Dreams and Dream Stories | Page 2

of Bulwer Lytton's romance entitled--"The Pilgrims of the
Rhine," in which is related the story of a German student endowed with
so marvellous a faculty of dreaming, that for him the normal conditions
of sleeping and waking became reversed, his true life was that which he
lived in his slumbers, and his hours of wakefulness appeared to him as
so many uneventful and inactive intervals of arrest occurring in an
existence of intense and vivid interest which was wholly passed in the
hypnotic state. Not that to me there is any such inversion of natural
conditions. On the contrary, the priceless insights and illuminations I
have acquired by means of my dreams have gone far to elucidate for
me many difficulties and enigmas of life, and even of religion, which
might otherwise have remained dark to me, and to throw upon the
events and vicissitudes of a career filled with bewildering situations, a
light which, like sunshine, has penetrated to the very causes and springs
of circumstance, and has given meaning and fitness to much in my life
that would else have appeared to me incoherent or inconsistent. I have
no theory to offer the reader in explanation of my faculty, --at least in
so far as its physiological aspect is concerned. Of course, having
received a medical education, I have speculated about the modus
operandi of the phenomenon, but my speculations are not of such a
character as to entitle them to presentation in the form even of an
hypothesis. I am tolerably well acquainted with most of the
propositions regarding unconscious cerebration, which have been put
forward by men of science, but none of these propositions can, by any
process of reasonable expansion or modification, be made to fit my
case. Hysteria, to the multiform and manifold categories of which,
medical experts are wont to refer the majority of the abnormal
experiences encountered by them, is plainly inadequate to explain or
account for mine. The singular coherence and sustained dramatic unity
observable in these dreams, as well as the poetic beauty and tender
subtlety of the instructions and suggestions conveyed in them do not
comport with the conditions characteristic of nervous disease.
Moreover, during the whole period covered by these dreams, I have
been busily and almost continuously engrossed with scientific and

literary pursuits demanding accurate judgment and complete
self-possession and rectitude of mind. At the time when many of the
most vivid and remarkable visions occurred, I was following my course
as a student at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, preparing for
examinations, daily visiting hospital wards as dresser, and attending
lectures. Later, when I had taken my degree, I was engaged in the
duties of my profession and in writing for the press on scientific
subjects. Neither have I ever taken opium, hashish or other
dream-producing agent. A cup of tea or coffee represents the extent of
my indulgences in this direction. I mention these details in order to
guard against inferences which otherwise might be drawn as to the
genesis of my faculty. With regard to the interpretation and application
of particular dreams, I think it best to say nothing. The majority are
obviously allegorical, and although obscure in parts, they are invariably
harmonious, and tolerably clear in meaning to persons acquainted with
the method of Greek and Oriental myth. I shall not, therefore, venture
on any explanation of my own, but shall simply record the dreams as
they passed before me, and the impressions left upon my mind when I
awoke. Unfortunately, in some instances, which are not, therefore, here
transcribed, my waking memory failed to recall accurately, or
completely, certain discourses heard or written words seen in the course
of the vision, which in these cases left but a fragmentary impression on
the brain and baffled all waking endeavor to recall their missing
passages. These imperfect experiences have not, however, been
numerous; on the contrary, it is a perpetual marvel to me to find with
what ease and certainty I can, as a rule, on recovering ordinary
consciousness, recall the picture witnessed in my sleep, and reproduce
the words I have heard spoken or seen written. Sometimes several
interims of months occur during which none of these exceptional
visions visit me, but only ordinary dreams, incongruous and
insignificant after their kind. Observation, based on an experience of
considerable length, justifies me, I think, in saying that climate, altitude,
and electrical conditions are not without their influence in the
production of the cerebral state necessary to the exercise of the faculty I
have described. Dry air, high levels, and a crisp, calm, exhilarating
atmosphere favor its activity; while, on the other hand, moisture,
proximity to rivers, cloudy skies, and a depressing, heavy climate, will,

for an indefinite period, suffice to repress it altogether. It is not,