Mrs. C. dreamed that she was Savonarola, and that she was preaching to a vast assembly in Florence. Among the audience was a lady whom she at once recognized to be her own self. As Savonarola, she was delighted at this discovery, for she reflected that she was well acquainted with all Mrs. C.'s peculiarities and faults of character, and would, therefore, be enabled to give special emphasis to them in the sermon. She did this so very effectively that Mrs. C. burst into a torrent of tears, and, with the emotion thus excited, the lady awoke.

Savonarola (1452-98), sculpted by Stefano Galletti, 1875

Savonarola, portrait by Fra Bartolomeo, c.1498.

It was some time before she was able to disentangle her mixed-up individualities. When she became fully awake she perceived that the arguments she had employed to bring about the conversion of herself were puerile in the extreme, and were directed against characteristics which formed no part of her mental organization, and against offenses which she had not committed.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Hammond then argues this shows we're idiots in dreams, because Mrs. C. is not in fact Savonarola! How could she think that! Jeez, we have no critical judgment at all in sleep! So lucidity is just impossible--we're all mistaken, we just think we're dreaming... and so on.

In contrast, I bet you took it for granted this dream argued "you criticize yourself unjustly" and comically exaggerates her style, to help her spot such inner nagging in future. I'd give Freud credit for our modern wisdom, if my own dreamwork hadn't been (mostly Native American) shamanic, not Freudian or even Jungian. If Freud had never published, we'd still have learned to see the obvious--it's in too many non-Euro cultures. Freud wasn't essential.

But Hammond is a solid example of what Freud was fighting.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Sleep and its Derangements by Dr William A. Hammond, 1869; p87.

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