"To-day, however," he continued, "we study dreams really scientifically. We believe that whatever is has a reason. Many students had had the idea that dreams meant something in mental life that was not just pure fake and nonsense. But until Freud came along with his theories little progress had been made in the scientific study of dreams."
"Granted," I replied, now rather interested. "Then what is his theory?"
"Not very difficult to explain, if you will listen carefully a moment," Craig went on. "Dreams, says Freud, are very important, instead of being mere nonsense. They give us the most reliable information concerning the individual. But that is possible only if the patient is in entire rapport with the investigator. Later, I may be able to give you a demonstration of what I mean by that. Now, however, I want you to understand just what it is that I am seeking to discover and the method it is my purpose to adopt to attain it."
The farther Kennedy proceeded, the more I found myself interested, in spite of my assumption of skepticism. In fact, I had assumed the part more because I wanted to learn from him than for any other reason.
"But how do you think dreams arise in the first place?" I asked, more sympathetically. "Surely, if they have a meaning that can be discovered by a scientist like yourself, they must come in some logical way—and that is the thing I can't understand, first of all."
"Not so difficult. The dream is not an absurd and senseless jumble, as you seem to think. Really, when it is properly understood, it is a perfect mechanism and has definite meaning in penetrating the mind."
He was drawing thoughtfully on a piece of paper, as he often did when his mind was working actively.
"It is as though we had two streams of thought," he explained, "one of which we allow to flow freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back into the subconscious or the unconscious, as you will. This matter of the evolution of our individual mental life is much too long a story for me to go into just at present.
"But the resistances, as they are called, the psychic censors of our ideas, so to speak, are always active, except in sleep. It is then that the repressed material comes to the surface. Yet these resistances never entirely lose their power. The dream, therefore, shows the material distorted.
"Seldom does one recognize his own repressed thoughts or unattained wishes. The dream is really the guardian of sleep, to satisfy the activity of the unconscious and repressed mental processes that would otherwise disturb sleep by keeping the censor busy. That's why we don't recognize the distortions. In the case of a nightmare the watchman, or censor, is aroused, finds himself over-powered, as it were, and calls for help. Consciousness must often come to the rescue—and we wake up."