Dream-Figures
Dreamed 1835-1865 by Hervey de Saint-Denys
Saint-Denys, one of the first scientific dream-researchers, and a pioneer of lucid dreaming, assumed all dreams are simulations inside the mind and the figures we meet are illusions--our images of others, or parts of ourselves--which we're mysteriously unable to realize are internal.
I have spoken, in the chapter on imagination and memory, of a kind of... splitting which takes place in dreams, when we believe that we are talking or discussing with some imaginary personage, without suspecting that we are talking or discussing with ourselves.This view is so common and familiar in the modern world that it's easy to forget how historically extreme it is. Dreamworkers and shamans from cultures around the world, ancient or modern, would universally say "Well, some dreams are internal, of course--especially in dreamers resolving personal problems--but all? Ridiculous! A shaman's job is to cultivate great dreams, bring useful news from outside."
Saint-Denys's own dreams sometimes fit his anti-shamanic hypothesis, and other times not.
It is an extreme difficulty to recognise, even in dreams where I am perfectly conscious of my dream, that some imaginary companion does not share the illusions with me, that he too is only a shadow forming part of the vision. I think, for example, that I am visiting a church tower with a friend of mine, and that a splendid panorama, unfolds before our astonished eyes. I know very well that it is only a dream, and yet I say to the friend who accompanies me: "Remember this dream well, I pray you, so that we can talk about it tomorrow when we are awake."Saint-Denys, the pioneer of lucid dreaming, and advocate of the idea one can reason, choose, and be self-aware in dreams, says here that even he has a consistent, inexplicable flaw in his lucidity. But why on earth should lucid-dream reasoning be defective only in this one specialized way?
A shaman like me, less certain about the nature of dreams, sees this conviction (that a friend in a lucid dream is another dreamer sharing your dream) as no flaw at all--just more information the dream is giving you. Not proof your friend is sharing your dream, but a prompt to check the next day, just in case!
I think I am in a car with a lady. I see this lady for the first time and yet, strangely, I have the feeling that she is myself or part of myself, unsurprisingly. We go together to the house of an acquaintance, to whom we owe a boring but obligatory visit. On the way, my companion suggests "Let us postpone the fulfilment of this duty for another day. I have a headache and need to go for a walk in the fresh air." I reply "this headache is just an excuse, I feel fine, the headache is very mild. We should go and make our visit anyway."S-D says "unsurprisingly", as if it's common to realize a dream-figure is some aspect of self. Yet he's been claiming we never see this! Common or not, if he can sense in this dream that he's arguing with himself, why not any figure in any dream? Couldn't it be that he has this sense here alone precisely because it's true here, but not in all dreams?
My years in a dream-group taught me dreams often were private and internal, but sometimes were shared--just as shamans had claimed for millennia.
I've argued elsewhere that an experienced dreamworker eventually can learn to sense whether a dream is...
What's more, your dreams grow more experienced--they learn to mark or flag exotic types so the dimwitted, literal-minded conscious will notice and interpret accordingly--a phenomenon I dub self-flagging dreams.
Saint-Denys was a very experienced dreamworker, but I think his narrow belief system made him miss such cues--or dismiss them. Like most post-Revolutionary French scientists, he saw himself as free of religion. Perhaps! But not free of dogma.
No need to look for what your theory disallows!
Source of S-D quotes: Dreams and how to direct them, 2022, pp 188-190; Daniel Bernardo's translation of Les reves et les moyens de les diriger by Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1867.
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