The chronicles which I am about to present to the reader are not
the result of any conscious effort of the imagination. They are,
as the title-page indicates, records of dreams, occurring at intervals
during the last ten years, and transcribed, pretty nearly in the
order of their occurrence, from my Diary. Written down as soon as
possible after awaking from the slumber during which they presented
themselves, these narratives, necessarily unstudied in style and
wanting in elegance of diction, have at least the merit of fresh
and vivid color, for they were committed to paper at a moment when
the effect and impress of each successive vision were strong and
forceful in the mind, and before the illusion of reality conveyed
by the scenes witnessed and the sounds heard in sleep had had time
to pass away.
I do not know whether these experiences of mine are unique. So far,
I have not yet met with any one in whom the dreaming faculty appears
to be either so strongly or so strangely developed as in myself.
Most dreams, even when of unusual vividness and lucidity, betray
a want of coherence in their action, and an incongruity of detail
and dramatis personae, that stamp
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* Written in 1886. Some of the experiences in this volume were
subsequent to that date. This publication is made in accordance
with the author's last wishes. (Ed.)
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them as the product of incomplete and disjointed cerebral function.
But the most remarkable features of the experiences I am about to
record are the methodical consecutiveness of their sequences, and
the intelligent purpose disclosed alike in the events witnessed and
in the words heard or read. Some of these last, indeed, resemble,
for point and profundity, the apologues of Eastern scriptures; and,
on more than one occasion, the scenery of the dream has accurately
portrayed characteristics of remote regions, city, forest and mountain,
which in this existence at least I have never beheld, nor, so far
as I can remember, even heard described, and yet, every feature
of these unfamiliar climes has revealed itself to my sleeping vision
with a splendour of coloring and distinctness of outline which made
the waking life seem duller and less real by contrast. I know of
no parallel to this phenomenon unless in the pages 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, therefore,
surprising that the greater number of these dreams, and, especially,
the most vivid, detailed and idyllic, have occurred to me while
on the continent. At my own residence on the banks of the Severn,
in a humid, low-lying tract of country, I very seldom experience
such manifestations, and sometimes, after a prolonged sojourn at
home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never
to return. But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland
always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic
tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have
elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my
nightly visions.
Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and
even details, of stories which from time to time I have contributed
to various magazines. A ghost story,* published some years ago in
a London magazine, and much commented on because of its peculiarly
weird and startling character, had this origin; so had a fairy tale,**
which appeared in a Christmas Annual last year, and which has recently
been re-issued in German by the editor of a foreign periodical. Many
of my more
