Discussion

In describing what he calls “stage three” in the evolution of approaches to the study of the relationship between dream and social myth, Dr. Ullman characterizes it as “more open and exploratory and less concerned

with the validation of a priori psychoanalytic concepts.” This is a high academic standard, but even more important is it for this standard to characterize therapy. The greatest value in this paper, with all its stimulating academic aspects, is its facilitation of a “more open and exploratory” approach to the patient.

Before going on to the clinical portion of Dr. Ullman's contribution, I wish briefly to consider some theoretical questions—questions, however, that also have important bearing on treatment. These concern metaphor, emotion, and distinctions made between processes of sleeping and waking consciousness.

Dr. Ullman says that metaphor in the dream state is “an integral part of a process of self-confrontation, concerned not with the intelligibility and meaning of a given experience, but rather with the felt reactions associated with that experience.” This establishment of a basic separation between meaning and “felt reaction” obscures the relationship between meaning and emotion. It is essential always to bear in mind in clinical practice that there can be no affect without meaning. An individual feels a certain way because a situation has a certain meaning for him, whether or not he can recognize or communicate that meaning. An “affectual trace” in a dream is not a special phenomenon of dreaming, but a feeling whose conceptual source is unrecognized, just as it may be in waking consciousness. In the waking state it is common for people to feel angry, anxious, low, discouraged, and not know why. In the waking state, as we seek to communicate, I believe that many metaphors occur fleetingly, which we discard simply because they do not convey meaning either to ourselves or to another. In the dream, feeling may be associated with a metaphor which has n