VOLUME XVII.
At I
The Stuff
ofWhicb
Dreads
Made F
What Dreams Are
By HAVELOCK ELLIS.
THE mind is active while the body sleeps. Dreaming Is the
plainest indication of this fact. The dream the mind really
experiences Is much different from what It records when the
body becomes conscious. Even in somnambulism it is unusual
for men and women to have any recollection upon awakening.
This is because thinking done when the body rests is different
than- that done when the body Is active. The unusual pictures and
Objects seen in dreams have made some of the great pictures, po
ems. musical compositions, and books of the world.
BREAMS— the day' kind and
night kind—are being stud
ied by scientific men. Many
have given the dream ques
tion much thought. Have
lock Ellis has found, as
have many other experts, that dreams
are merely the period of existence^)!
another personality. In other words,
when you are dreaming of murdering
relatives, scaling mountain precipices,
eating wooden spinach, or doing any
other odd and abnormal thing, you are
actually doing this thing so far as
your inner being is concerned. Os
course your body doesn’t move, but
your mind is having its “day.” The'
bad side of your character, say stu
dents of dream philosophy, is apt to
be shown in your dreams, or vice
versa. This may be regulated by what
you eat to some extent before retiring.
Work and play teach men what they
do when they are awake, but most of
us know little about what we do in
those seven or eight hours when we
sleep and dream. Some people con
sider dreams as truthful oracles re
vealing happenings that are sure to
follow. Others say that dreaming
means one of two things, either a
bad case of indigestion or a worse
conscience.
Scientific men do not accept any of
thees explanations as satisfactory,
though there may be a grain of truth
in all. They find sleeping and dream
ing interesting, but a most complex
state of being. The most advanced
students say that people think and
live as much when they sleep as when
they are awake, and that dreaming is
one manifestation of this fact.
Dreams Play Important Part.
Havelock Ellis, in “The World of
Dreams,” states that sleeping and
dreaming play a more important part
in our lives than most of us imagine.
The importance of sleep and dreaming
is unappreciated because it is difficult
to catch a dream and therefore to an
alyze it The dream realized is only
a fringe of the experience we have
known and never embraces the whole
consciousness we get in sleep. Dreams
are irrelevant, for so much Is forgot
ten and omitted, and then the logic of
the mind tries to patch it together
after we awake.
As he explains: "We never catch a
dream in course of formation. As It
presents itself to consciousness there
may be doubtful points or missing
links, but the dream is once for all
completed, and if there are doubtful
points or missing links we recognize
them as such. I believe that there is
always a gap between sleeping con
sciousness and waking consciousness.
The change from the one kind of con
sciousness to the other seems to be
effected by a slight shock and the per
ception of the already completed
dream is the first effort of waking
consciousness. The existence of such
NUMBER 16.
a shock Is indicated by the fact that
even at the first movement of waking
consciousness we never realize that a
moment ago we were asleep."
He goes further, accepting the view
of such scientists as Foucault, Nocke
and Sir Arthur Mitchell, and holds
that the mind is active while the body
sleeps—dreaming is only one of its
processes. The dream the mind real
ly experiences is different from what*
It records when the body becomes con
scious. Even in somnambulism it is
unusual for men and women to have
any recollection on awakening. This
is because thinking done when the
body rests is different from what it
is when the body is active —the one
is spontaneous attention and the other
is voluntary attention. These are as
different as the north pole is from the
south.
Voluntary Attention Restorative.
Ribot thus explains the difference:
“Voluntary attention is restorative
and is used in sleep and dreams, while
artificial attention exhausts and de
mands a change. The basis of dream
ing is a seemingly spontaneous pro
cession of dream Imagery which is al
ways undergoing transformation into
something different, yet not wholly
different from what weut before. It
seems a mechanical flow of Images
regulated by associations of resem
blance which sleeping consciousness
recognizes without either controlling
or introducing a foreign element.”
It resembles a cinematograph pic
ture which is made up of many differ
ent pictures, but which are all related.
They pass in quick succession with
out one word of explanation. Long
before cinematograph pictures were
Invented children discovered how to
make these pictures both when awake
and on going to sleep. Most children
love to close their eyes and to let a
series of strange pictures pass on the
curtain of the closed eyelids. They
get their most interesting and unusual
pictures in this way.
