One finds in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research many
remarkable examples of dreams which, to the uninitiated, appear truly
miraculous. Remembering, however, the wonders accomplished by Lucie under
the influence of a hypnotic command, we may realize that the book-keepers
who suddenly find in a dream the mistakes which have prevented them from
balancing their books, or the various people who locate missing objects,
are simply continuing in their sleep the day's work, drawing no longer
upon their limited store of conscious memories and impressions, but upon
all the wealth of information which is contained in their unconscious.
Even the famous dream of Professor Hilprecht loses much of its glamour
when viewed from this angle. Hilprecht had spent quite some time trying to
decipher two small fragments of agate which were supposed to belong to the
finger rings of some Babylonian god. He had given up the task and
classified the fragments as undecipherable in a book on the subject. One
night he had put his "o. k." on the final proofs of that book, feeling,
however, rather dissatisfied at his inability to account for the
inscriptions found on those ancient stones. He went to bed, weary and
exhausted and had a remarkable dream: A tall, thin priest of Nippur
appeared to him, led him to the treasure chamber of the temple of Bel and
told him that the two fragments in question should be put together, as
they were, not finger rings, but earrings made for a god by cutting a
votive cylinder into three parts. The next morning he did as the dream
priest had told him to do, and was able to read the inscription without
any difficulty.
I have received many letters from persons relating that they had dreamt of
the San Francisco earthquake, of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, of the
death of some friend or relative the very night preceding the event.
I show in another chapter how treacherous and unreliable our memory of
dreams can be at times.
Happenings following quickly the awakening are likely to become
"parasites" on the night's dreams and to appear as a component part of
them.
Time and over again, the newspaper one reads at breakfast adds details to
the night's remembered dreams. Reading about some accident in the early
morning may cause us to believe that we dreamt of the accident in the
course of the night.
When the German submarines began to sink passenger ships, thousands of
dreamers who either wished unconsciously for such sinkings or feared them
(which is generally the same thing) and many also who craved the
excitement such catastrophes would bring them, must have had dreams in
which large ships were sunk. And those thousands must have impressed
themselves and their family circle by announcing, when the morning
newspaper came out, that they had seen the tragedy enacted in a dream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account