Evening star., 1940-09-07
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field. Laboratory
And Study

IN TieIo, LoDoIotory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.
Earliest days Of the human race on
earth, millenniums before the dawn of
history, may be reconstructed from
dreams.
Such was the belief of Sigmund Freud,
founder Of the medical discipline of
psychoanalysis, when he penned his last
testament In his London exile Just be-
fore his death last September. Much
Of the great Austrian doctors system for
the treatment of mental diseases was
based on the Interpretation Of dreams,
which he regarded as manifestations of
mental and moral conflicts based on
earlier incidents in the lives of the pa
tients.
But careful analysis Of dreams, he con-
cluded at the end, often brings to light
material which could not originate either
from the dreamer's adult life or from
his forgotten childhood. We are obliged to
which child brings with him into the
world as a result Of the experiences Of
his ancestors. We find elements corre-
spending to this philogenetic material
In the earliest human legends and in
surviving customs. This offers a source
OF human prehistory which Is not to be
despised."
The material Of dreams, he explains.
comes from both conscious and subcon-
scious life. The latter is the primaeyal
Id OF every human being-the great
conf1icting drives of love and death in
herent In every cell of the body, but
which are never known as conscious ex-
periences. Because Of this close connec-
ton with the subconscious, he says, It Is
common In dreams for the memory to
be far clearer and more comprehensive
than in waking life. They are forever
bringing up incidents of an earlier dav
In his own life which are inaccessible
to the dreamer when awake.
Words are often reported, he found.
which have no meaning to the dreamer.
When these words are traced back, how
ever, they are found to belong to earlier
phases IN the development of speech
either that of the Individual or of the
race
Freud elucidated finally his theory of
the dream. The body is driven con-
stantly by the great subconscious forces
OF the Id toward love or death. If AL
lowed to operate without restraint or
guidance they would soon bring about
the extinction of the individual In
some way guide, the Ego, has been
set up to control them. Especially it
controls movements coming from these
drives
But even the Ego itself, which is prac-
tically equivalent to consciousness, is
subject to some extent to the great death
drive to which Freud attached more and
more Importance in the closing months
OF his life. 1t is striving, according to
MS definition OF an instinct, TO slip back
to an earlier state-that which existed
before birth when it itself first came into
existence. This condition is satisfied bv
sleep. Once person is asleep the Ego
can relax its guard, because there /,
essentially no movement and person
cannot get into trouble, no matter how
powerful the drive of the death instinct.
without making some kind of motion.
once this condition Is established
Freud stressed, the Ego can relax. It's
sole job is to see that the person stavs
asleep as long as physiological condi-
t1ons will permit. But the drives from
the subconscious are always active and
would not permit sleep to continue un-
less something were done to placate
them. Therefore, the Ego arranged
compromises, which satisfy the drives
to a sufficient extent to permit sleep to
continue. In some dreams. through
curious circumstance, this Ego has to
"kid itself"
AS an example, Freud pointed out
supposing powerful hunger drive arises
out OF the subconscious during sleep. If
allowed to continue the sleeper will wake
and go to the pantry. Instead the Ego
creates dream of full meal, which at
least partially satisfies the drive and
allows sleep to continue. Another case
he cites is that of physician who falls
into sound sleep after hard dav.
but with the idea fixed in his mind that
ne must wake early in the morning and
be at the hospital to see a patient.
About the time he should wake. he
dreams-that he himself is at the hospi-
tai as a patient. The Ego has made a
compromise where one part of the duty
drive is satisfied. The man is at the hos
pital where he should be-but he is sick
in bed. SO there is no necessity for his
waking up at ALL
Followers of Freud often have defined
all dreams as wish fulfillments often of
an unconscious wish to waking fulfill
ment of which is prohibited by ones
moral sense in waking life.
Freud finally states the case: Every
dream is an attempt to put aside dis
fractions of sleep by means of a wish
fulillment.'
The question has often been raised
he says, why so many dreams are un-
pleasant or even horrifying if they are
wish fulf1llments, since it can hardly be
assumed that the dreamer subconscious-
ly wishes to suffer. This becomes clear
under the new definition, he says. The
dream is compromise with the uncon-
sc1ous, but in order to bring about a
good enough compromise to keep the
dreamer asleep. the Ego sometimes has
to go to an extreme of which it cannot
annTnVn