22 Journal of Comparative Neurology, 



rate elements which in waking experience are indissolubly con- 

 nected by association. At the same time new apphcations of 

 the laws of association themselves are afforded. 



The dream is generally a spontaneous abstraction which 

 does not rise above its simplest form. The qualities thus ab- 

 stracted are not generally associated with concrete names or, if 

 so, are so erroneously associated that the separation may be 

 affected by sufficient care. This abstraction is of the character 

 of what Morgan calls an isolate rather than a general notion. 

 It is as though the highly illuminated side of a cube were sepa- 

 rated from the rest of its sides and presented in consciousness 

 when the latter is too torpid to supply by association the parts 

 necessary to a perfect image. On waking one fills out the 

 hiatus unconsciously but with a degree of uncertainty which he 

 cannot account for in view of the great vividness of the dream. 

 Spitta says, "the first symptoms by which sleep ordinarily an- 

 nounces its approach a longer or shorter time in advance of its 

 actual entrance, the feeling of stupidness, weariness, sleepiness, 

 consists primarily in the fact that we are involuntarily forced to 

 turn our attention to our own subjective condition." He calls 

 attention to the fact that, during the day, activities are carried 

 out with a certain spontaneity which is gradually lost with the 

 approach of sleep. Even the fixation of the attention upon 

 external objects is lost. 



It seems to us that this analysis is uncritical in one respect. 

 Granted that the senses become fatigued and that every attempt 

 at giving expression to the will meets serious hinderances which 

 force themselves upon our attention if we persist in our pur- 

 pose, and granted that our internal sensations are not so quickly 

 quenched, it does not follow that the latter are increased or that 

 self-consciousness is intensified. That such an appearance is 

 simply relative is easily seen. Every one knows that the con- 

 centration of thought upon one's subjective states is not a good 

 method of conquering sleeplessness. 



Yet in another sense we agree with Spitta that during sleep 

 subjectivity dominates. 



The wide divergence of opinion respecting the psychical 



