1. The Language of Dreams

1. The Language of Dreams.1. Die Sprache des Traumes.

In dreams, and already in that state of delirium which mostly comes before falling asleep, the soul seems to speak quite another language than usual. Certain objects of nature, or properties of things, now all at once signify persons, and conversely certain properties or actions present themselves to us under the image of persons. As long as the soul speaks this language, its ideas follow another law of association than usual, and it cannot be denied that this new linking of ideas takes a far more rapid, more ghostly and shorter course or flight than that of the waking state, where we think more with our words. In that language we express, through a few hieroglyphic images strangely fitted together, which we picture to ourselves either quickly one after another or side by side and all at once, more in a few moments than we could set out with words in whole hours; in the dream of a short slumber we often learn more than could happen in the course of ordinary language in whole days, and that without real gaps, in a connection regular in itself, which is only, to be sure, quite peculiar and unusual.

Without wishing on that account to give the dream precedence over waking, or folly over presence of mind, we still cannot deny to ourselves that that language of abbreviations and hieroglyphs appears in many respects better suited to the nature of the spirit than our ordinary language of words. The former is infinitely more expressive, more comprehensive, far less subject to extension in time than the latter. The latter we must first learn; the former, on the other hand, is born in us, and the soul tries to speak this language that is its own as soon as, in sleep or delirium, it has become somewhat loose and free from the ordinary chain of things, although it succeeds in this only about as well as a good walker succeeded when, as a foetus in the mother’s womb, he tried out his future movements. For, by the way: even if we were able to draw those disjecta membra of an original and a future life out into light and air already now, we would for the present hardly bring it, in the language of spirits, as far as babbling, or at most to a degree of ventriloquism.

That language has, moreover, besides having just as much power over the forces of our inner nature as the Orphic language of song has over those of outer nature, yet another, very significant advantage over ordinary language. The series of the events of our life seems, namely, to fit itself together according to roughly the same association of ideas of fate as the images in dreams; in other words: fate within and outside us, or whatever else we wish to call that significant thing, speaks the same language as our soul in dreams. The soul therefore succeeds, as soon as it speaks its dream-image language, in making combinations in it which we would of course not hit upon when awake; it skilfully ties tomorrow to yesterday, the fate of whole future years to the past, and the reckoning comes out right; the outcome shows that it often quite correctly foretells to us what is to come. A way of reckoning and combining that you and I do not understand; a higher kind of algebra, still shorter and handier than ours, but one that only the hidden poet within us knows how to handle.

It is always remarkable that that language is not a different one in each person, created as it were by itself according to the whim of each individuality, but that in all human beings it appears pretty much the same, at most somewhat different in dialect. If we could talk with one another in dreams in the temple of Amphiaraus, the American savage and the New Zealander would understand my dream-image language, and I theirs. Of course here too the language of the one has incomparably more wealth of words, range and cultivation than that of the other; Plato speaks Greek, and so does the sailor out in the Piraeus, yet the range of this Greek will be rather different in the two; the cultivated lady of the court and the peasant woman both speak, and indeed in one and the same language, of the same objects of nature and needs of daily life, and yet the former has quite other words for them than the latter. Or again, in a language as infinitely rich as that ghostly one, which has so many words for one and the same object, the soul of the one tends to choose by preference this or that expression, this or that favourite construction, and the soul of the other another. Common souls therefore speak the low dialect here, more cultivated ones the higher; just as in the region of appearance, for example, our common people tend to speak Low German, and the upper class High German.

One may rightly assume that a part of the contents of our so-called dream-books rests on good observations, many times repeated; while another part of those contents, to be sure, consists merely of crack-brained rhymings-together and artificial strained interpretations. The dream-books of different nations will, when compared, show themselves to agree in the main, and this agreement seems not to come merely from the fact that a part of the oldest dream-books, for example that of Cardan, were written in the Latin language and were in the hands of the later observers of dreams among different nations. Unprejudiced self-observation, and even what travel writers tell us in this regard of the North American peoples, leads us to principles of dream interpretation similar to those set out in the dream-books, and known in part to the common people from experience and by tradition.

In what follows we will give, from one of the better-tried dream-books, some examples of dream images and their interpretations, which are in part confirmed by observations made elsewhere.

