This leads naturally to the consideration of the power of the imagination in the blind. It is not difficult to understand that they are deprived of one powerful means of cultivating this faculty, that the eye is in one sense the organ of the ideal. Their knowledge is more realistic and tangible, and so their dreams often, though by no means always, lack all poetical characteristics, and are very commonplace. Ghosts, elves, fairies, monsters, and all the host of strange romance that commonly people dreams, are not nearly so well represented as in the dreams of the sighted. What is almost typical in the dreams of the latter is unusual in the dreams of the blind, especially of those early blind. Many observe that such dreams grow rare as they outgrow their youth,[21] which is probably true of the sighted. When the blind dream of ghosts they either hear them, and that usually not until they are close at hand, or they are actually touched by them. A blind man, describing a dream in which his friend appeared to him, said: "Then I dreamt that he tried to frighten me, and make believe he was a ghost, by _pushing me down sideways_," etc. By some the ghost is heard only; it has a rough voice, and its bones rattle; or it pursues the victim, humming and groaning as it runs. Contrary to the opinions of some writers, I find hearing, and not the group of tactual-motor sensations, to be the chief sense with the blind, both in waking and in dreams. That hearing owes very much of this supremacy to its being the vehicle of conversation, goes without saying. Many of the blind dream almost exclusively in this sense, and it is quite generally spoken of as the most important. Even those who see a little, often regard hearing as their most useful sense; those who see well enough to see color, almost invariably claim for their partial sight an importance exceeding that of hearing. Next in importance to hearing is the group of sensations accompanying motion. An important item in the dreams of the sighted is furnished by this complex of sensations, and the same is true of the blind; almost all remember such dreams, and some make this their most important avenue of sensation. Yet such a purely artificial movement as reading the raised type with the finger almost never occurs in dreams. The boys dream of playing, running, jumping, and so on; the men of broom-making, piano-tuning, teaching, and similar work; the girls of sewing, fancy work, household work, and the like.