INTRODUCTION

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Nobel Prize winner for his work in neurology; he essentially discovered the neuron. For decades, Cajal disputed Freud's dream theories.

After retirement, he planned to publish a dream-journal that would disprove Freud's claim that every dream disguises a wish. Cajal thought instead that neurons who'd been squelched all day, that hold old memories or odd associations (including the occasional taboo desire, but generally random) find sleep a time to get harmless exercise, and we experience their workout-orgy as a dream. For Cajal, dreams mean nothing.

In the text, *** means something crossed or scribbled out. How much is unknown, as his handwritten journal was lost in a flood; only the typed transcript survives.

THE DREAM

I dream that they remove my skull and only skin coyers the brain. I feel the contact of brain with skin and the falling of weight to one side, I hold it back with my hands awaiting the doctor who will make a protective skullcap for me out of who knows what.

I find it very natural that they have removed the skull and I remember another dream about the same thing in which my skull grew back again and the cavity was reinforced. I cannot understand the operation, and I find it very natural for it to be done and for the brain to be covered with skin without further precautions.

I go for a walk around the room and am alarmed and I awaken when I see that my brain is falling out. (The scene happens in the house on the street where the Zaragoza Hospital is). My wife *** is alarmed.

(I have dreamed this other times). It is surprising to walk and not fall, unconscious. My hands placed on my head touch something smooth that is moving. I alert my wife who does not know what to put on me; I am missing my discarded skull. It is an operation that I deem natural and common. Distress at last and I awaken.

As soon as I want to try and touch, I am not able to because I am awake.
Precursor, having seen the brain in an autopsy? I do not believe that having seen a trepanation years ago (was it on the skull of Esproncedal?)
Retina theory impossible here.
They are emotional dreams, they do not lend themselves to explanation. They awaken me immediately.

Source: The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal by Benjamin Ehrlich, Oxford Univ. Press, 2017, p.114.

COMMENT

Such dreams "do not lend themselves to explanation"? I'm impressed with Cajal's stubbornness; to see no meaning in that dream takes willpower! Cajal was old, growing fragile, suffering headaches if he socialized much. It's hardly surrendering to Freud to see that as meaningful. Yet Cajal entertained only two dream-theories: they either mean what Freud said, or nothing. Faced with that unappetizing menu, he chose nothing.

--C. Wayan, ed

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