The Science of the Mind 



sociations of personality, as in certain well-known cases of double 

 personality, may be caused by the repressed complex. Many 

 cases of this kind were brought into being by the terrible psychic 

 strains of the war. 



It is admitted that a certain class of dreams may be possible 

 of interpretation, but we cannot discuss the subject further here; 

 it cannot be accepted that Freud's theory of repression accounts 

 satisfactorily for all dreams. 



Another view is that which regards dreams in quite a dif- 

 ferent light. Dr. William Brown puts it in these words: 



The function of a dream is to guard sleep. Sleep is an in- 

 stinct like fear, flight, and the rest, and has a function which 

 has developed in the course of evolution. At night this 

 instinct of sleep comes into play, but it finds itself in con- 

 flict with other instincts and tendencies, as well as with 

 external impulses. Desires, cravings, anxieties, the memories 

 of earlier days, all of which are the lower and fundamental 

 elements of the mind, well up and strive towards conscious- 

 ness, while the main personality is in abeyance. If they 

 reach conseiousness sleep is at an end, but the dream, which 

 is a sort of intermediary form of consciousness, intervenes, 

 and makes the impulses innocuous, so that sleep persists. 

 This theory covers the entire ground of all types of dreams. 



There are other aspects of abnormal psychology which imply 

 subconscious operations with which we have not dealt. The sub- 

 ject of telepathy, clairvoyance, materialisations, and other phe- 

 nomena which appertain to psychic experience will be discussed 

 by Sir Oliver Lodge in the following chapter. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



FREUD, Interpretation of Dreams. 

 GREEN, Psychanalysis in the Class Room. 

 LLOYD MORGAN, Comparative Psychology. 

 Low, Psycho-Analysis. 



