Chapter 5, Part 2 Summary

In this chapter, the psychoanalyst considers all causes or sources of dreams. He begins with a discussion of what common laymen consider to be the sources, naming the stomach and indigestion, sleep positions, and occurrences during sleep. Freud notes that the layman fails to consider other possibilities. Three forms of stimuli are involved: sensory stimuli from external objects, internal stimuli from "excitation," and internal physical stimuli.

Freud comments that other writers neglect to include or make less important the somatic dream stimuli if they involve any psychic activity. He claims that while certain cause-and-effect occurrences between the senses and the body cannot be fully tested or proved. Evidence of internal sensory impact does exist in sensory images and in digestive, sexual, and urinary changes during dreaming. Therefore, writes Freud, nerve and body stimuli are physical sources of dreams.

The author then...