Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 30, 1916, Page 20

kind has been concerned about his dreams. Kings and potentates of old attached the ut- most importance to their dreams, and many of the most highly hon- ored and highly pald personages of the realm were the royal inter preters of dreams. Modern sclence has concesned it- self with the phenomena of dream- i land, and the new theories about dreams put forward by Dr. Freud, the great German authority, have attracted wide attention. Accord- ing to the Freud theory, the dream- er and the cartoonist of the daily newspapers are both doing things on much the same plan, since the thoughts of each are represented by symbols. The political opponent becomes an animal; the volley of rifle bullets the personification of death sweeping the ground; the na- tion s represented as a bird, as Red Riding Hood, as Mars, ete. F ROM the earliest times man- H ' Famlilar well, and it was his task to trans- <late the symbols into terms which could be understood. When Joseph of old dreamed that the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made 4 Sam” in a cartoon means i the erican public. ¥ The ancient method of interpret- ing dreams has been made more OLITE soclety never intro- duces the question of weight in the presence of Mr. Spare or Mr. Stout. Bach of these gentle- mon—a distinct antipathy for the ‘mention of the word “scales.” i precise by Dr. Freud and his fol- lowers, who assert in addition that the dream always symbolizes some unfulfilled wish. Thus Joseph's brethren in their day saw in that symbolized obeisance to their broth- er an unfulfilled wish of Joseph’s, and they took action accordingly. Many excellent cartoons are al most impenetrable puzzles without the lettering and labels which the artists put on them to Interpret their symbols. This is precisely the case in many of our dreams, accord. ing to the Freud theory. Dr. Freud has worked out a list of interpreta- tions of the various symbols which are so common in dreams, such, for Instance, as the snake. On this page are reproduced a selection of cartoons, most of which are as unintelligible to the average his dream. But when ymbols are labelled, the cartoon becomes perfectly inteli- gible, does the dreamer’s dream when the Interpretations of modern German Publication Entitied “Achilies’ Heel” Is Easier with the Old Mythological Legend 8pot In Achilies Would Understand the idea of the Ge Cartoon—That If Great Britain Could Be Attacked In Egypt 1. Would Be a Mortal Blow In Her One Vulnerable Spot. sclence explain the symbols of the dream. Dr. H. W. Frink, of New York, o struotor in clinical neurclogy in Cornell Medical College, in a re- cent articte on dreams in The In- terstate Medical Journal explains the point of view as follows: Never in this world do we get everything we want. Reality al- ways falls fap short of being quite satisfactory. BEven under the best circumstances we have a great many wishes that are unfulfilled and must indefinitely remain so. of fiesh and bone a man carries about with him, there is one thing that can—the human eye. Both Mr, Stout and Mr. Spare can literally hoodwink this critical organ by wearing the proper kind of clothes. If they are acquainted with the wonders that can be wrought by the sartorial art, whether it be practiced among the plles of readymades on the clothier's counters or among the fabrics of the custom tatlor, they can visibly lose or gain welght, as they choose, It all upon the color, it and pattern of the clothes they wear. For instance, let us take the fat man first, since he is more Srmly apchored to this mundane sphere than his ethereal brother. Here we have a medium for the optical illu- sion which should call ferth the bt Prof. Freud's Theory That All Dreams Have a Meaning and Can Be Definitely Interpreted and Understood— We Dream in Symbols LiKke the Cartoonists; Learn the Symbols and the Dream Is Plain In This Cartoon We Have Left Out Three Lettered Guide Lines of the Artist. Without These Three Expianations of What ls S8ymbolized In the Plcture, It Would Be Difficult to Be Certain of the idea in the Artist's Mind. But When You Put in the Space Marked (A) the Words “United States,” and Mark the Basket in the Space (B) with the Word “Exports,” and on the Baock of the Wolf In the Space (C) Put In the Words “Allies Naval Policy,” Then the Mseaning of the Cartoon Becomes