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The author investigates by psychoanalytic technique the nature of suggestion, and compares hypnotic and analytic methods especially as to the degree of regression that occurs in each.
To six patients in psychoanalysis, all rather severely ill, it was suggested that they would dream certain things; the patients' responses to these suggestions were studied in succeeding sessions. The suggestions were always formulated in terms of the central conflict at the time of the suggestion, and the suggestions concerned significant events or people, previous dreams, physical symptoms, the transference, or instinctual wishes.
Control studies made use of these and other patients and were of three types. 1. 'Pretend' suggestions were contemplated; that is, the investigator made a note of a suggestion for a dream that he might have made to the patient but did not make and the subsequent sessions were studied for any dreams that might be related to the 'pretend' suggestions. 2. One patient was given dream suggestions while under hypnosis. 3. Five persons not in therapy were given dream suggestions under ordinary conditions of social contact.
Eight categories of results are described: dreams in which the suggestion appeared in the manifest content, or in the latent content; delayed dreams; the development of amnesia for the suggestion; dreams which could not be related to the suggestion; acting out; symptom-formation; and failure to dream or forgetting the dream. These results are discussed as compromises between unconscious impulses activated by the suggestions and defensive functions of the ego. The failure to dream results from overt or latent hostility, especially from oral sadism. Suggestions to dream are accepted by patients in analysis and the content of the suggestion influences the content of the dream produced.
The analytic and hypnotic transferences are compared. The capacity of patients in analysis to accept dream suggestions is great; it approaches that of hypnot