Freud - Complete Works (751 page)

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4642

   With the traumatic neuroses
things are different. In their case the dreams regularly end in the
generation of anxiety. We should not, I think, be afraid to admit
that here the function of the dream has failed. I will not invoke
the saying that the exception proves the rule: its wisdom seems to
me most questionable. But no doubt the exception does not overturn
the rule. If, for the sake of studying it, we isolate one
particular psychical function, such as dreaming, from the psychical
machinery as a whole, we make it possible to discover the laws that
are peculiar to it; but when we insert it once more into the
general context we must be prepared to discover that these findings
are obscured or impaired by collision with other forces. We say
that a dream is the fulfilment of a wish; but if you want to take
these latter objections into account, you can say nevertheless that
a dream is an
attempt
at the fulfilment of a wish. No one
who can properly appreciate the dynamics of the mind will suppose
that you have said anything different by this. In certain
circumstances a dream is only able to put its intention into effect
very incompletely, or must abandon it entirely. Unconscious
fixation to a trauma seems to be foremost among these obstacles to
the function of dreaming. While the sleeper is obliged to dream,
because the relaxation of repression at night allows the upward
pressure of the traumatic fixation to become active, there is a
failure in the functioning of his dream-work, which would like to
transform the memory-traces of the traumatic event into the
fulfilment of a wish. In these circumstances it will happen that
one cannot sleep, that one gives up sleep from dread of the failure
of the function of dreaming. Traumatic neuroses are here offering
us an extreme case; but we must admit that childhood experiences,
too, are of a traumatic nature, and we need not be surprised if
comparatively trivial interferences with the function of dreams may
arise under other conditions as well.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4643

LECTURE XXX

DREAMS AND OCCULTISM

LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN
, - To-day we will proceed along a narrow path, but
one which may lead us to a wide prospect.

   You will scarcely be surprised by
the news that I am going to speak to you on the relation of dreams
to occultism. Dreams have, indeed, often been regarded as the
gateway into the world of mysticism, and even to-day are themselves
looked on by many people as an occult phenomenon. Even we, who have
made them into a subject for scientific study, do not dispute that
one or more threads link them to those obscure matters. Mysticism,
occultism - what is meant by these words? You must not expect me to
make any attempt at embracing this ill-circumscribed region with
definitions. We all know in a general and indefinite manner what
the words imply to us. They refer to some sort of ‘other
world’, lying beyond the bright world governed by relentless
laws which has been constructed for us by science.

   Occultism asserts that there are
in fact ‘more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of
in our philosophy’. Well, we need not feel bound by the
narrow-mindedness of academic philosophy; we are ready to believe
what is shown to us to deserve belief.

   We propose to proceed with these
things as we do with any other scientific material: first of all to
establish whether such events can really be shown to occur, and
then and only then, when their factual nature cannot be doubted, to
concern ourselves with their explanation. It cannot be denied,
however, that even the putting of this decision into action is made
hard for us by intellectual, psychological and historical factors.
The case is not the same as when we approach other
investigations.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4644

   First, the intellectual
difficulty. Let me give you a crude and obvious explanation of what
I have in mind. Let us suppose that the question at issue is the
constitution of the interior of the earth. We have, as you are
aware, no certain knowledge about it. We suspect that it consists
of heavy metals in an incandescent state. Then let us imagine that
someone puts forward an assertion that the interior of the earth
consists of water saturated with carbonic acid - that is to say,
with a kind of soda-water. We shall no doubt say that this is most
improbable, that it contradicts all our expectations and pays no
attention to the known facts which have led us to adopt the metal
hypothesis. Nevertheless it is not inconceivable; if someone were
to show us a way of testing the soda-water hypothesis we should
follow it without objecting. But suppose now that someone else
comes along and seriously asserts that the core of the earth
consists of jam. Our reaction to this will be quite different. We
shall tell ourselves that jam does not occur in nature, that it is
a product of human cooking, that, moreover, the existence of this
material presupposes the presence of fruit-trees and their fruit,
and that we cannot see how we can locate vegetation and human
cookery in the interior of the earth. The result of these
intellectual objections will be a switching of our interest:
instead of starting upon an investigation of whether the core of
the earth really consists of jam, we shall ask ourselves what sort
of person this must be who can arrive at such a notion, or at most
we shall ask him where he got it from. The unlucky inventor of the
jam theory will be very much insulted and will complain that we are
refusing to make an objective investigation of his assertion on the
ground of a pretendedly scientific prejudice. But this will be of
no help to him. We perceive that prejudices are not always to be
reprobated, but that they are sometimes justified and expedient
because they save us useless labour. In fact they are only
conclusions based on an analogy with other well-founded
judgements.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4645

   A whole number of occultist
assertions have the same sort of effect on us as the jam
hypothesis; so that we consider ourselves justified in rejecting
them at sight, without further investigation. But all the same, the
position is not so simple. A comparison like the one I have chosen
proves nothing, or proves as little as comparisons in general. It
remains doubtful whether it fits the case, and it is clear that its
choice was already determined by our attitude of contemptuous
rejection. Prejudices are sometimes expedient and justified; but
sometimes they are erroneous and detrimental, and one can never
tell when they are the one and when the other. The history of
science itself abounds in instances which are a warning against
premature condemnation. For a long time it was regarded as a
senseless hypothesis to suppose that the stones, which we now call
meteorites, could have reached the earth from outer space or that
the rocks forming mountains, in which the remains of shells are
imbedded, could have once formed the bed of the sea. Incidentally,
much the same thing happened to our psycho-analysis when it brought
forward its inference of there being an unconscious. Thus we
analysts have special reason to be careful in using intellectual
considerations for rejecting new hypotheses and must admit that
they do not relieve us from feelings of antipathy, doubt and
uncertainty.

