DREAMS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO RECENT IMPRESSIONS

Abstract

The scientific value of data obtained in psychiatric research depends primarily on the validity of the methods used and the degree of accuracy with which their reliability can be determined. Here, as in all other branches of medicine in which methods are devised primarily for practical purposes, it is of special importance to have some means of determining whether a given method that has been shown to be practically useful can also be relied on in scientific research. There is no doubt, of course, that procedures originally introduced as empiric aids in diagnosis and treatment for disease may subsequently prove to be of definite use in scientific investigation. But this is not invariably so, and for this reason the validity of a method in this respect should not be taken for granted. The importance of such discrimination can be appreciated only when one considers the difference in the interests and