Note 80 — Chapter V

This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked by Freud, (Die Traumdeutung, p. 227), why we do not always dream of inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement, when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement, presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not purely ideatory.