THE SYMBOLISM OF DREAMS 47 
even easy to accept. When we are faced by the question of definite 
and constant symbols it still remains true that scepticism is often called 
for. But there can be no manner of doubt that our dreams are full of 
symbolism.?® 
The conditions of dream-life, indeed, lend themselves with a peculiar 
facility to the formation of symbolism, that is to say, of images which, 
while evoked by a definite stimulus, are themselves of a totally different 
order from that stimulus. The very fact that we sleep, that is to say, 
that the avenues of sense which would normally supply the real image 
of corresponding order to the stimulus are more or less closed, renders 
symbolism inevitable.1! The direct channels being thus largely choked, 
other allied and parallel associations come into play, and since the con- 
trol of attention and apperception is diminished, such play is often 
unimpeded. Symbolism is the natural and inevitable result of these 
conditions.*? 
It might still be asked why we do not in dreams more often recog- 
nize the actual source of the stimuli applied to us. If a dreamer’s feet 
are in contact with something hot, it might seem more natural that he 
should think of the actual hot-water bottle, rather than of an imaginary 
Etna, and that, if he hears a singing in his ears, he should argue the 
presence of the real bird he has often heard rather than a performance 
of Haydn’s “ Creation ” which he has never heard. Here, however, we 
have to remember the tendency to magnification in dream imagery, a 
tendency which rests on the emotionality of dreams. Emotion is nor- 
“bizarre analogies of internal sensations in virtue of which certain vibrations 
of the nerves, certain instinctive movements of our viscera, correspond to sensa- 
‘tions apparently quite different? According to this hypothesis experience 
would bring to light mysterious affinities, the knowledge of which might become 
a genuine science; ... and a real key to dreams would not be an unrealizable 
achievement if we could bring together and compare a sufficient number of 
observations.” 
* Tt is interesting to note that hallucinations may also be symbolic. Thus 
the Psychical Research Society’s Committee on Hallucinations recognized a 
symbolic group and recorded, for instance, the case of a man who, when his 
child lies dying sees a blue flame in the air and hears a voice say “ That’s his 
soul” (Proceedings Society Psychical Research, August, 1894, p. 125). 
%Maeder states that the tendency to symbolism in dreams and similar 
modes of psychic activity is due to “ vague thinking in a condition of diminished 
attention.” This is, however, an inadequate statement and misses the central 
point. 
In the other spheres in which symbolism most tends to appear, the same 
or allied conditions exist. In hallucinations, which (as Parish and others have 
shown) tend to occur in hypnagogie or sleep-like states, the conditions are 
clearly the same. The symbolism of an art, and notably music, is due to the 
very conditions of the art, which exclude any appeal to other senses. The 
primitive mind reaches symbolism through a similar condition of things, coming 
as the result of ignorance and undeveloped powers of apperception. In insanity 
these powers are morbidly disturbed or destroyed, with the same result. 
