After that preparatory work of classification and comparison, the actual work of interpretation can begin.
Hebbel once wrote: “If a man could make up his mind TO WRITE DOWN ALL HIS DREAMS, WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTIONS OR RESERVATIONS, TRUTHFULLY AND WITHOUT OMITTING ANY DETAILS, TOGETHER WITH A RUNNING COMMENTARY CONTAINING ALL THE EXPLANATIONS OF HIS DREAMS WHICH HE COULD DERIVE FROM HIS LIFE MEMORIES AND FROM HIS READING, he would make to mankind a present of inestimable value. But as long as mankind is what it is, no one is likely to do that.”
The technique of dream interpretation could not have been described more accurately nor more aptly.
The person whose dreams are to be analysed should relax completely, stretched out on a couch in a quiet room, listening for a while to some monotonous noise such as the buzzing of a fan or of an inductor, his mind concentrated on the story of the dream.
Then he should tell in a rambling way, without trying to edit the things that rise to his consciousness, all the associations of ideas connected with every word of the dream. While we can interpret our own dreams and jot down our own ideas, the assistance of some sympathetic, discreet person makes the process much simpler. Jotting down notes detracts one’s attention from the images rising to consciousness.
The assistant, however, should confine himself to mentioning the next word or the next part of the dream as soon as the subject seems to have exhausted the associations brought forth by one part of it.
The most surprising results are often obtained in that simple way. Facts which the subject had entirely forgotten, connections he had never been aware of, will suddenly jump into consciousness; the dream will gradually assume a meaning and its interpretation may at times reach an unexpected length. A dream of one line may suggest associations covering five or six pages.
It may happen that in spite of the subject’s efforts to remember his dreams and of devices such as being awakened in the course of the night, etc., the only memories preserved of the night’s visions will be scraps such as “going somewhere,” “talking to somebody,” “something unpleasant,” etc.
In such cases, the subject should be allowed to sink into what Boris Sidis calls “hypnoidal sleep” by being made to listen to some continuous noise in a partly darkened room, all the while thinking of the “dream scrap.”
“While in this hypnoidal state,” Sidis writes, “the patient hovers between the conscious and the subconscious, somewhat in the same way as in the drowsy condition, one hovers between wakefulness and sleep. The patient keeps on fluctuating from moment to moment, now falling more deeply into a subconscious condition in which outlived experiences are easily aroused, and again rising to the level of the waking state. Experiences long submerged and forgotten rise to the full height of consciousness. They come in bits, in chips, in fragments, which may gradually coalesce and form a connected series of interrelated systems of experiences apparently long dead and buried. The resurrected experiences then stand out clear and distinct in the patient’s mind. The recognition is fresh, vivid, and instinct with life, as if the experiences had occurred the day before.”