It will be observed that the perpetual movement and the constant fusion of images which constitute the most fundamental character of dream life really combine two characteristics which, abstractly regarded, are distinct. The tendency of the dream image to be ever changing, ever putting forth some new feature which more or less radically alters its nature, is not a phenomenon of precisely the same nature as the tendency for two definite images, well known to waking consciousness, to become fused together, consciously or unconsciously, in dreams. Practically, however, there is no line of demarcation. What happens is that the image is ever spontaneously changing, and that each change is at once recognised by dreaming consciousness as a known object. Thus I dreamed that I was in a drawing-room and saw a beautiful and attractive woman with an unusually low evening dress entirely revealing the breasts; then, between the breasts, three additional nipples appeared, and I realised in my dream that here was a case of supernumerary breasts of sufficient scientific interest to be carefully examined later on; and then, as I gazed, I saw a number of little fleshy nipple-like protuberances on the body, and thereupon I realised that I was really looking at a case of the rare skin disease termed molluscum fibrosum. Thus the perpetually wavering and developing image is at the same time a succession of quite different images. On the other hand, when we seem to have a fusion of two definite images, what we really see in most cases is one image melting into the other and gradually losing its earlier character. In either case the process is the same interplay of automatic peripheral imagery and central ideas, whether the new image is brought into focus by, as it were, a current in consciousness, or is merely suggested by a spontaneous change in the previous image. How far the image suggests the idea or the idea the image, it is extremely difficult in most cases to say. The phenomenon we witness is a perpetually dissolving view; the vital process behind that phenomenon we must usually be content to be ignorant of.
It sometimes happens that the dream image is slowly transformed without the dreamer realising the transformation. Thus an image of a doll may take on the character of a human being. In a dream of this kind—possibly suggested by Villiers de l'Isle Adam's L'Eve Future, though that book had not been recently in my mind—I imagined that a lady of my acquaintance (whose identity I could not recall on awakening) had taken a fancy to possess an artificial woman, constructed with vast ingenuity and at enormous expense. The skin and hair seemed real as I noted with a certain horror on observing the breasts and armpits, but in places—I noticed especially one arm—the creature was as defective as an ill-made doll. It was, however, able to walk with a little support, and, most remarkable of all, it gave intelligent answers to questions; this alone it was that caused me a certain surprise. What at the beginning of the dream had only been an artificial image was evidently becoming a real human being, and one can readily believe that such stories as that of Pygmalion's statue may have been suggested by dream experiences.
The dream is mainly a dissolving view, because for most of us it is above all a visual phenomenon. Those people who, in their dreams, at all events, if not also in waking life, are largely of auditory type, experience dreams in which words play exactly the same shifting, developing, and dissolving part played by images in the persons of more markedly visual type. In their dreams they resemble those insane people who, in some feeble and confusional states, manifest echolalia and confabulation, their ideas drifting along the associational paths of least resistance suggested by every random word they hear. Maury records successions of dream imagery strung together in a similar manner by a procession of verbal transformations; thus in one oft-quoted dream the scenes were connected by the words, kilomètre, kilos, Gilolo, Lobelia, Lopez, loto.[33] In such a case the procession of verbal auditory imagery constitutes the basis of the dream. This is probably rare. In most people the basis of the dream is furnished by visual imagery, and auditory images only occasionally form an associative link, being more usually subordinated to the visual elements.
The speech peculiarities of dreams have been very thoroughly investigated by Kraepelin,[34] who has brought together two hundred and eighty-one examples, partly observed in himself, though they are not common, and Kraepelin considers that the hearing centres fall more deeply asleep than the visual centres, the eyes being already sufficiently protected by the lids.[35] Kraepelin classifies the speech disturbances of dreams into two great groups: (1) paraphasia, or disturbance of word-finding, where the idea is associated with a wrong word, which is sometimes a new formation[36]; and (2) disorders of oration, in which the peculiarity lies, not in the words, but in their order. The speech disturbances of dreams, Kraepelin remarks, spring from deep disturbance of thought, such as occur in sensorial aphasia, and, as in such aphasia, the dreamer thinks his nonsense is quite clear and reasonable. Much the same may occur in alcoholic delirium and in dementia præcox.