   I have spoken of the second
factor as the psychological one. By that I mean the general
tendency of mankind to credulity and a belief in the miraculous.
From the very beginning, when life takes us under its strict
discipline, a resistance stirs within us against the relentlessness
and monotony of the laws of thought and against the demands of
reality-testing. Reason becomes the enemy which withholds from us
so many possibilities of pleasure. We discover how much pleasure it
gives us to withdraw from it, temporarily at least, and to
surrender to the allurements of nonsense. Schoolboys delight in the
twisting of words; when a scientific congress is over, the
specialists make fun of their own activities; even earnest-minded
men enjoy a joke. More serious hostility to ‘Reason and
Science, the highest strength possessed by man’, awaits its
opportunity; it hastens to prefer the miracle-doctor or the
practitioner of nature-cures to the ‘qualified’
physician; it is favourable to the assertions of occultism so long
as those alleged facts can be taken as breaches of laws and rules;
it lulls criticism to sleep, falsifies perceptions and enforces
confirmations and agreements which cannot be justified. If this
human tendency is taken into account, there is every reason to
discount much of the information put forward in occultist
literature.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4646

   I have called the third doubt the
historical one; and by it I mean to point out that there is in fact
nothing new in the world of occultism. There emerge in it once more
all the signs, miracles, prophecies and apparitions which have been
reported to us from ancient times and in ancient books and which we
thought had long since been disposed of as the offspring of
unbridled imagination or of tendentious fraud, as the product of an
age in which man’s ignorance was very great and the
scientific spirit was still in its cradle. If we accept the truth
of what, according to the occultists’ information, still
occurs to-day, we must also believe in the authenticity of the
reports which have come down to us from ancient times. And we must
then reflect that the tradition and sacred books of all peoples are
brimful of similar marvellous tales and that the religions base
their claim to credibility on precisely such miraculous events and
find proof in them of the operation of superhuman powers. That
being so, it will be hard for us to avoid a suspicion that the
interest in occultism is in fact a religious one and that one of
the secret motives of the occultist movement is to come to the help
of religion, threatened as it is by the advance of scientific
thought. And with the discovery of this motive our distrust must
increase and our disinclination to embark on the examination of
these supposedly occult phenomena.

   Sooner or later, however, this
disinclination must be overcome. We are faced by a question of
fact: is what the occultists tell us true or not? It must, after
all, be possible to decide this by observation. At bottom we have
cause for gratitude to the occultists. The miraculous stories from
ancient times are beyond the reach of our testing. If in our
opinion they cannot be substantiated, we must admit that they
cannot, strictly speaking, be disproved. But about contemporary
happenings, at which we are able to be present, it must be possible
for us to reach a definite judgement. If we arrive at a conviction
that such miracles do not occur to-day, we need not fear the
counter-argument that they may nevertheless have taken place in
ancient times: in that case other explanations will be much more
plausible. Thus we have settled our doubts and are ready to take
part in an investigation of occult phenomena.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

4647

   But here unluckily we are met by
circumstances which are exceedingly unfavourable to our honest
intentions. The observations on which our judgement is supposed to
depend take place under conditions which make our sensory
perceptions uncertain and which blunt our power of attention; they
occur in darkness or in dimmed light after long periods of blank
expectation. We are told that in fact our unbelieving - that is to
say, critical - attitude may prevent the expected phenomena from
happening. The situation thus brought about is nothing less than a
caricature of the circumstances in which we are usually accustomed
to carry out scientific enquiries. The observations are made upon
what are called ‘mediums’ - individuals to whom
peculiarly ‘sensitive’ faculties are ascribed, but who
are by no means distinguished by outstanding qualities of intellect
or character and who are not, like the miracle-workers of the past,
inspired by any great idea or serious purpose. On the contrary,
they are looked upon, even by those who believe in their secret
powers, as particularly untrustworthy; most of them have already
been detected as cheats and we may reasonably expect that the same
fate awaits the remainder. Their performances give one the
impression of children’s mischievous pranks or of conjuring
tricks. Never has anything of importance yet emerged from
séances
with these mediums - the revelation of a new
source of power, for instance. We do not, it is true, expect to
receive hints on pigeon-breeding from the conjurer who produces
pigeons by magic from his empty top-hat. I can easily put myself in
the place of a person who tries to fulfil the demands of an
objective attitude and so takes part in occult
séances
, but who grows tired after a while and turns
away in disgust from what is expected of him and goes back
unenlightened to his former prejudices. The reproach may be made
against such a person that this is not the right way of behaving:
that one ought not to lay down in advance what the phenomena one is
seeking to study shall be like and in what circumstances they shall
appear. One should, on the contrary, persevere, and give weight to
the precautionary and supervisory measures by which efforts have
recently been made to provide against the untrustworthiness of
mediums. Unfortunately this modern protective technique makes an
end of the easy accessibility of occult observations. The study of
occultism becomes a specialized and difficult profession - an
activity one cannot pursue alongside of one’s other
interests. And until those concerned in these investigations have
reached their conclusions, we are left to our doubts and our own
conjectures.