De Quincey speaks about these pic
tures in his “Impressions of an Opium
Eater” in these words: “Most chil
dren have the power of painting as it
were upon the darkness all sorts of
phantoms; in some that power is sim
ply a mechanical effect upon the eye;
others have a voluntary or semi-volun
tary pqwer to dismiss or to summon
them as one child once said to me: 'I
can tell them to come and go, but
sometimes they come when I don’t tell
them to come.’ ”
Day Dreaming Hypnotic State.
What children do is to create a hyp
notic state known as day dreaming.
This kind of picture making is sup
posed to be the germ of dreaming.
Therefore children, along with artists,
writers and poets, can actually dream
when awake. Elmer Jones not only
agrees on this point, but he goes one
step farther and argues that dream-
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ing can be aroused by opium and chlo
roform, for under chloroform the
vision is stimulated first.
In all these dreams, whether cre
ated awake or asleep, the pictures are
as normal as when the individual is
awake, excepting that there is little
color, the color field fading in a gray
band. But they have qualities that
the images created when awake lack.
Many things we cannot recall when
we are awake are born once more in
our dreams. Scientists and inventors
often come to a standstill with their
powers of reason, they do not know
how to move on with their investiga
tions and experiments. The more they
worry the more difficult the problem
becomes, when suddenly their difficul
ties are cleared up in their dreams.
This is explained by Ellis and oth
ers by the fact that a large part of the
psychic life of sleep is outside our
power and some of it is even beyond
our sight. The unusual pictures seen
in our sleep and dreams have made
some of the great pictures, poems,
stories and plays of the world. It is
only the man of genius who can bring
these strange and irrelevant pictures
together in a relevant way. To him
acting and life, the picture and the
reality, are no longer distinct; they
flow in the same channel.
Normal Mind Has Two Intelligences.
This is not as strange as it looks,
for every normal mind has at least
two intelligences, one conscious and
the other subconscious. One might al
most say that in dreaming the subcon
scious intelligence is playing against
the conscious intelligence. This shows
why great people often act on the re
sults of their dreams, though they do
not always know why. This also ex
plains why we remember things we
had forgotten and often reason more
clearly when our bodies are at rest
Because of this larger field of vision
men often prophesy things that are
to take place. Dr. Hammond, a well
known physician, knew a man who be
fore an attack of paralysis repeatedly
said that he had been cut in two down
the middle line, and could only move
on one side, while a young woman
who had swallowed molten lead in
her dreams, on awakening was at
tacked by tonsilitis.
The mind is so active when It is
supposed to be asleep that if the
motor co-ordinates are not cut off
somnambulism takes place, the body
responds to the command of the brain,
without the person ever realizing it.
It is rather startling to hear that
man thinks as intelligently asleep as
awake, but no less an authority than
Sir Arthur Mitchell admits that think
ing is essential to life. Thinking when
we sleep may be different than when
we are awake, but the process goes
on just the same. Man cannot think
unless he Is alive, and he cannot be
alive without thinking.
Dreams Confused in Memory.
Dreams are not as confused as we
think. They become confused from
the standpoint of memory, but are not
from the point of the dream organ.
Memory half-blurred in trying to re
call them makes dreaming seem con
fused. Dreams born under normal
conditions are normal, it is only those
that are created under abnormal con
ditions that are strange. For as Cic
ero said: “It cannot be doubted the
number of true dreams would be
greater if we were to fall asleep in a
better condition; filling ourselves with
wine and flesh obscures our dreams.”
Carl du Prel holds that every in
dividual has two consciousnesses ris
ing and sinking like the weight of the
scale. These are in alternation awak
ing and sleeping. "Potentially the
dream consciousness is present even
in waking," he says, “and the waking
consciousness in dreams, just as the
light of the stars is present when the
sun shines, but is first visible when
the sun sets. Were the light not so
weak in most of us it would never
have been necessary to have written
on the temple of Delphi, “Know thy
self,” and Plato would not have said
that “Most men only dream, the phil
osopher alone strives to be awake.”
Mozart more than any other musi
cian said that he was at his best
when dreaming or in this stage of
thinking. As he once told a friend:
“When I am all right and in good
spirits either in a carriage or walking
and at night when I cannot sleep
thoughts come streaming at their best.
The things which occur to me I keep
in my head and hum them to myself.
If” I stick to It there soon come one
after another useful crumbs for the
pie, according to counterpoint, br.r
mony, etc. This now inflames my soul,
which keeps growing and expanding,
and all the invention and construction
go on as in a fine, strong dream.”
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