The invention of new words probably occurs frequently in dreams, without leaving a clear trace in memory, and still more frequently, perhaps, as in the 'selvdrolla' dream, already recorded, there are seeming new verbal formations which are really mere corruptions of imperfectly realised words. An example of a definite and precise new word seems to be furnished by the following dream, which was at all points vivid and precise. I saw quite close to me a huge tawny bird, with an orange bill. The creature got up and moved away, seeming as large as an ostrich. I asked a lady, standing by, who had some ornithological knowledge, what the bird was, and she replied that she thought it was a jaleisa. Then I asked the same question of a poor woman who was passing, curious to know what she would answer; she said, 'Oh, it's a kind of starling.' There was no doubt in my dream as to the spelling of 'jaleisa,' but I am quite unable to account for the word.[37] It so happened, however, that before I went to bed I had been reading one of Calderon's plays, and I imagine that this pseudo-Spanish word had formed itself in my brain among the echoes of Calderon's enchanting music. The question arises as to why that ignorant old woman should have called the jaleisa a starling. It seems just possible that the more familiar name was suggested by the last syllable of the strange bird's name, the association being verbal. It is equally possible, and perhaps more likely, that the association followed by the more usual visual channel, and that the jaleisa's orange beak suggested the large orange beaks of newly hatched starlings, which had once, many years previously, vividly attracted my attention.
A probable illustration of the influence of verbal association in diverting the current of a dream is seen in the harrowing narrative that follows: A lady dreamed that she went to an entertainment which turned out to be a kind of revival meeting, presided over by a lady, and full of uproar. It was suddenly realised that Hell was underneath the hall, and a man, supposed to be a slave, was torn to pieces and cast into Hell. A lady present was so much affected by the scene that she threw herself into a pool of water, and was drowned, her body being afterwards pulled out by a working man with a pitchfork. The dreamer was so overcome by these tragic events that she felt that there was nothing left but to commit suicide. Resolving to drown herself, she went to a lighthouse (which, however, somewhat resembled a bathing machine) on a height, in order to throw herself down into the sea. It was of an exquisite green tint, extremely lovely and attractive, but she had not the courage to leap in. She thought it might give her courage if she had a good meal first, so she returned to the hall and joined the lady who had presided over the meeting. They sat down to a dish of roast mutton, but, as they were eating, suddenly looked at each other with mutual understanding; they realised that they were eating the woman who had been drowned, and, it will be remarked, had been pulled out of the water by a fork. It was possible to account for every element of which this dream was made up, but its tragic character was unsupported by anything in waking life, and entirely native to the dream. The possibility of any guiding link between 'Hell' and 'hall' had not presented itself to the dreamer, nor had it occurred to me when I set down the dream as here reproduced. It must be noted, however, that the revival meeting would itself tend to suggest the idea of Hell. It seems probable that verbal associations usually play only a subordinate part.
Sometimes the verbal links of association in dreams, far from introducing tragedy, lead, by the conjunction of two words of the same sound, to puns. Thus a dreamer imagined that he and some friends were looking at a house with its bedroom or bedrooms open to the air, the front wall being gone, and they were laughing at the comical effect when a mysterious voice came saying, 'A three-walled bedroom is a side-burst stor(e)y.' As the dreamer awoke, he found himself laughing at this juxtaposition of the idea of the storey of a house-side split open, and the idea of a side-splitting story. The conditions of psychic activity during sleep—when ideas drift together from widely separated regions along channels of association which are usually held closed by the higher intellectual processes—seem, indeed, to be specially favourable to the production of puns and allied forms of witticism.[38] They may, therefore, be properly regarded as closely associated with subconscious activity.[39]
A verbal link is seen in the following 'recipe' invented on another occasion by the same dreamer:—
'Call in the tipcat, cut off its tail;
Fold up some eggs in a saucepan;