Dreams have from all times aroused universal interest. As students of history know, they have often decided the destinies of nations and of individuals. Modern studies show us that they have made many religions and coloured others, that they are the origin of many of our myths, fables, superstitions, even ideas of real value. While there are many persons who profess to have no faith in them, regarding them as pure nonsense, the majority of us cannot get away from the idea that they are, after all, in some way related to the mysterious or supernormal. The mere fact that dreams have always commanded respect, and have been clothed with superstition, warrants the assumption that there really is something worth while about them. As Herbert Spencer says in speaking of human beliefs in general: "Entirely wrong as they may appear, the implication is that they germinated out of actual experiences - originally contained, and perhaps still contain, some small amount of verity." There is a certain amount of truth in dreams, just how much we will consider later.

As to the nature of dreams, many interesting, if no longer tenable, ideas have been held. The belief that they were due to the soul's activities was common among the ancients, the word soul being sometimes employed in a religions sense, and sometimes as synonymous with the mind. Hippocrates (460-354 B.C.) thought that in sleep the soul stole over the body, seeing, hearing, touching, reflecting, grieving, such activities, among others, constituting dreams. Lucretius (98-55 B.C.) considered that the soul was made up of small particles from every cell in the body, and that these particles were able to pass through the pores of the skin, though they always held the same relation to one another whether in the body or not. An image seen in a dream was not an imaginary product but a soul which could pass in and out of the body at will.

Practically the same idea exists among many present-day primitive peoples. The Dyaks and some Peruvian tribes think that the soul is absent in sleep, and that the things seen in a dream actually occur. Not being encumbered by the body, the soul can go a great distance in a short time, meeting with all sorts of adventures, some of which take place in Heaven. The Ganges refrain from awakening a sleeper, lest the soul be frightened away and not return. The Karens say that the dream is what the soul sees in sleep.

The North American Indians also believed that the soul wandered away to an unseen world during sleep, and obtained glimpses of what was to happen in the present world. By means of dreams their gods were supposed to make known their wills, impart instruction, confer magical powers, and point out the way in which the priest or leader was to carry out his mission. Particularly significant were the dreams of the war chief, especially when he had with him the sacred tribal objects; the latter were regarded as speaking to him in dreams, and instructing him as to how the enemy might be vanquished. The object which the Indian painted on his personal clothing and other belongings was suggested to him in the dream he had at puberty, following the customary fast at this time; this dream object he looked upon as a medium whereby he was protected by the gods, and aided by them; dreams in which the object figured were always heeded. The mystery or medicine man was supposed to have received his abilities in dreams from the gods. The usual medicine man asked his patients the nature of the complaint, the dreams, the breaking of the tabus. He then made an examination, prayed, exhorted, sang, made passes with his hands over the diseased area, and, finally, applied his mouth to the most painful site. An adept at legerdemain, and conversant with the potency of suggestion, he would finally spit out a splinter, pebble, hair, or other thing which, he inferred, had been drawn from the patient's body. Some Indian healers were intelligent practitioners, others were quacks. That the Indians had a knowledge of surgery is shown by their frequent trephinement of the skull, an operation of ancient origin.

As the ancients deified everything, naturally they had a god of dreams. Brizo, god of dreams, was worshipped at Deloa Vergil (70-19 B.C.) represents the god of dreams as burying his head in an elm placed in the middle of the internal road; the leaves of the elm were dreams. Doubtless, the views of some old scholars that dreams during the autumn were apt to be fallacious were given credence because leaves fall during the autumn. Another ancient view was that the god of dreams pressed down upon the eyes of a sleeper, and made for him pictures pleasant or unpleasant according to the individual's deserts.

On the other hand, dreams were considered demons by some. The Odyssey refers to them as demons having their home on the road to hades. According to Plato (427-347 b. c.) and his followers, they were demons having a middle character between gods and men. Some were said to be the shades of departed heroes which had been turned into benevolent or malignant beings. The former watched over the welfare of an individual; the latter deluded him by fallacious dreams which led to his destruction. Another idea was that the good demon warned the individual of the evil a bad demon was preparing for him. Even in the middle ages certain dreams were regarded as demoniacal. Thus, those having nightmare were said to be the har-bourers of, or consorts of evil spirits, and many unfortunates were put to death on the assumption.

As astrology was believed in from earliest times, it causes no surprise that the sun, moon, and stars were once looked upon as dispensers of dreams. Dreams in which these bodies figured were said, as by Hippocrates, to refer to certain physical structures. The sun was significant of the middle parts, the moon of the cavities, the stars of the external parts. Though believers in astrology are not so numerous as formerly, it is safe to say that not far from a million present-day people are convinced that by a study of the heavens one's fate, character, temperament, physique, health may be prophesied; also, the fate of any nation, and the solution of any national or individual problem. Many great minds subscribed to astrology, as Duns Scotus, Tycho Brahe, Francis Bacon, Kepler. Goethe begins his autobiography with a description of the favourable auspices under which he was born. Even those of us who have no faith in planetary prophecies daily use words which owe their origin to astrology, as ill-starred, disaster, ascendancy, auspices, jovial, talisman, influence, lunatic.