Plain, Beciuse We Have the True Interpreta- tion of the Symbols of the Artlst. According to Dr. Frink, Our Dreams Come to Us in Symbols of This Nature Without the Guid- Words of Interpretation, 1t is fortunate, then, that we do not have to depend wholly upon reality to satisty our longings. Imagination comes to our ald and glves us what reality withholds, In our day-dreams we seo ourselves achieving the impossible, conquer- ing the unconquerable, attaining the unattainable. The poor man fis rich, the blind man sees, and the rejocted lover basks in the smiles of his inamorata. In short, there is no wish so absurd, ho longing so unreasonable, that imagination is unaole to fulfll it. The tendency to satisfy with ple- tures of the imagination the desires that reality leaves ungratified—a tendency that plays an enormous role in the daily life even of the most prosaic—does not become inoperative as soon as we fall asleep. Cravings and wishes per- eist from the day and, if intense enough, serve to disturb our slum- ber. Then in our sleep, just as in our waking moments, we call im- ‘agination to our ald and attempt to highest form of the tailor's art. Tn such a case color is generally the most important consideration. This should always be chosen from the darker shades, it possible, and the less comspicuous the pattern ls, the better. There should certainly be no plaids or overplaids, at least. It decoration of the pronounced sort is desired, then a fine hafrline stripe can be employed very ef- fectively to impart added helght and thereby lessen the apparent breadth of things. ‘ There are some tallors and cloth- ing dealers who will tell you that it's all in the fit qnd cut of the clothes—that they can put a check sult on a stout man without ac- centuating his stoutness. Certainly the style and snugness of fit have a lot to do with it, just as the qual- Copyright. 1916 hv the Star Comnany. still and satisfy these longings by means of fantasy, so that upon awaking we say that we have dreamed. In short, the night-dream and the daydream are wholly analogous. Either may be described as the im- aginary fulfilment of a wish. The truth of this statement is not, how- ever, selfevident. That the day- dream is nothing but a fantasied ‘wish-fulfilment is perfectly obvious. But that the night-dream invariably fuflls a wish seems, at first thought, impossible. For lnstance, over 500 per cent of dreams seem to the dreamer distinctly disagreeable, while many others, though not posi- tively unpleasant, nevertheless ap- parently fail to represent anything for which a sane person might be supposed to wish, Yet the apparent unlikeness be- tween the night<dream and the day- dream is due not to any lapse of the principle of wish-fulfilment, but mafnly to a difference in the way the desired things are represented. ity and finish of the material used play eo prominent a part. But color is the first thing that catches the eye, and If a man chooses a checker-board pattern he will have @ hard time in minimizing the size of the body it covers. Generally speaking, the man of aldermanic proportions should favor the suit made of some smooth, hard worsted. Naturally it should be cut snugly, and the coat of the suit may well have the long-roll Eng- lish lapel, with collar made as nar row as possible. It should have & slight cutaway, but not so as to re- veal too much rotundity. A doublebreasted coat should never be worn by a fat man. Such & coat augments the equatorial di- mensions, and, unless it is on the Norfolk order, takes away all sem This Cartoon from the Auckland, New Zealand, News wae Labelled “Can'tstandanosepull.” The Auk ls the National 8ymbol for New Zealand, and Therefore Needed No Label by the Artist In New Zealand. But to the Average American This Symbol Would Be Meaningless, and the Whole Point of the Cartoon Would Be Lost—the Point, That the New Zealand Troops Had Been Landed at the Dardanelles to Symbolic War Cartoon by the Distinguished Artist, Van Sanen-Algi. Without the Artist's Key to the Symboliem in His Plcture, It Would Be Difficult to Intsrpret the Meaning of the Cartoon. But When the Artist labels It “The Musketry Salvo,” Then We Are Able to See That the ~ ~ckling Infantry Fire from the Trenches I " Symbolized by the Wralth of Death Flying Over the Battlefleld, and the Whole Conceptlon Be: Intelligibl and Impressive. This 8hows a Very Intereating Parallel