TEE SYMBOLISM OF DREAMS 55 



mental in life and very primitive. But there is another equally fun- 

 damental and primitive emotion — fear. 22 We may very well expect to 

 find this emotion, as well as desire, subjacent to dream phenomena. 23 

 The wish-dream of the kind elaborately investigated by Freud may 

 be accepted as, in what he terms its infantile form, extremely common, 

 and, even in its symbolic forms, a real and not rare phenomenon. But 

 it is impossible to follow Freud when he declares that the wish-dream 

 is the one and only type of dream. The world of psychic life during 

 sleep is, like the waking world, rich and varied; it can not be covered 

 by a single formula. Freud's subtle and searching analytic genius has 

 greatly contributed to enlarge our knowledge of this world of sleep. 

 We may recognize the value of his contribution to the psychology of 

 dreams while refusing to accept a premature and narrow generalization. 



22 On the psychic importance of fears, see G. Stanley Hall, " A Study of 

 Fears," American Journal of Psychology, 1897, p. 183. Metchnikoff ("Essais 

 Optimistes," pp. 247 et seq.) insists on the mingled fear and strength of the 

 anthropoid apes. 



23 Foucault has pointed this out, and Morton Prince, and Giessler (who 

 admits that the wish-dream is common in children), and Flournoy (who remarks 

 that not only a fear but any emotion can be equally effective), as well as 

 Claparede. The last admits that Freud might regard a fear as a suppressed 

 desire, but it may equally be said that a desire involves, on its reverse side, a 

 fear. Freud has indeed himself pointed out (e. g., Jahrbuch fur Psychoan- 

 alytische Forschangen, Bd. 1, 1909, p. 362) that fears may be instinctively 

 combined with wishes; he regards the association with a wish of an opposing 

 fear as one of the components of some morbid psychic states. But he holds 

 that the wish is the positive and fundamental element : " The unconscious can 

 only wish" ("Das Unbewussie kann nichts als wtinschen"), a statement that 

 .seems somewhat too metaphysical for the psychologist. 



