Varia

What the little imp who managed this puppet show on Argemone's brain stage, may have intended to symbolize thereby, and whence he stole his actors and stage properties, and whether he got up the interlude for his own private fun, or for that of a choir of brother Eulenspiegels, or finally for the edification of Argemone as to her own history, past, present or future, are questions which we must leave unanswered ‘til physicians have become a little more of metaphysicians and have given up their present plan of ignoring for nine hundred and ninety-nine pages that most awful and significant custom of dreaming, and then in the thousandth page talking the baldest materialistic twaddle about it.

This evening I was a bit tired of writing. My wife had just been playing the victrola. My pencil was worn down and I went downstairs to sharpen it in a rotary pencil sharpener affixed to my wife's desk. The next thing I knew, I was trying to insert the pencil point into the victrola's needle socket.

It occurred to me that the incident might have passing interest as an example of conditioned response and of the physical basis of displaced wishfulfilment in “the psychopathology of everyday life.” A possible symbolic undercurrent which would be projected into the experience by the conditioned responses of a Freudian was a skeptical afterthought to the writer.

Some Dream Experiences

Does a settled fear of some thing or condition cause dreams, or may dreams cause an inexplicable fear? The answer has not been found as yet, but there seems to be a close connection. In illustration, may I be allowed to cite an experience of my own.

For many years, beginning I hardly know when, but lasting well into my late forties, I had the following recurrent dream experience at irregular intervals. I find myself in charge of an elevator and unable to stop it. The elevator is of the old fashioned type, controlled by a rope, and I seem quite unable t