 | The Journal of Abnormal Psychology |  |
DECISIVE VALUE OF CONTEXT AND APPERCEPTION MASS
To Freudians such statements seem paradoxical, to say the least; but the simple fact is that never is it correct to assume, as they do, a transcendental connection between a symbol C and a signification A, as if the Unconscious Mind disposed of ready-made symbols of its own. Barring words used in their proper sense, and similar borrowings from waking habit, the so-called symbols in dreams are essentially impromptu fabrications, in which the association is not a direct causal connection between A and C, but a mediate association involving a third element, which psycho-analysts usually leave out of account.
An element of this kind, overlooked in the formulation of a supposedly simple connection between cause A and effect C, is labeled Hidden Z, by Alfred Sedgwick. The Hidden Z in this case is what James calls the topic-of-thought, Ebbinghaus the set-of-the-mind, and others apperception-mass. In rhetoric it is familiar as context. It has an important place in thought and speech. For example, when I utter the phrase—Pas de lieu Rhône qne nous—the idea obtained is different according to whether your language apperception-mass is set for French or for English. It may have happened that while I was uttering the French nonsense phrase you were hearing it as the English saying. Similarly, the traveler in Egypt may correctly apperceive the meaning of architectural forms of temples as phallic; whereas it would be manifestly out of context to do so in connection with churchly edifices of the Gothic type, which
Conversely, the Freudian disciple may apperceive, in error, a sexual meaning in a dream, when the dreamer's mind contained no reference to this topic. Hence, the interpreter must make sure that his own apperception-mass is attuned to that of the dreamer in the given case. That is, one must be free from apperceptive bias. One must reject all hastily formed causal laws to the effect that C is the sign of A in every case. Otherwise absurd conclusions must result, as in Freud's theory of the birth-phantasies. For the same "symbol" may proceed from entirely different significations according to the set-of-the-mind or apperception-mass. The following analogy of Ebbinghaus puts the matter clearly: "When a train enters a large station there are many paths over which it might pass; but its actual path depends on the position which was given to the switches immediately before the train's arrival."[19] That is why one needs to detect, experimentally, the dream material that really represents the set-of-the-mind, and thence the significant relations called meaning.
In this connection, I published a year ago the dream of a child of six, containing seemingly typical phallic symbols.[20] Not one of them could be correlated with a sexual context; but every one was concretely shown to have reached its position in the dream through the influence of an entirely different set-of-the-mind. It is, therefore, not safe to assume stereotyped meanings in dreams.
| The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | |