we are such stuff as dreams are made on,” as shakespeare says, and yet no one even to this day knows what that “stuff” may be. we separate man’s life into intellect, feeling, will; or, like the hindoos, into seven phases; we subdivide these, recognizing special powers and functions belonging to each; we dissect man’s frame; we dissolve his body into its component parts, and yet, when all is done, we know as little about life, the essence of man, as our father adam knew. as omar says, we hear “much talk about it and about” and yet we get nowhere. it is much the same with dreams. we need, therefore, only summarize and review the talk.
dreams occupied their most important place in the thought of man at its beginning. his action has frequently been directed by a dream and the fate of nations has hinged upon its interpretation. even in the present day of matter-of-fact science, at some time in his life following the racial bent, almost every human being has paid some attention to his dreams. the superstitious—which includes the most of us—still put faith in their dreams, though they know not whence they come, nor their relation to the most mutable of physical conditions. and this though ages ago sirach uttered this warning, “dreams deceive many and fail those who build upon them.” scientific investigation has made known many of the causes of dreams and shown us what slight incidents may determine their direction. for instance, dreams involving hearing often take their rise in noises made by the processes going on in the body. what we eat and the state of our digestion greatly affect the character of our dreams.
this has long been recognized by those who try to decipher special significance in dreams. twenty-five centuries ago pythagoras believed that the gas-generating beans destroyed the chance of having enlightening or important dreams, and so forbade their use. in similar fashion interpreters of dreams were warned by artemidorus to inquire first whether the dreamer had eaten heartily or lightly before falling asleep; while philostratus maintained that skillful interpreters always refused to expound dreams following the use of wine.
thus we see that even in ancient times the relation between eating and sleeping was recognized. in more modern days it is recorded that poets and writers had visions from eating raw flesh, while mrs. radcliffe, author of “the mysteries of udolpho,” is said to have deliberately induced horrid dream phantoms by supping late on indigestible food as a means of getting “printer’s copy.” de quincey’s “confessions” is a monument to the beauty and the horror of the dreams from drugs. there is also reason to think that the terrors of delirium tremens are true dreams. john b. gough described from fearful experience the agony of seeing and feeling that which is dreadful, mainly because the sufferer knows that it, nevertheless, does not exist and could not exist. this can be explained, in our present state of knowledge, only by the supposition that the subconscious mind, uncorrected and unrestrained by the senses, alone is awake. boris sidis shows that we have no waking remembrance of many of our dreams, even of most harassing ones.
it is probable that perfect sleep is undisturbed by dreams, pleasant or otherwise. dreams are an evidence of the semi-conscious condition of some of the senses; the objective mind is no longer in control, but is passive, and the subjective mind is active. yet while dreaming, the objective mind is not so completely unconscious (as it would be if wrapped in profound slumber) but that it gets glimpses of the workings of the subjective mind, often very distorted glimpses. this frequently leads to horrible or impossible situations in dreams.
it is an interesting question how far we are responsible for our dreams. it is true in dreams, as in waking, that from the same sensations individuals will evolve different results, just as nasturtiums, drawing nourishment from the same soil, will put forth blossoms of different color and odor. the factor that changes these same elements into different results is something inherent in the individual person or plant.
so that we are not entirely responsible for what we dream, yet the mental habits, the real tone of mind maintained during waking hours, has its effect upon dreams. they constitute an index of the mind. so far as sleep is concerned, of course, “subjective” mind is simply our remembered experiences, our mental capital, and can be used in waking hours and is constantly so used: we get traces of these in our dreams. age, sex, and temperament also affect the nature of dreams.
if then our sleep is disturbed by unpleasant dreams, it becomes necessary to investigate the causes. have we eaten too much or too hurriedly? are our innermost thoughts clean and wholesome, fit for the light of day? roman philosophers held that he who wished to obtain knowledge of the will of any of the gods, must fast and lie down to sleep beside the shrine of the god, his thoughts filled with longing and desire for such knowledge. there is more than mere superstition in that. if we abstain from all excesses and are filled with desire to know the will of the gods, dreams, when they come to us, will not disturb or distress us.
dreams are admittedly sometimes prophetic, or have at least an indirect significance touching events not yet come to pass. galen tells of a man who dreamed that his leg had turned to stone, and a few days later found his leg paralyzed, perhaps an instance of auto-suggestion. gessner died from a malignant growth which developed in his breast in the exact spot where, a few nights previously, he had dreamed that a serpent bit him; while aristides, dreaming that he was wounded in the knee by a bull, awoke to find a tumor there.
these and many better authenticated cases of dream warnings are not so strange as they seem at first hearing. they may be explained largely by the fact that remote and vague sensations of suffering and disease are able to make deeper impression upon the mind when the interests and activities of the waking life are submerged in sleep.
the duration of dreams is another matter of great interest. most persons feel and say that they “dreamed all night long,” and will proceed to support their statement by relating various incidents of their dreams; their prolonged sensations of pleasure or horror; the events that perhaps covered years. yet, in reality, the dream may have occupied less than a minute. the dreamer cannot measure the time spent in dreaming, for the unconscious condition of the objective mind obliterates the sense of time, space or material limitations. this accounts for the prodigious feats, the marvels and impossible achievements of dreams that seem to the dreamer in no way disproportionate.
what we do know is that some of the most wonderful dreams have occupied but a few moments, and so far scientific research seems to limit them to an hour or two at most. mohammed’s dream was completed within the time occupied by a falling vase; and it is on record that a man fell asleep just as the clock struck the first stroke of twelve and awoke in a cold sweat on the last stroke, having dreamed that he had spent thirty years in prison, suffering tortures of mind and body.
all this makes it easy to understand how, to an infinite mind, a thousand years may be as one day and one day as a thousand years, and how, in our degree, the quiet, self-controlled mind may be unmoved by time.
it is the vivid impression made by such dreams that makes us feel that they must have lasted a long time. then, as george trumbull ladd says, the recital of our dreams is often colored, unconsciously, “by our self-conscious and rational waking life when we bring the scene before the awakened mind.” in other words, many sensations that we think we experienced are heightened by the idea in the objective mind of what such sensations ought to be.
it may be that when the time comes that
“no one shall work for money
and no one shall work for fame,”
we shall find light and help in our dreams that is undreamed of now.
