Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there he any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. - Philippians, iv, 8.

It is an interesting question how far our moral sense in dreams corresponds to the moral sense of our normal life. Our moral sense and moral character have come to us partly by inheritance, and have been modified by training, by the discipline of life, and by the teaching of religion. They have become essential factors of our selves. How far do these moral characteristics survive unchanged in the world of dreams?

There are some great differences in the way in which we regard things in dreams. Most dreamers will agree with me that one of these differences lies in the absence from the dream mind of any deep sense of responsibility. It is to this freedom from the cares of responsibility that a great part of the sense of pleasure in dreams is due; we have the freedom that a child has from the sense of responsibility and duty that rules the activities of our life by day, and this characteristic of the dream state naturally affects to a certain extent the character of our moral sense in it. There are other very marked differences in the moral sense in the two states.

Great stress is laid by the Freudian school on the recognised fact that we may find ourselves confronted in dreams by thoughts and expressions of emotion that we do not choose to admit to our thoughts in our waking life; ideas which are banished more or less instinctively from our minds. The teachers of this school insist that the repression of these conceptions by day drives these undesirable conceptions into the unconscious mind, whence they will find expression in dreams and will operate in them with greatly increased power. No one will deny the fact that natural emotions which are unduly repressed are apt to take their revenge by poisoning the mind. We have only to read of the results of such repression in the case of the hermits and recluses of old to see how bad, both for the normal and the dream life, such unnatural repression of man's ordinary instincts and emotions can be. I feel sure, however, that the amplifications and illustrations of this theory by Freud, and by the psycho-analysts who follow in his steps, are only partially true, and may be'very misleading.

They proceed on the assumption that the inhibition or repression of thoughts by day gives to such thoughts a greater power over the dream mind, and that, no matter how completely they are controlled by day, they cannot be controlled in our dreams. It would follow from this argument that there is a field of mental experience which is wholly removed from the control of the moral sense.

I believe that the theory and practice of dream control furnish an answer to this argument. All that I would say here is that we need not necessarily give up the direction of our dreams in this way. If dreams visit us that we do not welcome, or that we do not choose should intrude upon us, a simple rule will free us from them, if we are sufficiently determined about the matter. It is after all a matter of will. To forbid, and prevent the recurrence of, an undesired dream is a comparatively easy task, by methods that have been described in Chapter I of this book. In order to give an example of this I have taken from my notes some that relate to "dreams of anger".

A sense of anger, which I have very rarely felt by day, used at times to enter into my dreams as an emotion more violent of its kind than I ever remember having felt in my waking life. The occasion was generally some very trivial one, which excited, however, an unnatural degree of passion in my dream mind. These dreams suggested an experiment in dream control which I carried out. Hereafter, when the sensation of anger came into a dream, it brought automatically with it the associated memory of the formula by which I arrest a dream's course, and control was thus established. In such a dream which I recorded I had become very angry - so angry that I wished to strike the offending person who had aroused my wrath. At this moment the formula interposed itself, and I knew that this was a dream, and realised that it was "dream anger" that I felt. A reflected memory of the description given by Mr. Havelock Ellis of inhibition of the power of movement in dreams flashed at the same time into the dream mind. "If this is only a dream and only dream anger," I said to myself, "you will have no power to strike." The muscular power that I had been conscious of possessing an instant before, and that I had been ready to use, was indeed no longer mine. "Yes," I thought, "then it must be really a dream, and really dream anger"; and I awoke.

When the nature of these dreams had been fully recognised they tended to occur less and less often. I think that the recognition acted as a warning that the impulse of foolish wrath was latent in my mind, and must be watched and controlled by day as well as by night. I am convinced that if we recognise frankly an impulse that our moral sense condemns, such as violent anger, jealousy, or any other passion which belongs to the baser side of our nature, and which offends our moral sense, the control of such impulse by day tends in course of time to eliminate it from our dreams.

There will, however, still be dreams that may trouble us with suggestions of lower emotions and passions, which do not consciously form a part of our normal thought, or which have been eliminated from it - the "repressed thoughts" that the teaching of Freud has explained. Children growing up are often startled by experiencing in dreams emotions, the origin and meaning of which are unknown to them; and, long after childhood and adolescence are passed, dreams of emotions which would not be admitted to normal consciousness may be experienced. It is well to face all the facts about our nature; an ostrich-like attitude towards them will only leave us ignorant and defenceless. Recognition of these facts gives us increased power over our emotions and increased assurance in dealing with their manifestations both in the normal and in the dream life. What our thoughts are by day we can more or less decide; we need never be at the mercy of chance thoughts, unless we have abandoned the steering wheel by which the course of the mind is guided. It is too often assumed that whereas we can thus direct the activity of the normal mind, we are at the mercy of any emotion or passion in our dreams.

I am sure that this is not really the case.

Teachers of every age and creed, from St. Paul and St. Augustine to Professor William James, have taught in varying language the same lesson - that the impulses and passions of men may be controlled by their will, that base thoughts may be inhibited, driven out by the substitution of nobler ideas. Such repression of base thoughts and such direction of the mind into other channels tends to give us not only the guidance of our thoughts by day, but helps also to decide the nature of our dreams. And even if from time to time unwelcome thoughts, that belong to a lower side of our nature, should reappear, we need not be too much troubled, nor think that the province of dreams lies wholly beyond our control.

We may, if we will, achieve a substantial harmony between these two mental provinces; between our thoughts and actions by day, and our thoughts and actions in dreams, and in a, complete and ordered life the two states would tend to approach each other more nearly. Characteristic differences there will always be between them; but these differences would lie, not in a violent antithesis of moral sense, but in such differences as exist between two persons who, differing from each other in many ways, have nevertheless much in common and who agree in the essentials of outlook and conduct.

It is only when dreams of terror, dreams of grief, and dreams of evil have ceased to have power over us that we are able thoroughly to enjoy our dream life; for it is only then that we are able to embark with entire confidence on the nightly adventure of our dreams, and to explore the unknown and delightful country to which they lend us the key.