Footnotes:
[1] Readers unfamiliar with my previous works might accuse me of placing undue emphasis upon “mental” causes and ignoring the influence of bacilli, toxins, etc., in disease. I refer them to the chapter: Mind and Body, an indivisible unit, in my book, “Psychoanalysis and Behaviour.” It is a truism that in tuberculosis for instance the prognosis depends greatly from the “mental” condition of the patient and on his will to live. We are protected against disease germs by the various secretions of the mouth, stomach, intestine, etc. Whenever a “mental” cause, such as fear, intense sorrow, etc., translates itself into an action of the sympathetic system which stops the flow of saliva and gastric juice and the intestinal peristalsis, we can see how the organism is then predisposed to an invasion of pathogenic bacteria. The depressed, the stupid and the ignorant are the first victims in any epidemic, the depressed because their protective vagotonism is too low, the stupid and the ignorant because they are more frequently than the intelligent and well informed a prey to fear.
[2] The orthodox Freudian would of course interpret such a vision as a symbol of an attempted regression to the fetal condition, return to the mother’s womb, etc. As a matter of fact, sleep is to a certain extent a return to the period of the fetus’ almost complete omnipotence of thought. I have noticed, however, that I never dream of swimming except on days when I have been prevented from indulging in my favourite sport at the shore or in the swimming pool.
This is to my mind a perfectly obvious dream needing no far fetched interpretation, symbolical only in so far as it expresses my attitude to sleep (See chapter on Attitudes reflected in dreams).
[3] Dr. Percy Fridenberg has shown the exaggerated shock reactions felt by the organism after the eye suffers an injury or is operated on, and recalls Crile’s saying that our activation patterns come from sight.
[4] The duration of a dream is not as short as some of Maury’s experiments would lead us to believe. Some of the experimental dreams timed by Schroetter lasted almost as long as it takes to relate them.
[5] Insanity is simply a day dream from which we cannot awake at will.
[6] All the dreams cited in this book are reported in the patient’s own words.