DREAM

DREAM, a special mental state characterized by the unique activity of consciousness during sleep. This state has been studied by a large number of researchers. Most often, attention was paid to the formal characteristics of dreams. Some researchers considered it impossible to view dreams as having any meaningful manifestation of mental activity, emphasizing their incoherence, fragmentary nature, contradictory elements, and random combinations. There was no shortage of works that emphasized the other side - the preserved ability in dreams for higher mental activity, for wit, creativity, valuable inferences, etc. In accordance with this, various authors emphasized either the predominant role of somatic irritations or saw in dreams the preserved abilities of waking consciousness and the influence of impulses coming from waking life. External irritations play a certain role in the formation of dreams. This is confirmed by a number of observations. The feeling of cold, an uncomfortable body position, ringing, etc., can be a source of dreams. The unique transformation of external irritations in dreams has been proven experimentally (Maury and others). Intentional irritation of a sleeping person with hot objects, pinches, tickling, various sounds served as a reason for the occurrence of dreams, sometimes bizarre and complex, in which the sensory irritation underwent significant transformation. Irritations of the sense organs that occur during sleep, independent of external causes, as well as independent visual and auditory sensations, also serve as material for dreams. Research on hypnagogic hallucinations (Maury) or visions of half-sleep (Leroy) confirms this point of view. Even in a drowsy state, fragmentary perceptions appear, light spots that take the form of figures, colors, shadows, circles, etc. The sense organs, in the waking state directed toward the external world, as if turn inward, and it is possibly in this very state that they form the first and fragmentary elements that then enter into the composition of dreams. It is also indisputable that somatic sensations can be a trigger for the occurrence of dreams. Thus, it has already become commonplace to note that visceral sensations determine the content and tone of many dreams. Such dreams can sometimes be harbingers of as yet undiagnosed diseases. However, not only pathological conditions of the body cause the occurrence of dreams. Proof of this is at least sexual irritations. Points of view regarding the role of mental experiences, regarding the refraction of waking interests and impressions in dreams, are more contradictory. These contradictions have sufficient ground, since it has been established that dreams do not often use what sometimes sharply and persistently occupies waking consciousness. Along with this, traces of daily impressions usually serve as starting points, raw material, as is observed in the case of somatic irritants. Dreams violate temporal and spatial relationships, logical connections in them are contradictory, "yes" and "no" are placed side by side, associative connections are extremely fragile, there are no obligatory knowledge, absurdity does not cause surprise at all, etc. This aspect of dreams has also been studied. Thus, material accumulated for the construction of dream theory. The theory of physiological explanation of dreams was created mainly by the school of Pavlov. Falling asleep is interpreted by Pavlov as a state of inhibition. From this point of view, the concept of so-called partial sleep seems particularly important. A certain area of the cerebral cortex, after excitation lasting for some time, ceases to respond to external stimuli, the conditioned reflex extinguishes. The wider the area of inhibition, the larger the area of the cortex is in a dream-like state. Monotonous work, monotonous and long-lasting impressions lead to local inhibition, to exhaustion of the ability to respond to a given stimulus. Under these conditions, a certain area of the cerebral cortex is subject to inhibition, it remains in a dream-like state. That is why switching to new interests and activities is not an additional burden, but rest, sleep for the area that is in a state of internal inhibition. In a state of hypnosis, a person's consciousness is narrowed, it is reduced to a certain point where a connection with the hypnotized person opens. The latter brings to waking state first one area, then another, thus creating a mobile relationship between waking and sleep, i.e., between excitation and inhibition. Under ordinary conditions, states of distraction, absent-mindedness, etc., are signs of fatigue of certain functions. Most interesting is that according to Pavlov's theory, the decisive opposition between sleep and waking is eliminated. Just as in the waking state there is inevitably partial sleep, so during sleep individual areas are in a state of excitation, i.e., in a state of waking. Thus, the state becomes understandable when a person tries to break out of sleep, when he is almost awake but still cannot completely shake off the dream; he sleeps and does not sleep, being in a state similar to hypnosis, when consciousness can be completely preserved, however movements are impossible. This is the sleep of the motor sphere, its isolated inhibition. From what has been said, it follows that in the light of Pavlov's teaching, dreams represent combinations of wandering excitations, half-dozing foci, and the sense organs do not fall asleep completely, the work of analyzers is weakened but not turned off. The remnants of daily excitations participate in these connections. The attempt to give a profound psychological analysis of dreams and to clarify the laws underlying it belongs to the founder of the psychoanalytic school - Freud. He proceeds from his teaching on the unconscious and asserts that in dreams there is a discharge of repressed drives, unacceptable for the personality in their open and naked form. Consequently, those drives that a person has thrown out of his consciousness and that are not admitted into consciousness by internal censorship (see Psychoanalysis), continue to live in the unconscious, find an outlet in dreams. Daily remnants, external and internal irritations can only be starting points, impulses, on which something deeper is strung - repressed drives. However, the latter even in dreams cannot appear in an open form due to the continuing action of censorship even during sleep. They therefore find detours, penetrate in a disguised form. Therefore, dreams resort to displacements, condensations, symbolic formations. The repressed drive appears in an altered form. Censorship is deceived. In accordance with this, every dream becomes the fulfillment of a repressed, unconscious desire. Only in children does a desire, not realized in the waking state, directly and primarily penetrate into dreams. When repressed desires, forbidden and therefore unconscious, begin to accumulate, dreams become a tool for their struggle for existence. Even a dream that seems clear at actually contains another meaning, subject to disclosure through analysis. Psychoanalysis widely uses in its practice of treating neurotics the analysis of dreams, revealing repressed drives that, according to psychoanalytic teaching, underlie neurotic formations. The main shortcomings of the psychoanalytic theory of dreams are: the reduction of all dream mechanisms to the action ultimately of sexual drives, the establishment of dogmatic interpretations and decipherings, the transfer to the theory of dreams of the teaching on the primacy of unconscious drives in human destiny (see Psychoanalysis). The acceptance of a fixed system of interpretation of symbols as substitutes for sexual images has reached its extreme expression in Stekel. Alfred Adler considers the psychology of dreams in the light of his teaching on overcoming the feeling of inferiority and on the striving of the personality for self-assertion in life. Dreams, according to Adler, are deciphered as attempts to master life positions. Dreams serve the purposes of preparation for the future, for resolving current difficulties, for achieving dominance in one's environment. Dreams therefore look to the future. Affects in dreams relate to upcoming problems. This forward-looking direction comes from the unconscious, and the preservation of the unity of the personality requires that the material from the unconscious enters dreams in an incomprehensible form. Despite all the dogmatism and a priori nature of the positions of the psychoanalytic school regarding dreams, it is necessary to note that the accounting for repressed drives and their disguises in dreams is partly confirmed by experimental data. Experimental evidence can be obtained in two ways. If in a state of hypnosis to suggest a dream contrary to the ethical norms of a given personality, then the suggested but repressed dream will appear in an encoded form, making it harmless (internal repression). If to an alcoholic in a state of deep hypnosis to suggest a ban on alcohol (external repression) and to offer him in a state of sleep to see himself in a restaurant, then he will drink lemonade, complain that he was served tea with an awful smell, sees drunk people around him, etc., i.e., he masks his desire, produces substitutions, transfers his desire to others.

