There is only one other element in the dream which the preceding events will not account for, and that is the surprise at the individual referred to having more than one wooden leg. But why should he have even one, seeing that in reality he is limbed like other people? This also I can account for. Two years ago he slightly injured his knee while leaping a ditch, and I remember jocularly advising him to get it cut off. I am particular in illustrating this point with regard to dreams, for I hold that if it were possible to analyze them all, they would invariably be found to stand in the same relation to the waking state as the above specimen. The more diversified and incongruous the character of a dream, and the more remote from the period of its occurrence the circumstances which suggested it, the more difficult does its analysis become; and, in point of fact, this process may be impossible, so totally are the elements of the dream often dissevered from their original sense, and so ludicrously huddled together.” A dream which Professor Maas,[74] of Halle, relates as having occurred to himself, affords an excellent example of the dependence of dreams upon actual events, and shows how these latter are distorted and perverted by the imagination of the sleeper. “I dreamed once,” he says, “that the Pope visited me. He commanded me to open my desk, and he carefully examined all the papers it contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling diamond fell out of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however, neither of us took any notice. As soon as the Pope had withdrawn I retired to bed, but was soon obliged to rise on account of a thick smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon examination I discovered that the diamond had set fire to the papers in my desk, and burned them to ashes.” In analyzing the circumstances which gave rise to this dream, Professor Maas relates the following events, which constituted its basis: