Havelock Ellis's conclusions as to the psychic conditions during sleep differ fundamentally from those of the Freudian school. The relaxation of the will, the narrowing of the voluntary attention, while the involuntary mind broadens and sweeps into the vastnesses of the world of the subconscious, he regards as forming an entirely new mental order. This he admits may be a more truly natural and even rational order than that of the waking state. He cites his own dreams as examples, many of which he traces to inherited memory, or to half forgotten experiences. He does not attach importance to each and every dream, nor does he recognize a possible prophetic value. He has no elaborate mechanism for resolving a dream into its elements, and his symbolism is entirely modern. He interprets the large majority of his own dreams by tracing their origin to sensory stimuli, which are translated to the subconsciousness and retranslated into dreams. Many of these stimuli are responsible for the so-called typical dreams which will be given later in the chapter. The color sense in a dream, for instance, Havelock Ellis attributes to a cerebral disturbance on the part of the dreamer. Speech disturbances in dreams, Havelock Ellis attributes to some deep disturbance of thought, such as occurs in sensorial aphasia. The Freudians, it will be remembered, call these disturbances part of Condensation, one of the Freudian mechanisms. A typical dream analysis according to the Ellis system, is given in the following:

A physician, ill himself with influenza, dreamed that in the course of a conversation with one of his neighbors, he had placed his hand upon her knee. She requested him to remove it, but to his horror he was unable to do so. He awakened, horrified at finding himself in a position so incompatible with professional dignity, and found his own hand between his own knees. This dream is easily and logically traceable to its source.

He does not agree with Freud in banishing morality from the dream world, although he frequently traces dreams to childish wishes and desires. Again they may have their origin in elements perceived at some time in the life, but long since forgotten. In many instances there is a transposition of facts, and the element of Displacement enters largely into the dream-life, though without necessarily having an erotic motive.

The classification into sensorial, auditory and visual stimuli renders the Ellis analysis comparatively simple, and while it is undoubtedly of physical value, its psycho-therapeutic use is inconsiderable.

A comparison of the methods of the past and those of the present does not result in an entire concession of superiority to the students of our own era. Undoubtedly the dream analyses and interpretations of the past were as skillful and as accurate as those of to-day; and where the modern psychologist pauses and questions, the older philosophers and prophets went forward, superbly confident in their convictions until they rent the veil of futurity and sounded the human soul.

The antagonistic views of the modern cults of dream analysis find a precedent in the theories of Plato and Aristotle. The latter, though conceding that in many instances a dream might be of divine origin, attributed them for the most part to physical sources, headache, hunger, cold, etc.

Biblical dreams, apart from their element of prophecy, furnish in many cases clear examples of dream interpretation and analysis. Like the modern dreams they are frequently symbolical or allegorical in form, both symbol and allegory befitting the age and people to whom they refer. The adaptation of dream symbols and allegories to the intellectual and psychic development of their dreamers is quoted as a potent argument against both the prophets and the spiritual quality of dreams, despite the salient fact that the Power capable of sending prophetic or inspired dreams would scarcely commit the blunder of employing symbolism beyond the comprehension of the dreamer. The symbolism that would appeal to a Scotch Covenanter, for instance, would scarcely make an impression upon a Mahommedan, while on the other hand, a Covenanter whose dream savored of the most highly virtuous ideals possible to a Moslem might awake to find himself thoroughly ashamed.

The dreams of Pharaoh (Genesis xli, 8) as interpreted by Joseph are bits of keen analysis that would be creditable to the most skillful modern student.

"And behold there came up out of the river seven well-favored kine and fat-fleshed and they fed in a meadow.

"And behold seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.

"And the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the well-favored and fat. So Pharaoh awoke.

"And he slept and dreamed a second time; and behold seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk rank and good.

"And behold seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.

"And the seven thin ears devoured the seven full ears. And Pharaoh awoke and behold it was a dream."

The modern scientific analysis of these two dreams is evidently similar to the method by which Joseph achieved his interpretation and, incidentally, prophecy. And that the interpretation was scientific and methodical, and not haphazard, is proven by the frequency with which Joseph was called upon for interpretation. Reinforcement, Coriat's fifth Dream Mechanism, has already been mentioned in this connection as welding two dreams into one idea.

The kine and the ears represent the Manifest Content or apparent subject of the vision; the river, the number seven and the act of devouring or absorbing, form the Latent Content, and very distinct examples of Dramatization. For Joseph to have questioned Pharaoh upon his dream was patently unnecessary in an instance whose content was so truly patriotic and obviously full of kingly anxiety for the country and the people. Persons who have lived in an irrigated country will readily realize the source of the royal solicitude. Egypt as an agricultural land was dependent upon the Nile for its welfare, and any monarch who had proper care for his subjects would naturally have watched the weather and its auguries for years of famine or of plenty, as the case might be. Amid the wildest of the kingly revels, or while taking part in the most solemn of the Egyptian ceremonials, the ever wakeful subconsciousness would doubtless note the gathering of flocculent, far-off clouds, forming the distant snows whose melting filled the river that fed old Egypt. The bucolic symbolism of the kine and of the ears is obvious. Not so, however, according to modern methods, is the number seven, iterated into notice four times.