WHY WE DREAM

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3183, 28 May 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHY WE DREAM

TO STAY ASLEEP. Experiments have that the reason why we dream-is oo prevent us from waking, and that without dreams a person would seldom have a night’s unbroken sleep (said Dr Wm. Brown in a lecture on the interpretation of dreams, reports the Manchester Guardian). “Every dream may be sdid to fulfil one wish—the Avish to go on sleeping,” said the lecturer. Only by dreaming did the sleeper avioid waking up. It was a common experience that if one became thirsty during sleep one dreamed of drinking copious draughts of Avater, and continued to sleep. In one instance a hot-water bottle Avas placed at the feet of a sleeping man, and he dreamed that he Avas climbing Vesuvius and Avalking on hot lava. A drop of A\ r ater on his forehead, made him be-%. lieve he was perspiring freely and drinking Avine. When his nose Avas pinched he dreamed that a mask was put on his face and taken off, but he was still enabled to go on sleeping. “ During the Avar we saAV an enormous number of cases of battle dreams, obviously due to repression of fear and of the instinct of. selfpreservation. In the Fourth Army every man suffering from shell-shock Avas sent to me. per cent Avent back to the line. Only 30 peir cent of the cases I saAV Avent doAvn the line, Avhere Dr C. S. Myers saAV them and sent some of them back. Yet after all that the residuum of the residuum the neurasthenics made up one-seventh of all those invalided out of the army for any reason. Even the strongest nerves Avere affected under continuous shell-fire. In spite of all this the Freudians band together and say it is due to repressed desire.”