Dreams alleged to have pictured persons actually met with for the first time days, weeks, months, or years after the dreams are often cited as proof of the prophetic nature of dreams. None of these dreams need be taken seriously inasmuch as their prophetic nature is based on self-deception. The fact that our minds are storehouses containing countless photographs of persons we have met, or whose pictures we have seen, but whom we cannot consciously recall, detracts from their mya-teriousness.

1 Op. cit, p. 161.

What usually occurs in this form of so-called prophetic dream is that the dream image is a composite photograph, that is, the image is made up of characteristics of many persons the dreamer has actually seen. If the dream image is identified in waking life, it is usually because one feature of the dream image is identified with a person newly met with, and, overcome by the love of the romantic, the remaining characteristics of the dream image are fabricated to suit the real person; in cases investigated, the resemblance between the dream image and the actual person was very vague. Or it may happen that the meeting of a stranger may, for some reason, awaken the memory of a recent dream, and thus the stranger becomes credited with being the dream image. Since dream images are very often condensations of many persons, it would be practically impossible to meet like characters in real life.

Since dreams tend to bring about the realization of wishes, maidens may indeed see their lovers in dreams, also their day-dream heroes. Since it would be very romantic to fall in love with "the image of their dreams," some romantic persons are only too eager to fall in love with any one who has the least resemblance to the dream figure. Most of us are probably familiar with the custom of depositing a piece of wedding cake under the pillow in the hope of seeing one's future husband. This custom originated from the old practice of depositing under the pillow the first cut of cheese at a lying-in, this being considered conducive to dreams of one's lover. Dreams so instigated are due to auto-suggestion, and whatever dream images arise will be found to be modelled after persons the dreamer has actually seen; probably, they are based on day-dream fancies. The same can be said of the lover one sees in the mirror at Hallowe'en.