Pavlow, "Study of the Higher Mental Functions," British Medical Journal,
October, 1913.
32. Ladd & Woodworth, "Elements of Physiological Psychology," 1911; p. 594; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
33. Woodworth, R. S., "A Revision of Imageless Thought," in Psychological Review, January, 1915; Presidential Address, American Psychological Association, Philadelphia, 1914, December. See esp. pp. 26-27.
34. Hobbes, "Leviathan," Chapter II; cf. Compound imagination.
35. Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses;" trans. A. A. Brill, Monograph, Journ. Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Co., 1909, New York; pp. 5, and 177.
36. Spencer's conception of the escapement of nervous excitation is fundamental in connection with the dream theory here sketched: see the essays on Laughter and on Music, also many passages in the Synthetic Philosophy (Biology, Psychology). This conception is not to be confused with Janet's idea of "derivation," as stated in "Obsessions et Psychasthenie." The present formulation of the meaning of "apperceptive delay" in dreaming is based on the neurographic hypothesis, ("The Unconscious," Chapt. V.), and may be more precisely stated as follows:—
In the given instance, the original or primary neurogram possessed a certain passive inertia in responding to the stimulus, and it took a relatively long time for the excitation to raise the neurogic tonus of this primary neurogram so as to attain the level requisite for conscious imagination. But it was otherwise with the secondary or sequential neurograms, whose inertia had already been overcome by the facilitation (Bahnung) of the recent conversation about scratch-reflexes. For these neurograms to flash their imaged (conscious) equivalents into the dream-thought, it was enough that there should be a slight spill-over of excitation from the original neurogram.
Many examples could be cited from dreams, drowsy states and lapses of thought, showing the ways in which sequential neurograms produce trial apperceptions, pending the final revelation, through consciousness, of the original neurogram. The phenomenon of mental groping, here alluded to, is familiar in certain aspects; but, as an explanation of cryptic dreams, has not received the recognition that it deserves. Hence, the trial-and-error theory of dreams.
37. "Perplex," neologism of the writer; used to indicate a phenomenon frequent in both normal and psychopathic subjects; to wit, a group of delimitable stimulus-ideas, persisting as such, and unadjusted—a complex of persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas, demanding resolution; not the same as "complex" in Psycho-analysis. Cf. Prince's definitions of the varieties of complexes ("The Unconscious").