Moreover, I can never understand the
curious way in which dream-experiences, so vivid at the time, melt
away upon awakening. If one rehearses a dream in memory the moment
one awakes, it becomes a very distinct affair. If one does not do
this, it fades swiftly, and though one has a vague sense of rich
adventures, half an hour later there seems to be no power whatever
of recovering them.
Strangest of all, the inventive power in dreams seems to have a
range and an intensity which does not exist when one is awake. I
have not the slightest power, in waking life, of conceiving and
visualising the astonishing landscapes which I see in dreams. I can
recall actual scenes with great distinctness, but the glowing
colour and the prodigious forms of my landscape visions are wholly
beyond my power of thought.
Lastly, I have never had any dream of any real or vital
significance, any warning or presentiment, anything which bore in
the least degree upon the issues of life.
There is a beautiful passage in the "Purgatorio" of Dante about the
dawn: he writes
In that hour
When near the dawn the swallow her sad song,
Haply remembering ancient grief, renews;
And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh
And less by thought restrained, are, as 't were, full
Of holy divination in their dreams.
I suppose that it would be possible to interpret one's dreams
symbolically; but in my own case my dream-experiences all seem to
belong to a wholly different person from myself, a light-hearted,
childish, careless creature, full of animation and inquisitiveness,
buoyant and thoughtless, content to look neither forwards nor
backwards, wholly without responsibility or intelligence, just
borne along by the pleasure of the moment, perfectly harmless and
friendly as a rule, a sort of cheerful butterfly.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133