University of Virginia Library

THE PERSEVERATION OF THE UNADJUSTED

In the foregoing words of Emerson, there is brought to bear on dreams an energic conception of mind-action similar to that which Hobbes had developed in his Leviathan in 1651. The latter, by analogy with conceptions of mechanical inertia new in his time, had compared the persevering effect of nervous stimuli to the continued agitation of waves of the sea after a storm: "When a body is once in motion, it moveth, unless something else hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, quite extinguish it; and as we see in water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of man, then, when he sees, dreams, et cetera." (Cap. II)

The Delage-Woodworth conception that dreams are due to persevering effects of unadjusted mental elements is not, therefore, entirely novel; but is itself a maturing of opinions which have been more or less loosely entertained by writers on dreams since Hobbes first formulated the modern doctrine of the association of ideas,—not to go back any further. The fertility of the conception of the "perseveration of the unadjusted" has been emphasized in my mind by illustrations obtained by an extended study of the dreams of normal people, and notably, by the agreement of my conclusions with those of Professor Woodworth and of Dr. Morton Prince. And I am led to believe that a development of this conception should harmonize with accepted principles of psychology, normal and abnormal, as formulated in Ladd and Woodworth's text-book, and in Prince's "The Unconscious."

Greater precision must be conferred upon this conception by showing specifically in what ways, and by what associative mechanisms, the persevering and unadjusted stimuli evoke the dream-images. Granting that unadjusted stimuli persist in their effects upon dream life, or in other terms, that primary stimulus-ideas may evoke secondary dream-images, and so on unto the third and fourth "generations;" then, in what manner does the process go on or come to an end? The answer to this question is an eminently practical one, to which Psycho-analysis has already brought the complication of its own still immature formulation of Ab-reaction and of Catharsis.[35] The matter still requires further study. In particular, it is necessary to formulate, through specific examples, a conception which shall be the pendant or complement of the theory of the perseveration of the unadjusted, and which I will call the "resolution of the unadjusted."

Already, I have taken the preliminary steps in this direction by adopting the physiological conception of trial percepts and applying it to dream interpretation. As a result, I have come to regard the successive evocations of imagery in the dream and even their reciprocal adaptations under the influence of creative fancy, as being trial apperceptions or attempted responses to one or more cues, either sensory or psychic.