WHY WE DREAM

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 33, 9 February 1932, Page 16

WHY WE DREAM

TO STAY ASLEEP

Experiments have proved that the reason, why we dream is to prevent us froai waking up and that without ■'dreams a person would seldom have a night's unbroken sleep, said Dr. "William Brown (the Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy), in a lecture on the interpretation of dreams, reports the "Manchester Guardian." "Every dream may be said to fulfil one wish — the wish to go on sleeping," said Dr. Brown.

■ Only by dreamiug did the • sleeper avoid waking up. It was a common experience that if one became thirsty during sleep one dreamed of drinking copious draughts of water and continued to sleep. In one- instance a hotwater bottle was placed at a sleeping man's feet, and he dreamed that ho was climbing Vesuvius and walking on hot lava. A drop of water on his forehead made him believe he was perspiring freely and drinking wine. When his nose was pinched he dreamed that a mask was put on hia face and taken off, but he was still enabled to go on sleeping. ; "During the war we saw an onortnour.number of cases of battlo dreams, obviously due to repression cf fear and of the instinct of self-preservation. Iv the Fourth Army every man suffering from shell-shock was sent to me. Seventy per cent, wont hack to the line. Only 30 -per cent, of the cases I saw went down the line, where Dr. C. S. Myers saw them and sent some of them back. Yet after all that the residuum, of the residuum—the neurasthenics—made up one-sevonth of all those invalided out of tho army for any reason. Even the strongest nerves ivere affected under continuous shellfire. In spite of all this the Freudians band togethpr and fay il is rlim fo repressed liejire.'' ' " ".