Discussion

Dr. Ullman's paper is an important step forward on the road toward a holistic concept of dreaming. He rejects the mechanistic-teleological formulation which sees the dream merely as the “guardian of sleep,” he rejects dualistic concepts which see dreams as the return of the repressed, or as expressions of wish fulfillment, and he rejects the view that dream symbols are disguising impulses.

From a dynamic viewpoint, however, the role and the meaning Dr. Ullman assigns to the dream still appears too limited in scope. In dreaming, he says, “the individual forms a statement that represents a total assessment of the currently disturbing life situation, and the defensive mechanisms by which it can be handled.” This formulation gives the dream the quality of a mainly reactive, defensive, and almost conscious phenomenon. Dreaming is an active creative process, an essential aspect of human life and growth. It fulfills a basic organismic need, as Kleitman's and Dement's work on dream-deprivation has confirmed.

Unconscious processes are not only “not intrinsically or potentially troublesome,” but often highly constructive and superior to conscious processes in providing valid insight and motivation, particularly in dreams, as I have shown in my paper on “Constructive Forces in Dreams.” The “currently disturbing life situation,” the frustration, anxiety, or rage about an unsolved conflict may start the dream. Dreaming, however, is a comprehensive process which crystallizes in dynamic symbols the total emotional state of the dreamer, his needs, anxieties, conflicts, and attempts at solution which may be more neurotic or more healthy according to the changing character structure of the dreamer.

Symbolization in dreams has as its almost inexhaustible source the dreamer's total life experience: childhood, adolescence, and later life, be it conscious or unconscious at the time of the dream. No longer restricted by compulsive focusing on the pressing needs of the day, the inner horizon