Between the Cartoonist's Symbols and the Syntbolism of OQur Dreams. Faom v Tinmds Great Britain Worry the Turks and Menace Constantinople. In the day-dream the representation is direct; the thing or occurrence that 1s desired is pictured as actual” and present, without any ambiguity or vagueness. But in the night-dream the repre- sentation is indirect. The desired things, instead of being pictured in their true form, are represented by - implications, by symbols, by alle- gorical figures, and by associated ideas. Thus, though the day-dream may be taken at its face-value, the meaning of the night-dream is not to be found on the purface. The night-dream, like & rebus or alle- gory, has to be interpreted if we would know its meaning. Only ‘in this way can we learn what wish it fulfils. But in order to make perfectly clear the difference between direct and indirect representation, let me glve an example of the latter. You see here a picture of a man, who, Judging from the armor he wears, would seem to belong to the time of Jullus Caesar. Nevertheless, he stands near a very modern lamp- post on & curb of what one would suppose to be Spring street. He holds in one hand a watch of re- How Your Clothes Can Make You Look Stouter or Slimmer, Taller or Shorter blance of style or shape from_a suit of clothes. Of course there are many varieties of stout men, but the most difficult of any to fit, say the tatlors, is the short, rotund individual, with the short, thick neck. To fashion ral- ment about human architecture of this type is a difficult task, usually relieved only by the Inherent good humor of the victim himself. ‘The trousers can be made with little difficulty, and the vest can generally be fashioned suitably, but wights Resarved. markable size and in the other a bouquet com- posed of flowers and bayonets. The picture, in short, gives the ®ame {impres- elon of absurd- ity as do most of our dreams, and, lke a dream, it would tempt one who saw it for the firet time to say that it had neither sense nor meaning. But though this picture may seem as absurd as our dreams, it comes not from a dream but from a newspaper. It is @ cartoon with the title ¢‘This Is the Place, but Where's the GIrl?™ It expresses a thought in much the same way that thoughts are expressed in dreams-—namely, by indirect representation. Hence the picture, like a dream, has to be interpreted before we can learn its meaning. The artist was obliging enough to label his symbols. In the origl- nal of this picture the sheet of paper which lies upon the sidewalk in front of the man was inscribed with the words “Italy to go to war in the Spring,” and the tag at tached to the bouquet which the man carrieq bore the words “For Miss Italy.” By the aid of these hints the plic- ture Is very readily interpreted. Evideatly the thought it expresses is something like this: “Italy, like a fickle girl, has failed to join in the war at the time expected.” But notice the indirect representation. The artist hae used as symbols a man, & bouquet, and a lamp-post to express a thought about something entirely different—namely, the at- titude of & country toward expect- ant militarism. Cartoonlst, This Cartoon, Without Its Famillar Tags and Labels is Like a Fantastic Dream. In Detall by Dr. Frink, Who Points Out the Simi- larity of the Mental Process of the Dreamer and the This Picture ls Discussed Now, this is exactly the method of representation that is used in dreams. There is this one differ- ence, however. The symbols used in the dream are not labeled as the artist has labeled the symbols in the picture. The dream is like the picture as I have displayed it—=that is, without the printed words whick appeared in the original. Hence, in interpreting a dream we ordi- narily have to get the dreamer to label his symbols atter the dream is finished. This labeling of dream-symbols is accomplished by obtatning from the dreamer the ideas he associates with the different elements of the dream. That is, we ask him to fix him mind upon each part of the dream in turn and to relate, with- out exerting any critique, all his incoming thoughts. The associa- tions thus obtained correspond to the words which the artist printed in the original of the picture and give the key to the Interpretation of the dream in the same way that the words give the interpretation of the picture. They reveal the hid. den portion of the dream. o