best inventive work--writing, for example, or painting--is done in prolonged periods of intense activity, which allow time for invention to get warmed to its task, when it takes the bit in its teeth and dashes off at a furious speed, leaving criticism to trail along behind.

Invention in the service of art or of economic and social needs is controlled imagination, realistic, socialized, subjected to criticism.

It cannot afford to be autistic, but must meet objective or social standards. Mechanical inventions must work when translated into matter-of-fact wood and iron, and {512} must also pa.s.s the social test of being of some use. Social inventions of the order of inst.i.tutions, laws, political platforms and slogans, plans of campaign, must "work"

in the sense of bringing the desired response from the public. Social imagination of the very important sort suggested by the proverbs, "Seeing ourselves as others see us", or "Putting ourselves in the other fellow's place"--for it is only by imagination that we can thus get outside of our own experience and a.s.sume another point of view--must check up with the real sentiments of other people.

The Enjoyment of Imaginative Art

It requires imagination to enjoy art as well as to produce it. The producer of the work of art puts the stimuli before you, but you must make the response yourself, and it is an inventive response, not a mere repet.i.tion of some response you have often made. The novelist describes a character for you, and you must respond by putting together the items in the description so as to conceive of a character you have never met. The painter groups his figures before you, but you must get the point of the picture for yourself. The musical composer provides a series of chords, but you must get the "hang" of the pa.s.sage for yourself, and if he has introduced a novel effect, it may not be easy to find any beauty in it, at least on the first hearing.

Art, from the consumer's side, is play. It is play of the imagination, with the materials conveniently presented by the artist. Now, as art is intended to appeal to a consumer (or enjoyer), the question as to sources of satisfaction in the enjoyment of art is fundamental in the whole psychology of art, production as well as consumption.

We have the same questions to ask regarding the enjoyment of a _novel_ as regarding a daydream. Novel-reading is daydreaming with the materials provided by the {513} author, and gratifies the same motives. A novel to be really popular must have a genuine hero or heroine--some one with whom the reader can identify himself. The frequency of novels in which the hero or heroine is a person of high rank, or wins rank or wealth in the course of the story, is a sign of appeal to the mastery motive. The humble reader is tickled in his own self-esteem by identifying himself for the time with the highborn or n.o.ble or beautiful character in the story. The escape motive also is relied upon to furnish the excitement of the story, which always brings the hero into danger or difficulty and finally rescues him, much to the reader's relief. Love stories appeal, of course, to the s.e.x impulse, humorous stories to laughter, and mystery stories to curiosity. Cynical stories, showing the "pillars of society" in an ign.o.ble light, appeal to the self-a.s.sertive impulse of the reader, in that he is led to apply their teaching to pretentious people whom he knows about, and set them down a peg, to his own relative advancement.

But here again we have to insist, as under the head of sports and daydreams, that interests of a more objective kind are also gratified by a good work of fiction. A story that runs its logical course to a tragic end is interesting as a good piece of workmanship, and as an insight into the world. We cannot heartily identify ourselves with Hamlet or Oth.e.l.lo, yet we should be sorry to have those figures erased from our memories; they mean something, they epitomize world-facts that compel our attention.

The appeal of art is partly emotional.

A very great work of art, the Apollo Belvedere or the Sistine Madonna, when you suddenly come upon it in walking through a gallery, may move you almost or quite to tears. Beautiful music, and not necessarily sad music either, has the same effect. Why this particular emotion should be aroused is certainly an enigma. "Crying because you are so happy"

is similar {514} but itself rather inexplicable. In many other cases, the emotional appeal of art is easily a.n.a.lyzed. The pathetic appeals straightforwardly to the grief impulse, the humorous to the laughter impulse, the tragic to fear and escape. The s.e.x motive is frequently utilized in painting and sculpture as well as in literature.

Art makes also an intellectual appeal.

It is satisfying partly because of this appeal, as is clear when we remember that many great works of art require mental effort in order to grasp and appreciate them. You must be wide-awake to follow a play of Shakespeare; you must puzzle out the meaning of a group painting before fully enjoying it; you must study some of the detail of a Gothic cathedral before getting the full effect; music may be too "cla.s.sical" for many to grasp and follow. Unless, then, the artist has made a great mistake, the mental activity which he demands from his public must contribute to the satisfaction they derive from his works.

If his appeal were simply to their emotions, any intellectual labor would be a disturbing element. The intellectual appeal is partly to objective interests in the thing presented, partly to interest in the workmanship, and partly to the mastery motive in the form of problem solution.

Perhaps we do not often think of a fine painting or piece of music as a problem set us for solution, but it is that, and owes part of its appeal to its being a problem. To "get the hang of" a work of art requires some effort and attention; if the problem presented is too difficult for us, the work of art is dry; if too easy, it is tame.

The mastery motive is probably as important in the enjoyment of art as it is in play and dreaming. It comes in once in the joy of mastering the significance of the work of art, and again in self-identification with the fine characters portrayed.

{515}

Empathy in art enjoyment.

At first thought, some forms of art, as architecture, seem incapable of making the just-mentioned double appeal to the mastery motive.

Architecture can certainly present problems for the beholder to solve, but how can the beholder possibly identify himself with a tower or arch? If, however, we remember the "empathy" that we spoke of under the head of play, we see that the beholder may project himself into the object, unintentionally of course, and thus perhaps get satisfaction of his mastery impulse.