mental in life and very primitive. But there is another equally fundamental and primitive emotion—fear.[1] We may very well expect to find this emotion, as well as desire, subjacent to dream phenomena.[2]
The wish-dream of the kind elaborately investigated by Freud may be accepted as, in what he terms its infantile form, extremely common, and, even in its symbolic forms, a real and not rare phenomenon. But it is impossible to follow Freud when he declares that the wish-dream is the one and only type of dream. The world of psychic life during sleep is, like the waking world, rich and varied; it can not be covered by a single formula. Freud's subtle and searching analytic genius has greatly contributed to enlarge our knowledge of this world of sleep. We may recognize the value of his contribution to the psychology of dreams while refusing to accept a premature and narrow generalization.
- ↑ On the psychic importance of fears, see G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," American Journal of Psychology, 1897, p. 183. Metchnikoff ("Essais Optimistes," pp. 247 et seq.) insists on the mingled fear and strength of the anthropoid apes.
- ↑ Foucault has pointed this out, and Morton Prince, and Giessler (who admits that the wish-dream is common in children), and Flournoy (who remarks that not only a fear but any emotion can be equally effective), as well as Claparède. The last admits that Freud might regard a fear as a suppressed desire, but it may equally be said that a desire involves, on its reverse side, a fear. Freud has indeed himself pointed out (e. g., Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen, Bd. 1, 1909, p. 362) that fears may be instinctively combined with wishes; he regards the association with a wish of an opposing fear as one of the components of some morbid psychic states. But he holds that the wish is the positive and fundamental element: "The unconscious can only wish" ("Das Unbewusste kann nichts als wünschen"), a statement that seems somewhat too metaphysical for the psychologist.
