"The Dream" by Somerset Maugham
Introduction:
One of the most common yet feared dreams is the experience of falling in dreams or dreams of falling. The dream can be as simple as falling out of bed or as extreme as falling from top of a building, ladder, rooftop, mountain, cliff or even out of an airplane without a parachute, to name just a few. Yet, regardless of the height the dreamer is falling from in the dream, the experience is terrifying to the dreamer. As a result, the dreamer generally wakes up hyperventilated, afraid, filled with anxiety, sweating, struggling for each breath he takes, heart pounding in his chest as if it were about to explode. Somerset Maugham narrates one such experience of a dream that he heard from a Russian traveller in transit at Vladivostok, Russia’s largest port city.
Maugham meets a Russian at a Restaurant:
In August 1917, Somerset Maugham had to make a work-related trip from New York to Petrograd. As the trans-Siberian train started at nine in the evening, Maugham dined at the station restaurant. He shared table with a Russian man whose appearance seemed to entertain him. Soon, both got into conversation, and the author felt that the Russian was well-learned and that he was on his way back home after a long stint abroad.
The Russian’s Portrayal of his wife’s Disposition:
The Russian then proceeded to narrate about his life. Stating that he was a widower, he talked a great deal about his wife, a Swiss national. He had been married for ten years and lived on perfectly friendly terms, but for the fact that his wife had been extremely possessive of her love towards him. She was small and thin, and she had a bad complexion. She could not bear him to be attracted to any one but her. Hence, she was jealous not only of the women he knew, but of his friends, his cat and his books too. On one occasion she had even given off his coat because he had liked it so well. The Russian said that he was puzzled whether it was passionate love or passionate hate that she had for him.
The Piercing Scream in the Night:
One night, the Russian continued, he was awakened by a piercing scream from his wife. When he asked her the matter, she said that she had had a fearful nightmare in which she had dreamt that he was trying to kill her by throwing her over the balusters from the sixth floor to the bottom.
The Effect of the frightening Dream on the Wife:
After the dream, the wife was visibly very shaken. Though the Russian did his best to pacify her, the dream dwelt in her mind. She was made to think that he hated her, and would gladly be rid of her, and at some time or the other it had occurred to her that he was even capable of murdering her. The Russian confessed that even though he had fancied once in a while that his wife might run away with a lover, or that he would die a painless death, never had the idea come to him that he might deliberately rid himself of a burden.
The Consequences of the Dream on the Couple’s Life:
Hence, the dream started to have an extraordinary impression on both of them. But the Russian admitted that he couldn’t help looking over the balusters and reflect how easy it would be to do what his wife had dreamt. The balusters were dangerously low. A few months later, one night, his wife woke him up trembling. She had had the dream again. She burst into tears and asked him if he hated her. At last she went to sleep again. Now the Russian lay awake. It seemed to him that she was falling down the well of the stairs. He was shivering as this thought passed his mind.
The Russian stopped his story at this point, with beads of sweat on his forehead. Maugham was listening thus far in rapt attention. He poured himself one more round of vodka.
The author could not contain his curiosity and asked him how his wife eventually died. The Russian replied that she was found by one of the lodgers late one night at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken.
When the author asked him where he was at the time of her death, the Russian replied that he was spending the evening with a friend, and could manage to come to the scene of crime only an hour later.
Conclusion:
Now, it was getting late for the author to go and catch his train, and the author was still perplexed about the whole story, as he couldn’t make out whether the Russian had murdered his wife or making out a sarcastic joke at the author’s expense. Whatever be the motive of the Russian in narrating his story, an interpretation of this short story from a psychoanalytical viewpoint, has a lot of symbolism attached to it. According to Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychoanalysis, all dreams are forms of "wish- fulfillment" — attempts by the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort. As such, the dreams of falling may signify insecurity in a marriage, relationship, family dynamic, career, workplace and finances. As in the case with this short story where the wife is possessive about her husband at all times, due to a physical inferiority that she thought she possessed – namely, “a bad complexion”. Thus, among other causes, falling dreams, according to psychologists can also be the result of an inferiority or inadequacy or lack of self confidence the dreamer has or feels she has with regard to relationships, marriage that is causing the dreamer to feel he is not going to measure up to the challenges demanded of her.
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The section on the interpretation of dreams is from http://social-psychiatry.com/
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