Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-12-07
THE CENSOR OF
THE DREAMING MIND
Ghosts That Come in the Night and
What Science Thinks About Them.
You Had Better Make
Friends With Them
BY B. K. LITTLE

SNClENCE believes In ghosts now. one OF
~ these days science will go humbly and
mark the spot where Jonah parted company
with the whale. It subscribes already to
Josephs dream. For long time science
laughed at ghosts and dreams. Now 1t writes
long and solemn books about them Fruud
the most ruthless iconoclast that ever wrote
science, believes in dreams. He's written a
work about dreams said to be as monu-
mental as the book by Darwin that set Adam
two million years back into history.
Science says that ghosts exist-insde our
selves They are old ideas, forgotten by the
thinking mind, but hiding away in the brain
nevertheless, and walking in our dreams.
Some wit once said that the only time
husband was really sure Of the attention OF
his wife was when he talked in his sleep.
Now science, when you go to it for a head
ache cure asks, first thing, about your
dreams.
There's no joke about it. Do you know
that your dreams of last night may have
been manufactured out of experience of
your early childhood, that you fancied you
had long ago forgotten-only you hadn't?
Nothing is forgotten. Everything that hap
pens to you is stored away in the cellar of
your mind. The mind scientists call it the
subconscous. In reality it's the subcear.
What's more, every dream is the expression
of a wish. It may be a beautiful wish. 1t
may be some wish that you're sorry you
ever encouraged-a wish that you are
ashamed to acknowledge to yourself in your
waking hours.
When Your NeighbOr's House Burns
One night you dream that your neighbors
house is aflre and you magnanimously rush
in and save him and his family from death.
An absurd dream, you say! What meaning
that have, especially to n scientist? Yet
it's to the scientist alone that such farrago
means anything at all.
That dream means this. Your neighbors
hens have probably been pursuing a research
for grubs and seeds In your garden. You
have probably had a discussion over this
matter with your neighbor, without much
satisfaction to yourself The consequence is
that, though you'd rather not admit ii, you
cordially dislike your neighbor. Not that
you wish his death by starvation. or measles
among his children, or anything like that.
You don't consciously and openly wish him
that. Secretly you do. So at night, when
your guardian wakeful mind is off the job.
that subcellar of yours liberates that guilty
thought. 1t steals up into your weary think
ing mind And the consequence is a dream.
But even so, there is a part of your think
ing mind that never sleeps. The scientist
call 1t the Censor" Your censor takes that
secret wish of yours to murder your neigh
Dor and tactfully translates 1t into a vision
of his beautiful house burning down. And
then because you secretly admire yourself,
that secret thought also sneaks up and gets
translated into beautiful heroic effort TO
your neighbor, in spite of his hens
1t sounds absurd. but it's deadly true. II
you have been worrying over business to
such an extent that you can no longer Sleep
or when you sleep you have dreadful night
mares, the scientist will take you in hand
and ask you first of all. what your dreams
are like, Probably you have some Dug"
You think you are going to get killed by an
electric car or a motortruck. You grow
positively "dppy' with this nagging idea
Or you get the old fashioned nervous pros
tration that they call by a fancy new name
in these days. You go down hill like a sled
You wonder what ails you and you visit one
of these psychotherapists to find out
The first thing he does is to puzzle and
annoy you by asking you to recount to him
a few of your latest and fanciest dreams He
may or he may not tell you why he does
this. But the real reason is that your dreams
are wide-open door into the innermost
secrets of your being. The scientist will
read your dreams piece them together and
spot unerringiy the nagging idea or the
secret wish that has been eating the life
out of you. 1t may be some wish that Won
have had since childhood. You thought Won
had forgotten 1t, but there it was all the
time eating away at your vitals The only
time it could score on you was in the night.
when you most of all wished to be let alone
Then it had you at it's mercy.
Don't Be Afraid
So the meaning has come back to the
dream. When a maiden dreams of a lover on
Halloween, il Is not an idle fancy There
may be about it something deeply touching.
And tragieally true Perhaps as a school
girl. she took fancy to a boy who grew
up ana married some one else The maiden
has persuaded herself that she has long ago
forgotten this deadly insult to her worm
and charm RaI phaf aa-I.. - -. |