CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

The House of Dreams—Fallacies in the Study of Dreams—Is it possible to Study Dreams?—How Fallacies may be Avoided—Do we always Dream during Sleep?—The Two Main Sources of Dreams with their Sub-divisions, 1

CHAPTER II

THE ELEMENTS OF DREAM LIFE

The Spontaneous Procession of Dream Imagery—Its Kaleidoscopic Character—Attention in Dreams—Relation of Drug Visions and Hypnagogic Imagery to Dreaming—Colour in Dreams—The Fusion of Dream Imagery—Compared to Dissolving Views—Sources of the Imagery—Various types of Fusion—The Sub-Conscious Element in Dreaming—Verbal Transformations as Links in Dream Imagery—The Reduplication of Visual Imagery in Motor and other Terms, 20

CHAPTER III

THE LOGIC OF DREAMS

All Dreaming is a Process of Reasoning—The Fundamental Character of Reasoning—Reasoning as a Synthesis of Images—Dream Reasoning Instinctive and Automatic—It is also Consciously carried on—This a result of the Fundamental Split in Intelligence—Dissociation—Dreaming as a Disturbance of Apperception, 56

CHAPTER IV

THE SENSES IN DREAMS

All Dreams probably contain both Presentative and Representative Elements—The Influence of Tactile Sensations on Dreams—Dreams excited by Auditory Stimuli—Dreams aroused by Odours and Tastes—The Influence of Visual Stimuli—Difficulty of distinguishing between Actual and Imagined Sensory Excitations—The Influence of Internal Visceral Stimuli on Dreaming—Erotic Dreams—Vesical Dreams—Cardiac Dreams and their Symbolism—Prodromic Dreams—Prophetic Dreams, 71

CHAPTER V

EMOTION IN DREAMS

Emotion and Imagination—How Stimuli are transformed into Emotion—Somnambulism—The Failure of Movement in Dreams—Nightmare—Influence of the approach of Awakening on imagined Dream movements—The Magnification of Imagery—Peripheral and Cerebral Conditions combine to produce this Imaginative Heightening—Emotion in Sleep also Heightened—Dreams formed to explain Heightened Emotions of unknown origin—The fundamental Place of Emotion in Dreams—Visceral and especially Gastric disturbance as a source of Emotion—Symbolism in Dreams—The Dreamer's Moral Attitude—Why Murder so often takes place in Dreams—Moral Feeling not Abolished in Dreams though sometimes Impaired, 94

CHAPTER VI

AVIATION IN DREAMS

Dreams of Flying and Falling—Their Peculiar Vividness—Dreams of Flying an Alleged Survival of Primeval Experiences—Best explained as based on Respiratory Sensations combined with Cutaneous Anaesthesia—The Explanation of Dreams of Falling—The Sensation of Levitation sometimes experienced by Ecstatic Saints—Also experienced at the Moment of Death, 129

CHAPTER VII

SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS

The Dramatisation of Subjective Feelings Based on Dissociation—Analogies in Waking Life—The Synaesthesias and Number-forms—Symbolism in Language—In Music—The Organic Basis of Dream Symbolism—The Omnipotence of Symbolism—Oneiromancy—The Scientific Interpretation of Dreams—Why Symbolism prevails in Dreaming—Freud's Theory of Dreaming—Dreams as Fulfilled Wishes—Why this Theory cannot be applied to all Dreaming—The Complete Form of Symbolism in Dreams—Splitting up of Personality—Self-objectivation in Imaginary Personalities—The Dramatic Element in Dreams—Hallucinations—Multiple Personality—Insanity—Self-objectivation a Primitive Tendency—Its Survival in Civilisation, 148

CHAPTER VIII

DREAMS OF THE DEAD

Mental Dissociation during sleep—Illustrated by the Dream of Returning to School Life—The Typical Dream of a Dead Friend—Examples—Early Records of this Type of Dream—Analysis of such Dreams—Atypical Forms—The Consolation sometimes afforded by Dreams of the Dead—Ancient Legends of this Dream Type—The Influence of Dreams on the Belief of Primitive Man in the Survival of the Dead, 194

CHAPTER IX

MEMORY IN DREAMS

The Apparent Rapidity of Thought in Dreams—This Phenomenon largely due to the Dream being a Description of a Picture—The Experience of Drowning Persons—The Sense of Time in Dreams—The Crumpling of Consciousness in Dreams—The Recovery of Lost Memories through the Relaxation of Attention—The Emergence in Dreams of Memories not known to Waking Life—The Recollection of Forgotten Languages in Sleep—The Perversions of Memory in Dreams—Paramnesic False Recollections—Hypnagogic Paramnesia—Dreams mistaken for Actual Events—The Phenomenon of Pseudo-Reminiscence—Its Relationship to Epilepsy—Its Prevalence especially among Imaginative and Nervously Exhausted Persons—The Theories put forward to Explain it—A Fatigue Product—Conditioned by Defective Attention and Apperception—Pseudo-Reminiscence a reversed Hallucination, 212

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

The Fundamental Nature of Dreaming—Insanity and Dreaming—The Child's Psychic State and the Dream State—Primitive Thought and Dreams—Dreaming and Myth-Making—Genius and Dreams—Dreaming as a Road into the Infinite, 261

INDEX, 283