The symbolism of dreams is merely an effort at expression on the part of the dreaming self, whether we term that self the soul, the spirit, the subconscious or merely the physical; for whether these expressions originate in eroticism as maintained by Freudians, or in outer stimuli as claimed by physiologists, or from the heights of the human spirit as taught by the mystics, the thought is imaged in the language of symbolism. It is admitted that this symbol need bear no outward resemblance to the dream, and that the dream is frequently represented by a symbol antedating mere speech.

The older dream interpreters have accepted a simple symbolism founded upon human history and the traditions of the people, and therefore more generally correct than the elaborately reasoning symbolization of modern analysts, whose tendency to ignore memory and race tradition and to attribute all dreams to physical stimuli, or again to revert to purely conjectural periods of history sometimes renders their translation questionable.

Both medievalism and the renaissance, for instance, held a totally different point of view from the ages that preceded them, and both modified symbolic expression. Again racial differences bore their influence. Thus the caverns, mountains and groves were temples and places of worship to Egypt and Greece, while the Hebrews regarded them with suspicion and fear; the Apis, or sacred bull, symbolizing the equinox, at that time in the sign Taurus, was the golden calf, abhorred of the Scriptures, and the serpent, personifying wisdom, was to become accursed of man in the story of Eden.

The gypsies are the most widely known and the most universally accepted of the dream interpreters. Originally derived from Chaldean, Egyptian and possibly Atlantean sources their symbolism has been modified, augmented or diminished as the case might be, by time and circumstance. After their descent from their heights of hierophantic teachings, legend and symbol sought the humbler folk. Scorned by the learned ones, they entered the nursery by way of the servants' hall and established themselves by the fireside and in the niches of childish memory. Thus unconsciously the homely traditions and symbols flourished and scattered to the four winds of civilization, like the seeds of the thistle, the floral prototype of the Gypsies themselves. Their roots in the subconsciousness have been deep and permanent, and from these fireside tales have sprung the homely symbols that are most frequently employed in dreams. Their universality is attributable to their vagrant career and to the nomadism of their preservers, the gypsies. Lacking a written literature, the latter have assimilated local surroundings and have drawn to themselves the spiritual atmosphere of the varied eras, thus modifying the fundamental significance of the symbols. Early paganism, Hebrewism, Judaism, Christianity, iconoclasm, materialism, each in turn has tinted the mutable science of symbols with the parti-colored fragments of oral tradition. The scientific color-blindness that has led students to ignore this chameleon quality of symbolism has caused misunderstanding of the symbols themselves.

A certain high and scientific authority, for example, mentions rather derisively the Christian symbolism of the dove as ah emblem of the Holy Ghost. With caustic humor he refers to the favorite bird of Aphrodite or Venus and to the well-known amorousness of the dove; he hints at the astounding ignorance of the early Christian fathers in selecting not only the dove, but the fish and the cross, all phallic or erotic symbols. Unquestionably the learned writer has some truth and a modicum of history as authority. His only error is that of omitting the psychology of intervening centuries and the history of the races that have risen and had their fall since the period to which he most accurately reverts. Unquestionably the dove was originally the symbol of Aphrodite, but it was also the least costly living sacrifice that could be proffered to Jehovah of the Jews, hence for many centuries it was the offering of the poor and the humble, a not unfitting symbol for the Son of Man, who had not where to lay His head. The dream of the dove, while defined by Freud as erotic, is translated by the Gypsies as a holy dream and a good one, and probably in the every day subconsciousness of the ordinary person, it bears this latter meaning.

The cross, unquestionably one of the oldest symbols, is of phallic origin; it is now, however, inextricably associated with the Passion and Sacrifice of Christ. And surely this most glorious sacrifice that ever altered human history and the reckoning of time itself, should be sufficiently strong to change the meaning of a symbol, the outward and visible sign of an idea. And thus, despite the sneers of the too literal historian, the modern, be he Christian or no, who sees a cross in his dream regards it as a symbol of self-abnegation or of glory as the case may be. Rarely indeed does his thought hark back to prehistoric days when the holy emblem bore a phallic significance.

The adoption of the fish, held by primitive pagans as a symbol of fecundity, was, according to Hulme, adopted by Christians for the reason that the initials of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, arc the Greek letters for the word fish; Bishop Kip of California in his work, "The Catacombs of Rome," corroborates Hulme's theory of the fish as a Christian emblem with the statement that the symbols adopted by the Christians of that day were selected for the purpose of misleading the persecutors of the new faith as well as to convey a message to its followers. They would scarcely suspect beneath the symbol of Aphrodite the meaning that the dove and the fish bore to the followers of Christ.

The Gypsy symbolism lacks the salacious quality usual in that of the scientific dream student, and their interpretations manifest a large share of the humor that the grave scientist, alas, is lacking. This humor is demonstrated in the interpretation of the dreams that "go by contrary." The gypsies also demonstrate a working knowledge of the Bible and a shrewd comprehension of the psychological hypothesis of the subconscious self, which latter is especially surprising in view of the fact that the symbols are old, far older than any possible knowledge of the term subconscious. Dreams of anxiety and loss of property or possessions, for instance, are translated as suggesting thrift on the part of the dreamer, and anxiety indicates the concern that begets wealth, while dreams of prodigality and lavishness imply to the shrewd gypsy interpreter a self-complacency and wastefulness that naturally results in poverty.