Yet if little stays with man,

Ah, retain we all we can! If the clear impression dies. Ah, the dim remembrance prize!

Ere the parting hour go by.

Quick thy tablets, Memory!

- Matthew Arnold, A Memory Picture.

The question of the continuance of activity of the will during sleep is only one of the many problems that suggest themselves when we begin to think about the operation of our mental faculties in the dream state. Equally worthy of note is the way in which the memory works whilst we sleep, the way in which it supplies the materials out of which our dreams are fashioned, calling up from its unseen treasures things new and old, recalling countless dimly remembered or forgotten scenes, and impressions that were hardly even sensed by us at all. Out of these hidden stores memory, aided by imagination, weaves for us the many-coloured web of our dreams. But memory has another and quite different function to perform with regard to dreams. She not only furnishes us with their fabric, but she also enables us to recapture and to record the dream scenes that fade so quickly away and that are so hard to hold. Hers is the twofold function of dream-builder and dream-recorder. The part that memory and imagination play in the building of our dreams will be dealt with presently; but meanwhile a brief space must be given here to dream recording.

To be able to remember and to write down correctly the sequence of a dream should be an essential qualification for a student of dreams. As a matter of fact, it seems to be a very rare one, and one of the difficulties that faces every one who tries to write seriously about dreams is that of obtaining faithful dream records on which observations can be safely based. If in the future their study is to have any value, it is necessary that we should find out the best methods of making accurate notes of dreams. Anyone who has tried for himself to make such notes, or obtain them from others, will have realised how great this difficulty is, and will have discovered some of the practical obstacles that stand in the way of writing down even a simple dream.

The difficulties are not insuperable, and in this matter of dream recording, as in that of dream control, it is possible, by means of certain easily acquired methods and some concentration of mind, to make accurate notes of dreams if we require to do so. The initial difficulty that meets us is their evanescence; we have all probably experienced the sharp disappointment when we have vainly tried to hold fast the elusive memory of a dream from which we have just awakened, and have realised that the more feverishly we strive to remember it the more intangible it becomes and the more rapidly it fades away. Do what we will, we cannot recall more than floating detached fragments, and glimpses of its scenes. A thick mist of oblivion seems to come between us and the memory that we want to recall and literally blots it out. A sea-fog rolling in over sea and land, and obliterating every outline, is the best image of the mist of forgetful-ness that nature often interposes between our dreams and our waking consciousness.

How are we to roll this back, and recover the scenes and events that it so quickly hides?

There are, no doubt, many ways that other dreamers have discovered for themselves. I can only speak of those that, after long practice, I myself have found to be successful.

To begin with, the first thought and immediate occupation of the mind on awaking must be the recollection of the dream; the only thing further that is needed is a certain habit of mind that is better expressed in the French word recueillement than in any word of our own. An attitude of quiet attentiveness should be ours; the mind must be unhurried, it must be watchful, as one who looks long and steadfastly into a still pool to see what is mirrored there. As it thus gazes there will come back to it one by one the scenes of the late dream.

The dream should first be allowed to unroll itself very quietly backwards in a series of slowly moving pictures, starting from the end and going back through scene after scene to its beginning, until the whole dream has been seen. In order to get a complete record of a long dream, this process should be followed, and then, if possible, the reverse process should be carried out and the dream retraced from its starting-point to its ending. In this way the scenes, events and conversations that have made up the dream story can, when the habit of recollection has been acquired, be retraced. They should then be written down at once. It is only thus, and by making the written notes immediately, that I find it possible to make accurate transcripts of long and complex dreams, and in this fact, no doubt, lies a great part of our difficulty in getting such records made. The dreamer generally waits until the morning to retrace his dream, and then perhaps tells it or writes it down. It has by that time lost some of its sharp edges and its definition. There will be blank spaces left in his memory; there is nothing easier than for the memory half unconsciously to fill in those blanks.

The dreamer may soon begin to think that he remembers what happened in the blurred intervals, or perhaps tries to complete his dream story which broke off with such disappointing suddenness, by an ending that suggests itself, and that makes an artistic finish to the story when it is told the next morning; but as the only possible value of the dream record lies, not in its artistic or dramatic character, but solely in its absolute truthfulness, the dream should always be written down as soon as possible. The mere fact that this is necessary often prevents the dream record being written at all. A "good sleeper" is apt to drop off to sleep again before he has attempted to do it, and an indifferent or "bad sleeper" naturally dreads the complete awakening and probable loss of further sleep if he exerts himself to turn on a light and write down his dream.