PYSCHOLOGY AND DREAMS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 309, 24 September 1918, Page 6

PYSCHOLOGY AND DREAMS

'' : HOW TH3 MIND REGISTERS.

:y Psychology offers a. simple explanation of the ancient puzzle of dreams. '■To the philosophers of old dreams were a head-breaking source of 'bewilderment,'and furnished the -never-failing ■ taunt of .the sceptic: How can you tell 'whether you are dreaming or awaker r While this worthy question may still ■fee asked with perverse logio, soienco '.. advances a highly plausible theory ot dreams. . Every activity, every experience, is registered in the brain as a memory, /conscious i experiences as conscious memories, unconscious experiences as unconscious memdries. _' And the conscions memories which disappear, things {forgotten, are still retained as unconscious memories. If wo think of tha great number of things that we experience ■unconsciously—for instance, how : -many people we see and dp not remember the next moment—and the still greater number that we remember for •a while and then" forget, it will bo apparent what great quantities of unconscious memories are =towed away in the dim depths of our minds. Some of i them it is difficult to recall, .but more ■cannot consciously he recalled at all. . ' 'When the-I'ctivities which engross, ' our conscious life are stilled in sleep, - from the unconscious appear, -'■Just as the stars shine'out when the ''. :6un's obscuring brightness is gone, and i things forgotten beyond recall, and "1 things' which we experienced and never j . consciously knew .about, together, perifcaps, with conscious memories,,appear ,-.'in' chaotic order, the logical restraint j .-' of waking hours removed. '.' You read a book and forget (-very "word of it. Years later a scene from 'the same book will come into your mind (as a dream; vou will not recognise it land will marvel where it came from.; Or you will see a person casually on ■ Ihe street and bo perfectly unconscious • of it. "But/every experience is registered •' in the' mind somewhere, and some .' day you may see that same person in a •dream. Perhaps some of the great :' .store of impressions hid away in your 'unconscious mind will come to the surface in a dream in suoh a way that you will.feel that there is something,mysterious about it. '.■''■' ~ . , -'••' An old lady once told the writer or '"a'''dream she had; citing it as a complete justification, of her belidf m spir]tf?.''' While oh a shopping tour sho mislaid a valuable'umbrella, and for the,, life of' heiKcould not remember what she had .done with it. It wor- .': lied her considerably, and that night she had a dream, in which sho saw '.-. , Jierself e,o into a restaurant, hang up the umbrella, find after eating her ■■'' lunch go away, forgetting it. She went to the restaurant, and found she had left her umbrella there as she, dreamed. : She insisted upon '■■■ the fact that she hadn't the slightest ■■ recollection of leaving tho umbrella at -,' the restaurant, and that something from the supernatural world had-oorae '■: to her in her dream and reminded her, and cited the incident as proof tive of the truth of spiritualism, when, in fact, far from being mysterious, it was a classical example of the natural 'theory of dreams. She had, indeed, no conscious memory of leaving the um? brella, but every aotion, every oxperi- ' <'nce, is, registered in the mind, and . this particular unconscious memory appeared in her sleep. - Obliteration of the vivid impressions of'normal-life can also bo induced by hypnotism ' arid by deliberate abstraction of the mind People have various flftirees of abilitv to banish impressions from their minds: with some it is p. peculiar gift. The mind, in a condi- ■ tioh somewhat similar to sleep, effers a field ifor tho appearance of unconscious memories, and many 'seemingly mysterious phenomena akin to dreams may be had. . Looking intently at sonio object is an oxcellent aid to abstraction, and a crystal is as good as anything else. This is the secret of the crystal gazer, who, gazing into a crystal, goes into a state of mental ah-' straction, in which unconscious memor- • ies appear. The gazer, when not a charlatan complete, is quite convinced that while in this condition he nr she 'knows things which he or she is unconscious , of during ordinary times, and he or she ,-is quite correct. The explanation is simply unconscious memories coming to the surface.