1 Independent, Oct. 23, 1913, p. 160. Published in book form (Dreams) by B. W. Huebsch & Co.

Next to vision most dreams are auditory. These dreams may arise from outside sources, as noises, the hum of mosquitoes for example. Various sensations due to the accumulation of wax in the ear, fullness of the blood vessels, causing ringing in the ears, may cause dreams of storms, floods, falls from heights, etc. After attendance at musical performances, dreams of music are common, due to the persistence of the tones in the ears. Auditory dreams are most common in musicians. Dickens is said to have dreamt that he was dead, and, while in the mortuary, heard the undertaker making his coffin. The undertaker dropped a plank, which caused the "dead" man to come to life. Dickens found himself in an armchair, the instigator of the dream being a carpenter who was mending the garden fence.

Words spoken in the presence of a person in light sleep may cause a dream to be built about them. Curiously, in the dream the words will seem to come last, or the dream will conclude with the incident the words refer to. For instance, some one may remark in the presence of a person in light sleep: "It looks like a storm." The sleeper may then dream that he is out in the fields, that the heavens grow darker, that the wind is blowing, and conclude that a storm is imminent. He may awake, and finding a storm brewing, may believe that his dream was of a prophetic nature. It would seem in these cases, as well as in other dreams due to sources outside the mind, that the mind, while receiving the stimulus, holds it off until it has explained it, and places it at the end of the dream, there being no awareness that the stimulus really came first.

Touch dreams are next in frequency. They may be instigated in various ways, as by the body's contact with the bedclothes, or the contact of one extremity with another. Leonard Guthrie ascribes his dreams of being taken captive by Bed Indians, pirates, devils, or masked burglars, and being slowly and painfully tickled under the arm while unable to move or cry out, to sweating under the arms. In Maury's experiments several ex-amples of touch dreams are given. As a rule, touch dreams are unpleasant, causing a feeling of sadness, anxiety, or torture. It has been suggested that this is because the sense of touch is closely connected with the emotions.

Taste dreams are not very common. Most of those attributed to taste have been produced experimentally. At times, indigestion, by producing a bad taste in the mouth, may cause dreams of eating unpleasing food.

Hammond1 records the following complex dream concerning a young lady who had the habit, from childhood, of going to sleep with her thumb in her mouth. She had tried often to break herself of the habit, but unsuccessfully; finally she hit upon the plan of covering the thumb with extract of aloes just before she went to bed.

During the night, however, she dreamed that she was crossing the ocean in a steamer made of wormwood, and that the vessel was furnished throughout with the same material. The plates, the dishes, tumblers, chairs, ta-bles, etc., were all of wormwood, and the emanations so pervaded all parts of the ship that it was impossible to breathe without tasting the bitterness. Everything that she ate or drank was likewise, from being in contact with wormwood, so impregnated with the flavour that the taste was overpowering. When she arrived at Havre she asked for a glass of water for the purpose of washing the taste from her mouth, but they brought her an infusion of wormwood, which she gulped down because she was thirsty, though the sight of it excited nausea. She went to Paris, and consulted a famous physician, M. Sauve Moi, begging him to do something which would extract the wormwood from her body. He told her there was but one remedy, and that was ox gall. This he gave her by the pound, and in a few weeks the wormwood was all gone, but the ox gall had taken its place, and was fully as bitter and disagreeable. To get rid of the ox gall she was advised to take counsel of the Pope. She accordingly went to Rome, and obtained an audience of the Holy Father. He told her that she must make a pilgrimage to the plain where the pillar of salt stood, into which Lot's wife was transformed, and must eat a piece of salt as big as her thumb. During her journey in search of the pillar of salt she endured a great many sufferings, but finally triumphed over all obstacles, and reached the object of her journey. What part to take was now the question. After a good deal of deliberation she reasoned that as she had a bad habit of sucking her thumb, it would be very philosophical to break off this part from the statue, and thus not only get cured of the bitterness in her mouth, but also of her failing. She did so, put the piece of salt into her mouth, and awoke to find that she was sucking her own thumb.

1 Sleep and Its Derangements, I869, pp. 136-8.

Dreams arising from stimulation of the olfactory sense are also uncommon. Hammond states that the smell of escaping gas caused him to dream of a chemical laboratory; the smell of burning cloth, of a laundry, and of one of the women ironing a blanket, which she scorched with a hot iron.

Various body wants, as hunger and thirst, often instigate dreams in which the wants are satisfied. Thus, the starving Baron Trenck, confined in a dungeon, dreamt very frequently that he was enjoying sumptuous repasts in luxurious surroundings. A full bladder or irritation of the urethra, may excite dreams of passing water, leading sometimes to enuresis. Dreams instigated by the bladder are frequently concerned with water, as swimming.

As is well known, dreams may be influenced by physical discomforts. Many individuals can, almost with certainty, bring on distressing dreams by eating at supper or near bedtime, certain combinations of food, as peas and salmon, Welsh rarebit, ice cream and oysters.