PSYCHOANALYSIS SLEEPand DREAMS

St. Augustine was glad that God did not hold him responsible for his dreams. From which we may infer that his dreams must have been “human, all too human” and that he experienced a certain feeling of guilt on account of their nature.

His attitude is one assumed by many people, laymen and scientists, some of them concealing it under a general scepticism as to dream interpretation.

Few people are willing to concede as Nietzsche did, that “nothing is more genuinely ourselves than our dreams.”

This is why the psychoanalytic pronouncement that dreams are the fulfilment of wishes meets with so much hostility.

The man who has a dream of gross sex or ego gratification dislikes to have others think that the desire for such gross pleasure is a part of his personality. He very much prefers to have others believe that some extraneous agent, some whimsical power, such as the devil, forced such thoughts upon him while the unconsciousness of sleep made him irresponsible and defenceless.