We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul It is the litigation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. - Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, xi

The following slight studies dealing with certain dream problems have been written from a series of notes, in which dreams and certain experiments in dreaming have been more or less regularly recorded during a long period of years. If it is asked what they have to offer that is new on a subject on which so much has been already written, the answer must be that we are even now only at the beginning of this study, that many problems concerning dreams and concerning the border state that lies between sleeping and waking are still to be solved, and that some of these have as yet hardly been touched on at all in the literature of dreams. There are many aspects of these questions which can only be very imperfectly dealt with by an unscientific observer whose want of technical knowledge is a grave disadvantage in writing on a subject to which so much learning has been devoted, yet I believe that there is room in this fascinating study not only for the philosopher and the psychologist, but also for the xxvii unlearned but faithful recorder of personal experience. Our dreams are the most individual of all our experiences, and we each approach them from a separate standpoint of our own.

Psychology is the science of individual experience, and the facts that are eventually sifted and weighed in its laboratories must first be gathered by humble gleaners in many widely scattered fields.

The plea made in this book that more of us should learn to watch and record accurately the facts of our own dream experience is made, not only because of the constantly increasing value to science of a fuller knowledge of the working of the dream mind, but also because I am sure that those who follow this study and learn to remember more of their own dream life, will find themselves amply rewarded, Life brings to all of us sad and anxious waking hours, and to most men it brings days of monotonous labour; but to every one, whatever the sorrow or the toil of the day may be, night should bring release. When we enter the country of dreams we are not only liberated from the bondage of labour, but shackles are loosed which by day keep the imagination tied to earth. Only in sleep the imagination is set at liberty and is free to exercise its fullest powers. Sleep which brings us our dreams fulfils the eternal need within us, the need of romance, the need of adventure; for sleep is the gate which lets us slip through into the enchanted country that lies beyond. We give too little heed to the nightly miracle of our dreams. Long hours are spent by us in dreaming sleep, during which we are absorbed in a life which is for the most part forgotten or ignored by our waking consciousness.

We speak of it so rarely to each other that we know hardly anything about each other's dream life, and many things combine to make us curiously ignorant and forgetful even of our own. For want of interest in dreams, or merely because we have never learned how to retain these fugitive impressions, they vanish when we wake as mist vanishes in sunlight. Nothing fades more quickly than these memories, and unless some method is acquired by which we can hold them fast they are lost; but if a more alert interest were once aroused this need not happen, and we need not so often lose the recollection of all that has filled the sleeping hours. As we learn to use more intelligently the instruments of mind and body that are ours, our interest is quickened in the processes of dreaming, and in the working of the mind in sleep. Such quickened observation means for us the heightening of consciousness, the becoming aware of new experience - and "to become aware of new experience is one of the thrills life gives us."1 A twofold pleasure then becomes ours: the interest that the study of dreams gives us and the delight of dream adventures, a delight that I have discovered, can be greatly extended and perfected by learning how to dream well.

Amongst the records of dreams that have made the foundation of this book, a considerable number are notes of experiments which were made to find out to what extent the control of our dreams lies within our power; how, for instance, dreams of distress can be checked or banished, and how far the art of happy dreaming can be cultivated. This question of dream control does not, as far as I know, come within the scope of other books. I have found it a fascinating path of enquiry, and perhaps other lovers of dreaming may be willing to find out a way along similar hitherto unmapped roads. In this company of dream lovers and dream students there are very likely explorers who have already travelled much further than I have done, whose investigations have been more thorough, and who might, if there were a clearing house of dream knowledge, bring it their stores of valuable experience.

1 Stephen Graham, "A Tramp's Sketches".

By rights, perhaps, the task of an unscientific recorder of dreams should be simply to explore - to record his experiences in the dream state; leaving it to science to explain the whys and wherefores of what has been observed. But it is very difficult for one who has dreamed much, and thought much, and read much, about dreaming not to stray a little beyond the proper province of the recorder, and not to attempt some partial explanation of some of the riddles that are met with. Part, at least, of the extensive literature of psychology must be studied before we can attempt to formulate any answers to these questions, and as our reading extends the complexity of the problems before us deepens.

Persona] experience seems often to contradict widely accepted theories of dream construction and origin; the truth being that dreams are of such infinite variety that no theory of their mechanism, even when formulated by the greatest of teachers, will adequately account for the whole of this wide field of human experience.

In order to use the language of science correctly, the training of science is needed, and many pitfalls lie in the way of the student. One such pitfall is met with at the very outset. Scientific critics have come to no agreement as to the term that shall be used to express the "mind" or "self" which appears to operate in dreams. The existence of such a "self" or "mind" as distinct from the normal mind is indeed a matter of dispute and is accepted only as a possible working hypothesis for the purposes of enquiry. The expression "unconscious mind" is objected to as being a contradiction in terms; and the writer who, avoiding it, reverts to the word "subconscious," finds that this gives even less satisfaction. An apology must therefore be made at once for the use throughout these pages of the expression "dream mind," an expression which is no less "woolly," no less unsatisfactory than the others, and which equally evades grave fundamental difficulties, its only merit being that, as it makes no pretensions to belong to the vocabulary of science, it does not suggest the possession of scientific knowledge to which I can lay no claim.

This little book, which is too slight to take a place amongst the more learned books about dreams, will fulfil the object with which it was written if it succeeds in showing something of the attractiveness of this study, and if it reminds us of the measure, too often overlooked, that is added by our dreams to the sum of life's happiness.