Confirmation of the role of complex formations in dreams is given by recurring dreams, symbolically saturated dreams of so-called neurotics, etc. Similar mechanisms operate in hysterical twilight states, partly in alcoholic hallucinosis, etc. The closeness in certain features of hallucinatory-delusional states and thought disorders, on the one hand (this particularly applies to affective-synthetic delusion formations), and of dreams (partly hypnagogic hallucinations), on the other, is established by a number of authors (Bleuler, Young, Kretschmer, Schilder, K. Schneider, etc.). Attempts to link the theory of dreams with research localizing the sleep center have not yet led to any reliable results. But even if convincing data are obtained in this direction, they still only touch on one side of the question, leaving open questions about the role of the cortex, vegetative centers, etc. These data can little enrich the understanding of the structure of dreams. Similarly, the theories about decreased activity, about the altered state of the organism in which the sense organs turn inward of the sleeper, about the loss of a guiding line (tension) of mental life, about the primacy of the affective sphere, etc., cover only one side of the phenomena. Dreams thus represent material worthy of study and analysis, showing a whole chain of dependencies between individual hidden desires and goals of the personality. The study of the structure of dreams can help to understand a number of mechanisms of formation of special affective states that sometimes reach a pathological degree. In recent times, this question has received much attention in attempts to identify the basic symptomatology of 'mild' forms of mental experiences. Thus, K. Schneider in his 'Psychology of Schizophrenia' pays much attention to the question of the role of dreams in the symptomatology of schizophrenia. In the USSR, L. Rosenstein draws attention to this same aspect in his work on 'mild' forms of schizophrenia. Stekel points out that the onset of 'pleasant' dreams in the depressive phase of circular psychosis marks the end of this phase. Naturally, in connection with the above, the study of dreams also presents considerable practical interest.

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KhaletskiN.