Stimuli

Freud has defined stimuli earlier in the beginning of the book. A stimulus is anything that can influence the sleeper. These range from actual dream-material I have talked about (i.e.: things that happened that day), which end up being called psychic stimuli because they are found within our minds. Our dreams draw upon them through our mind, thus they are psychic. Somatic stimuli are stimuli that relate to the internal body (i.e.: if you're sick, your sickness becomes a source of somatic stimuli because your body acts in a different way; your nose may be runny, your heart may be beating faster, your stomach may not feel well, etc.). Lastly, objective (sensory) stimuli are those things that happen outside of the body, like a cat meowing outside, or a pile of books falling on your leg (ow >.<). They are picked up by your sensory organs (ears, eyes, etc.).

Once that's done, Freud shares two theses on stimuli and dreams and then says this: "We have already taken the first step in this direction in advancing the thesis that the dream-work is under a compulsion to elaborate into a unified whole all the dream-stimuli which are simultaneously present." Essentially, our dreams are a patchwork of every stimulus available at the time of sleep. This implies that objective stimuli have immediate effects on dream-content (actually this is stated earlier in the book, but now it makes more sense why; objective stimuli are still stimuli and must be incorporated in some way into the dream, since a dream draws upon all available stimuli). Freud does note that some people are more resistant than others to the inclusion of objective stimuli, just as people are more resistant to attempts made to wake them up; some people are just deeper/stronger sleepers/dreamers than others.

Freud claims to be a strong dreamer, able to ward off sensory stimuli. For example, while sleeping one night, he dreamt that the Pope was dead. His wife, the next morning asked him, " 'Did you hear the dreadful tolling of the church bells this morning?' " Freud says that the Pope's death was content made to block out the bells, disturbing his sleep. Instead of the bells directly appearing in his dream, possibly waking him up, his mind apparently dreamt up something else to push the bells out of the picture. Or at least, that's how I interpreted what he said. He doesn't exactly make it clear. If you ask me, it would make sense if the bells did intrude his dream because they were church bells and the Pope is the head of the church.