[Footnote 2: As some writers give a rather special meaning to the word 'consciousness,' I may say that I simply mean by it (as defined by Baldwin and Stout in the _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_) 'the distinctive character of whatever may be called mental life,' or, as Professor Stratton puts it, in defence of this broad definition (_Psychological Bulletin_, April 1906), 'consciousness designates the common and generic feature of our psychic acts.' Dreaming then becomes, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'conscious process during sleep.' It should be added that there is much uncertainty about any definition of consciousness. Bode ('Some Recent Definitions of Consciousness,' _Psychological Review_, July 1908) thinks it 'a matter for legitimate doubt' whether any definition of consciousness can be adequate, and Mercier (art. 'Consciousness' in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_) boldly proclaims--quite justly, I think--that 'consciousness is not susceptible of definition,' for we can never go behind it or outside it. That we have to admit various kinds, or at all events various degrees, of consciousness will become clear in our discussion of dreaming.] [Footnote 3: By 'subconscious' is meant, as defined by Baldwin and Stout, 'not clearly recognised in a present state of consciousness, yet entering into the development of subsequent states of consciousness.' Some psychologists strongly dislike the word 'subconscious.' They are even disposed to argue that there is no subconscious mind, and that before and after the stage of 'awareness,' psychic facts only exist as 'dispositions of brain cells.' The psychologist, however, as such, has no concern with brain cells which belong to the histologist. When we occupy ourselves with dreams we realise at every step that it is possible for psychic states to exist and to affect our 'awareness,' while at the same time they are not immediately within the sphere of that 'awareness.' Psychic states of this kind seem most properly termed 'subconscious,' that is to say slightly, partially, or imperfectly conscious. Any objection to so precise and convenient a term for a real phenomenon seems, indeed, to belong to the sphere of personal idiosyncrasy into which we have perhaps no right to intrude.] [Footnote 4: Foucault, _Le Rêve_, 1906.] [Footnote 5: Foucault, _op. cit._, ch. iv.] [Footnote 6: Foucault, _op. cit._, p. 49.] [Footnote 7: This occasionally retrospective character of dreams has long been known, and was referred to by the writer of an article on 'Dreams and Dreaming' in the _Lancet_ for 24th November 1877.]