he dreamt of the French Revolution, the scenes culminating in the fall of the guillotine on his neck; this has been held to show that (1) dreams are extremely rapid; and (2) we construct a dream story leading up to the external stimulus which is assumed to have originated the dream. But Maury’s dream was not recorded till many years after it had occurred; there is nothing to show that the dream, in this as in other similar cases, was not in progress when the bed-pole fell, which thus by mere coincidence would have intervened at the psychological moment; Maury’s memory on waking may have been to some extent hallucinatory. But there are records of waking states, not necessarily abnormal, in which time-perception is disturbed and brief incidents seem interminably long; on the other hand, it appears from the experiences of persons recovered from drowning that there is great rapidity of ideation before the extinction of consciousness; the same rapidity of thought has been observed in a fall from a bicycle.
Reason in Dreams.—Studies of dreams of normal individuals based on large collections of instances are singularly few in number; such as there are indicate great variations in the source of dream thoughts and images, in the coherence of the dream, and in the powers of memory. In ordinary life attention dominates the images presented; in dreams heterogeneous and disconnected elements are often combined; a resemblance need not even have been consciously recognized for the mind to combine two impressions in a dream; for example, an aching tooth may (according to the dream) be extracted, and found to resemble rocks on the sea-shore, which had not struck the waking mind as in any way like teeth. Incongruence and incoherence are not, however, a necessary characteristic of dreams, and individuals are found whose dream ideas and scenes show a power of reasoning and orderliness equal to that of a scene imagined or experienced in ordinary life. In some cases the reasoning power may attain a higher level than that of the ordinary conscious life. In a well-authenticated case Professor Hilprecht was able in a dream to solve a difficulty connected with two Babylonian inscriptions, which had not previously been recognized as complementary to each other; a point of peculiar interest is the dramatic form in which the information came to him—an old Babylonian priest appeared in his dream and gave him the clue to the problem (see also below, Personality).
Memory in Dreams.—Although prima facie the dream memory is fragmentary and far less complete than the waking memory, it is by no means uncommon to find a revival in sleep of early, apparently quite forgotten, experiences: more striking is the recollection in dreams of matters never supraliminally (see Subliminal Self) apperceived at all.
The relation between the memory in dreams and in the hypnotic trance is curious: suggestions given in the trance may be accepted and then forgotten or never remembered in ordinary life; this does not prevent them from reappearing occasionally in dreams; conversely dreams forgotten in ordinary life may be remembered in the hypnotic trance. These dream memories of other states of consciousness suggest that dreams are sometimes the product of a deeper stratum of the personality than comes into play in ordinary waking life. It must be remembered in this connexion that we judge of our dream consciousness by our waking recollections, not directly, and our recollection of our dreams is extraordinarily fragmentary; we do not know how far our dream memory really extends. Connected with memory of other states is the question of memory in dreams of previous dream states; occasionally a separate chain of memory, analogous to a secondary personality, seems to be formed. We may be also conscious that we have been dreaming, and subsequently, without intermediate waking, relate as a dream the dream previously experienced. In spite of the irrationality of dreams in general, it by no means follows that the earlier and later portions of a dream do not cohere; we may interpolate an episode and again take up the first motive, exactly as happens in real life. The strength of the dream memory is shown by the recurrence of images in dreams; a picture, the page of a book, or other image may be reproduced before our eyes several times in the course of a dream without the slightest alteration, although the waking consciousness would be quite incapable of such a feat of visualizing. In this connexion may be mentioned the phenomenon of redreaming; the same dream may recur either on the same or on different nights; this seems to be in many cases pathological or due to drugs, but may also occur under normal conditions.
Personality.—As a rule the personality of the dreamer is unchanged; but it also happens that the confusion of identity observed with regard to other objects embraces the dreamer himself; he imagines himself to be some one else; he is alternately actor and observer; he may see himself playing a part or may divest himself of his body and wander incorporeally. Ordinary dreams, however, do not go beyond a splitting of personality; we hold conversations, and are intensely surprised at the utterances of a dream figure, which, however, is merely an alter ego. As in the case of Hilprecht (see above) the information given by another part of the personality may not only appear but actually be novel.
Supernormal Dreams.—In addition to dreams in which there is a revival of memory or a rise into consciousness of facts previously only subliminally cognized, a certain number of dreams are on record in which telepathy (q.v.) seems to play a part; much of the evidence is, however, discounted by the possibility of hallucinatory memory. Another class of dreams (prodromic) is that in which the abnormal bodily states of the dreamer are brought to his knowledge in sleep, sometimes in a symbolical form; thus a dream of battle or sanguinary conflict may presage a haemorrhage. The increased power of suggestion which is the normal accompaniment of the hypnotic trance may make its appearance in dreams, and exercise either a curative influence or act capriciously in producing hysteria and the tropic changes known as “stigmata.” We may meet with various forms of hyperaesthesia in dreams; quite apart from the recovery of sight by those who have lost it wholly or in part (see below, Dreams of the Blind), we find that the powers of the senses may undergo an intensification, and, e.g., the power of appreciating music be enormously enhanced in persons usually indifferent to it. Mention must also be made of the experience of R. L. Stevenson, who tells in Across the Plains how by self-suggestion he was able to secure from his dreams the motives of some of his best romances.
Voluntary Action in Dreams.—Connected with dreams voluntarily influenced is the question of how far dreams once initiated are modifiable at the will of the dreamer. Some few observers, like F. W. H. Myers and Dr F. van Eeden, record that they can at longer or shorter intervals control their actions in their dreams, though usually to a less extent than their imagined actions in waking life. Dr van Eeden, for example, tells us that he has what he calls a “clear dream” once a month and is able to predetermine what he will do when he becomes aware that he is dreaming.
Dreams of Children.—Opinions differ widely as to the age at which children begin to dream; G. Compayré maintains that dreaming has been observed in the fourth month, but reflex action is always a possible explanation of the observed facts. S. de Sanctis found that in boys of eleven only one out of eight said that he dreamt seldom, as against four out of seven at the age of six; but we cannot exclude the possibility that dreams were frequent but forgotten. If correct, the observation suggests that dreams appear comparatively late. Individual cases of dreaming, or possibly of waking hallucination, are known as early as the age of two and a half years; according to de Sanctis dreams occur before the fifth year, but are seldom remembered; as a rule the conscious dream age begins with the fourth year; speech or movement, however, in earlier years, though they may be attributed to reflex action, are more probably due to dreams.
Dreams of the Old.—In normal individuals above the age of sixty-five de Sanctis found dreams were rare; atmospheric influences seem to be important elements in causing them; memory of them is weak; they are emotionally poor, and deal with long past scenes.
