The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-06-17

was time for disregarding dreams
 and omens and portents which meant so much to the old Greeks and Romans. Then people used to be thought ignorant and irreligious when they con- suited wise woman" to learn the mean ing of their dreams.
 We have changed all that. We trust our dreams and follow what advice they give us. The ''wise woman" has been superseded by the psychologist who is now called at least experimentally scientific. He listens to our dreams, traces them to their source, interprets and prescribes by what he learns from them. In a subconscious state we become the doctors best collaborator.
 Psychoanalysis sleep and dreams have furnished subject matter recently for a great literature, meaning numerous volumes. It is not all F'reudian, and indeed a goodly half of it may be called an effort to refute this first dtscoverer. As so many dreams present painful or distressing contents, fears and other unpleasant things among their anticf- pations, reflecting the "subconscious" as Freud says. or the tendency of normal walk ing thought, other psychologists say who are not willing to go the limit 1t has been found necessary to invent something entirely new and quite at variance with
 
 plain dreams.
 Dr. Peterson Gives Views
 From the Opposing Side
 In an effort to explain Freudism in easy terms this newspaper not long ago interviewed several of Freuds prominent disciples in New York and published their explanations. It is only fair to give the other side a chance to talk about their ways of handling "anticipation." And by the other side" Is meant the neurologists who proceed antagonistically to the psychoan- alysts.
 Instances of a desire to confute Freud which he gives in his book" said Dr. Fred erick Peterson, "are easily placed in the category of concealed wishes to do that very thing But they may be honest endeavor to learn the truth for all that
 "A fear dream, following the reading of Sigmund Freuds Elements of Psychoanaly- sis, is always claSsed by him. When the wish is not manifest as this use is made of the latent dream content with such dis tortlon and displacement that only Freud and his followers can interpret it properly. What the FreudIsts do is to evoke a dream censor with his unpleasant faculty of disfiguring or disguising the dream con- tents in order to conceal the real wish of the dreamer from any but the analyst
 Thus fear and anxiety dreams. which common sense tells us merely reflect in a measure such fears and anxieties as we often have in our conscious life. are interpreted by Freud as the disguised fulflment of a sup pressed repressed wish.' the content of fear and anxiety dreams being of sexual nature whose Hbido has been transformed into fear.
 The extraordinary symbolism ascribed to dream life by the new psychology is chiefly the invention of the psychoanaIysts.
 There Is probably little in the subcOn- sciOus or unconscious minG of any individual that has not at some time been conscious. and there can be symbols in sleep thought which have not been at some time symbols in waking thought.
 Most of the symbolism described by the new interpreters of dreams reflects the sym bolism of the analysts themselves. In fact there is more to be learned from the in terpretations published of the psychology of the analyst than of the psychology of the dreamer.
 Freud Criticised for Holding
 To Single Driving Idea '"The analyst reveals himself in his analysis. his anticipations, his intelligence. his learning. his logic. If there is any wish brought clearly to light in the work of the psychoanalyst it is his own. it is that of the interpreter.
 'The theoretical 'distortion' displacement and 'disfgurement' ascribe6 to dreams in the new psychology become actualities in the analytic story"
 A leading objection to the system of Sig mund Freud and one which repels a good many who would be otherwise receptive of II every subconscious impulse to one drive the sexual.
 pr. Peterson described frequently recur- ring dream of a neurotiC young woman which is fear dream. She dreams that she is awakened by alarm of fire and she from her room nd the house in a panic scantily attired The Freudian in depreciation. said Dr. Peterson, would be a repressed sex motivate,. desire. He asserted that this explanation is far from the fact. for on two occasions the country houses where this young woman was living lid actually catch fire in tn" night and burn to the ground. Each time she saved her In her night garments. The dream that now abstracts her comes from real conscious and fearful experience
 Freud has but ouc driving impulse" re- peated the neurologist, and that is the sexual. To him all the arts and accomplish n1ents of civiliza ton hark back to sex and of sex they the sublimation. This is what renders Freud and his theories pecu- Early obnoxious to many persons.
 Tt likewise discredits many of his eXperi- rnents In reality there many sub conscious influences besides that of sex Among them may be instanCed fear. disgust. curiosity, anger. sef-assertion. the gre varfous instinct the instincts of construction and acquisition. irnita ation. suggest hiity. play instinct, and all the later acquired drives determined by special gifts and apt tudes in the great workshop of the world. and by the absorption of individuals in their ,articular interests there. It should be our daily lives reach back to the subcon- scious also
 individual development is ore long series If preparatory or anticipatory reactio ns for the .consummatory' reactions that are to fol- low. Really. a generous experience of men