PAGE 4
The Soul Analysis
by
It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it.
“Mrs. Maitland,” he continued, “your dream of fear was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a suppressed wish. Moreover, fear always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. The gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consciously you feared the death of your husband because unconsciously you wished it.”
It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps, merciless–this dissecting of the soul of the handsome woman before us; but it had come to a point where it was necessary to get at the truth.
Mrs. Maitland, hitherto pale, was now flushed and indignant. Yet the very manner of her indignation showed the truth of the new psychology of dreams, for, as I learned afterward, people often become indignant when the Freudists strike what is called the “main complex.”
“There are other motives just as important,” protested Dr. Boss. “Here in America the money motive, ambition–“
“Let me finish,” interposed Kennedy. “I want to consider the other dream also. Fear is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. It also, as I have said, denotes sex. In dreams animals are usually symbols. Now, in this second dream we find both the bull and the serpent, from time immemorial, symbols of the continuing of the life-force. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. You, Mrs. Maitland, dreamed of a man’s face on these beasts. There was every chance of having him suggested to you. You think you hate him. Consciously you reject him; unconsciously you accept him. Any of the new psychologists who knows the intimate connection between love and hate, would understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate; or hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow.”
The situation was growing more tense as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy actually taxing her with loving another?
“The dreamer,” he proceeded remorselessly, “is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centres about the dreamer most intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that really concern others, but ourselves.
“Years ago,” he continued, “you suffered what the new psychologists call a ‘psychic trauma’–a soul-wound. You were engaged, but your censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of your fiance. In pique you married Price Maitland. But you never lost your real, subconscious love for another.”
He stopped, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet which did not call for an answer, “Could you–be honest with yourself, for you need say not a word aloud–could you always be sure of yourself in the face of any situation?”
She looked startled. Her ordinarily inscrutable face betrayed everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen only by Kennedy. She knew the truth that she strove to repress; she was afraid of herself.
“It is dangerous,” she murmured, “to be with a person who pays attention to such little things. If every one were like you, I would no longer breathe a syllable of my dreams.”
She was sobbing now.
What was back of it all? I had heard of the so-called resolution dreams. I had heard of dreams that kill, of unconscious murder, of the terrible acts of the subconscious somnambulist of which the actor has no recollection in the waking state until put under hypnotism. Was it that which Kennedy was driving at disclosing?
Dr. Ross moved nearer to Mrs. Maitland as if to reassure her. Craig was studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on her and on the other faces before him.
Mrs. Maitland, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the long-suppressed emotion of the evening and of the tragic day, called for sympathy which, I could see, Craig would readily give when he had reached the climax he had planned.