That state in which the soul thinks and acts in its picture-language with a kind of connection and order is already a higher and more perfect degree of the dream. We often notice, especially just as we fall asleep or in half-slumber, a less perfect degree of it, which stands nearer to waking and forms, so to speak, the passage from waking to the dream state proper. At this stage, which we remember on waking far more easily than the more perfect dream, the two different regions with their two different languages still run on parallel beside each other for a time, and mix in an incoherent, unfitting way. So, for example, we think the word to write, and at the same time have before us the image of two people, one of whom carries the other on his back. In this way, as we fall asleep, the dream state lets the waking understanding go on preaching for a while in its language of words, but at the same time makes such outlandish gestures from behind it as the hidden person does in a dressing-gown sermon, until at last the preacher falls asleep and the dream world hidden behind him now comes forward freely.

Even in the more perfect dream state the picture-expression the soul makes use of is of different kinds, and now more, now less plain and easy to understand. Often a prophetic dream sets before us the events of the next day, so far as they lend themselves to a pictorial representation, exactly as they afterwards meet us in waking, or else hieroglyphic and pictorial signs are mixed in only in part. So, for example, we see a friend we believed to be very far away, who on the following day suddenly surprises us by his arrival, really arrive in the dream; but what he has to tell us is either acted out in mime or again clothed in picture-expressions. Or we see in a dream, in a room full of blood, an acquaintance we believed still in good health, who tells us with a grave, pale face that today is his birthday, and on the following day we unexpectedly have to witness, in the same room we saw in the dream, the dissection of the man who has suddenly died. Even what we say in the more perfect dream often keeps, in so far as it has a great kinship with the region of the dream (of feeling), entirely the expression and connection usual in waking, and only here and there are single thoughts signified in a symbolic manner usual in dreams. In general, for many people, by virtue of that very kinship, the dream is a faithful mirror of waking. In other cases, on the other hand, the picture-expression of the dream is so far removed from the word-expression of waking that it first needs a translation into it. It is of this symbolic language, more proper to the dream, that we speak here first.

The one class of words of that language, the one in which it still shows the most kinship with ordinary word-language, consists of images that have here roughly the same meaning as in common poetic or figurative expression. A path that goes through thorns or steeply over mountains signifies in dreams, as in common poetic expression, unpleasantness and obstacles in the fate of our life; a path over smooth ice expresses, in both ways of speaking, an awkward, dangerous situation; darkness signifies in both sadness and melancholy; to receive the ring: to be betrothed. In the same usage flowers signify cheerfulness, a dried-up brook want, being shut up in a fortress being bedridden; the doctor’s visit illness, advocates costs; to see someone travel away or go over the water: to part from him for the whole of life.

A quite particular attention is deserved, however, by that usage of the dream, well known from the dream-books^* and from common experience, according to which the soul signifies by some image precisely the opposite of what this image means in common life; according to which it uses cheerful images for sad events, and conversely sad images for cheerful ones.^** To that strange hidden poet in us much seems to be astonishingly comic that makes us very sad, and conversely he seems to take very grave views of many of our joys; a sign that he does not, on the whole, feel quite at ease in our present state. So weeping and being sorrowful in a dream often signify near (sensual) joy; whereas by laughing, by dancing, by play, sorrow and sadness are indicated; by merry comedies, playing cards, merry music (especially of fiddles), nothing but quarrels and adversity, and only singing is said to prophesy good. In the same way the grave or a funeral procession are said often to signify a wedding, while conversely to see someone married in a dream often signifies his death. No less, in that higher style of the dream, by being born is understood the near death of the sick person, by the birthday the day of death.

* For example, the old Frankfurt dream-book.

** For many people the dream itself is already a strange reverse side of the waking state; gentle, peaceable people are often quarrelsome and quick to anger beyond all measure in dreams, the faint-hearted dream most often of bold deeds, and whoever has read, for example, Augustine’s Confessions will remember still other contradictions in which the dream stands to waking.

In the same manner of expression the dream also tends, by the image it chooses as a sign, often to make a kind of jest of things that are highly prized in waking. So excrement in a dream is said often to signify money; eating earth or gathering chaff, to become rich and to gather treasures; money is said also to be signified in dreams by pocks, spots on the body and other unpleasant things; indeed, in the old-fashioned language of the dream great riches are said to be represented under the image of the fire of hell, or of being possessed by the Devil. No less are money and goods said to appear in dreams under the image of a beast of burden, the ass, under which however the better half is also sometimes understood; beggars, whores and drunkenness signify outward good fortune. Conversely, (small) money points to vexation, a near loss of money appears under the image of a great gain; to receive blows and wounds from someone is said, precisely the other way about, to point to gifts and outward goods which the dreamer has to expect from that person.

