e power that can foresee the future. It would be strange if
dreams, trafficking as they do with such wide and various experiences,
did not occasionally seem to be related to events of the following day,
however little anticipated those events may be; but no theory of dreams
would be satisfactory or scientific which did not take account of the
vast number of occasions on which they do not in the least correspond
with what followed in the day. The natural temper of man is so
pre-eminently unscientific that a single occasion on which a dream does
seem to correspond in a curious manner with subsequent events outweighs
a thousand occasions on which no such correspondence is traceable. Yet
nothing but a long series of premonitory dreams could suffice for the
basis of a scientific theory.

The main interest of dreams to myself is that they serve to show the
essential texture of the mind. In waking hours I am conscious of many
natural phenomena which make a strong impression on my mind; but my
dreaming mind makes, it seems, a whimsical selection among these
incidents, and discards some, while it makes a liberal use of others.
For instance, in real life, the sight of a beautiful sunset is a common
experience, and stirs in me the most profound emotion; yet I have never
seen a sunset in dreams. All my dreams are enacted in a pale and clear
light of which the source is never visible. I have never seen sun,
moon, or star in a dream. Again, to step into a farther region, I am a
good deal occupied in real life by ethical considerations; but in
dreams I have absolutely no sense of morality. I am afraid, in my
dreams, of the consequences of my acts; but I commit a murder or a
theft in a dream without the least scruple of conscience.

Whether this proves that my morality, my conscience, in real life, is a
purely conventional thing, acquired by habit, I do not know; it would
appear to be so. Again, some of my most habitual actions in real life
are never repeated in dreams; I have for many years devoted much time
and energy to literary work in real life, but in dreams I have never
written anything; though I have heard poems repeated or read from books
which are purely imaginary, and I have even read my own compositions
aloud from what appeared in dreams to be a previously written
manuscript; but I am never conscious, in dreams, of ever having put pen
to paper for any purpose whatever, even to write a letter. Yet, again,
it is not as thoug