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One must reject all hastily formed causal laws to the effect that C is the sign of A in every case. Otherwise absurd conclusions must result, as in Freud's theory of the birth-phantasies. For the same "symbol" may proceed from entirely different significations according to the set-of-the-mind or apperception-mass.
What shall emerge is determined by the interplay of stimulus-idea and apperception-mass, below the level of consciousness. The particular "island of memory" in this case, was an impression of the talk with Dr.
While the action of the principal cue or immediate stimulus had served to evoke the apperception-mass or context out of which this wish-phantasy was constructed, at the same moment, there was an ulterior influence at work, dictating a process of re-arrangement of the secondary images, so as to give expression to my preference for reflexology as against histology.
Conversely, the Freudian disciple may apperceive, in error, a sexual meaning in a dream, when the dreamer's mind contained no reference to this topic. Hence, the interpreter must make sure that his own apperception-mass is attuned to that of the dreamer in the given case. That is, one must be free from apperceptive bias.
An element of this kind, overlooked in the formulation of a supposedly simple connection between cause A and effect C, is labeled Hidden Z, by Alfred Sedgwick. The Hidden Z in this case is what James calls the topic-of-thought, Ebbinghaus the set-of-the-mind, and others apperception-mass. In rhetoric it is familiar as context. It has an important place in thought and speech.
For example, when I utter the phrase Pas de lieu Rhone qne nous the idea obtained is different according to whether your language apperception-mass is set for French or for English. It may have happened that while I was uttering the French nonsense phrase you were hearing it as the English saying.
This wire-pulling is done in the dark; the primary stimulus-idea is not itself imaged, at first; neither is the context or apperception-mass which meets it half-way, that is, becomes conjoined with the stimulus-idea. Indeed, the images that come into the dream are only emerging peaks of a submerged island of memory.
Necessarily, a process of imageless thought had taken place, whereby the conversation was brought into play as a sub-excited apperception-mass or setting-of-ideas for the stimulus-idea. This remains to be explained. The dream, viewed as a mere wish-fulfilment, is plainly a successful allegory.
Consider the sequence of events: the dream pictures are all related, at least individually, to the conversation in question: microscope, slide, reflex and "scratchiness" are all so many pictures jig-sawed out from this very context or apperception-mass. The scratching sensation, we must suppose, evoked these pictures serially, in the order stated.
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