In another, related respect too, the hidden poet tends, in dreams at least, to remind us of the reverse side of all our earthly happiness. Near advancement to outward happiness is said often to be made visible under the image of a bier; before a near rise in outward fortune and rank, the dream is said to show some persons the image of their own funeral; the cross, otherwise the symbol of suffering, is said to signify triumph over enemies, and esteem; to see lilies blooming, mockery and contempt before the world.

Another class of words of the dream language, which is perhaps no less important for the psychologist by profession, seems to rest in part on deeper-lying correspondences, and to stand in kinship with a language of nature in which every object has a property of its own, often standing in no connection with its properties known to us. So, to give only a few examples, our own passions and desires are made visible to us in dreams under the image of ugly or fearsome animals (which we cherish in our lap or elsewhere); an inclination towards some object the dream sometimes represents under the image of a ray of light going out from the breast of the lover towards the beloved object; the colour yellow, for example the sight of a landscape steeped as if in yellow autumn light, signifies mourning in dreams, the colour red joy; certain objects of nature, for example onions and parsley, are said, by virtue of that obscure correspondence, to signify gloom and grief, salt a fever, earthquakes a general misfortune; an eclipse of the sun, as also storms and signs in the sky, are said to signify sufferings and deep mourning. The shepherds and leaders (the strong ones) of the people appear to us in dreams, as they did there to Ajax, under the image of bulls and herds of cattle (and the head of the bull alone signifies power); an outward office of honour, or the stronger spouse, under that of the horse; mad strife under that of the camel. In the same obscure manner of expression the navel (through which the unborn child was first in connection with its surroundings) is said to signify home, or the parents left behind in it; the ear, and in general several parts of the body (teeth, hands, thighs), near relations; the shoulder a concubine; the bee fire; wine power.

In a similarly riddling way, then, certain symbolic actions too receive a quite peculiar meaning in dreams, as for example the taking off or putting on of a shoe, by which the soul signifies the dissolving or the tying of a bond between two persons of different sex.

It may well be that the greater part of the examples of dream images given here belong to the low or lower dialect of the dream language mentioned above; but it is on this dialect that most observations have been made. The higher dialect seems to agree entirely with that language which will be spoken of in the next section. The two, moreover, stand in the closest kinship with each other, and each can be understood from the other.

The meaning of those dream hieroglyphs has been searched out first of all in dreams that foretell. The soul, however, does not exercise that prophetic gift of combination in all dreams, nor even in most, just as in waking too it thinks no less often of what is past, or of what bears on its present wishes and needs, than of what it means to do and enjoy in the future. Besides, a great part of our dreams, like a great part of our conversations in waking, is empty, meaningless chatter, and sometimes the soul makes up for itself in dreams for the superfluous talk that is denied it in waking, just as, conversely, in those deeper souls who seem to lack the organ for it in waking, it expresses itself in dreams more powerfully and with more substance than in waking. We notice, however, even in dreams that are not prophetic, that the soul makes use of just such hieroglyphic images to signify objects as it does in the prophetic ones. A great part of our dreams is accordingly a reproducing of the past, or a free play of our inclinations and appetites, both in a world of peculiar images and hieroglyphic signs; and when the soul sometimes thinks in dreams about abstract objects in the ordinary language of words and sequence of thought, in the same way as in waking, this stands to the proper region of the dream just as those fantastic reveries to which we sometimes give ourselves up in waking stand to the proper region of waking.

For the rest, it is more than probable that there is a still deeper degree of the dream state, of which only very seldom a dim recollection remains to us on waking, because it is separated from the region of waking by the same gulf as the state of magnetic clairvoyance. Those deeper dreams, however, mostly leave behind in waking a certain mood and a part of those forebodings (for example of near death) of which several examples are well enough known. As the whole world of dreams in general plays an important part in the history of the formation and development of our spirit, so that higher degree of the dream too seems worthy of further inquiry. The psychologist will find many traces of it.