The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||
THE RECONSTITUTION SUMMARIZED
Accordingly, I will now point out the fact that the analysis of the Scratch-Reflex dream has been carried to the stage where the dream stands reconstituted as follows:—
It is an attempt of the nervous mechanism to resolve a specific sensory stimulus-idea (A) by the discharge of nervous energy into a previously prepared or "facilitated" set-of-the-mind or context (Hidden Z). This, in the premises, happened to possess associative affinity for the stimulus, and was therefore, by the same token, chosen, i. e., brought into play, as a spillway for the stimulus. The
While this dream does not exemplify trial-and-error processes in response to a psychic cue, it is proper to state that the same mechanism can be demonstrated in the more purely psychic dreams, as well as in this one, wherein we have followed the trial apperceptions of a stimulus, from their incipience, to the point of awaking to a conscious recognition of the source of excitation. Moreover, by a more delicate and intricate use of the reconstitutive method it is possible to discover the stimulus-ideas in those cases where the dreamer is not able to testify to their character, as I was in this simple instance; purposely chosen, I may add, to outline the method in its simplest aspect.
According to the reconstitutive method, a dream is sufficiently interpreted and explained by having formulated the operation of the several specific factors, as in the foregoing example; that is, no preconceptions as to content or meaning or transcendental symbols are imported into this sort of purely mechanistic interpretation.
The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||