Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/135

Rh tragically shows that he recognizes that life—our waking life—can be brought under the rule of right reason. He does not advise us not to take our dreams tragically, for he knows that the dream state is one not susceptible of rational regulation, and this, we think, might very properly be accounted a third very important difference between dream and reality. The true advice to give to those whose happiness we have at heart is, not to look upon life as a kind of dream, but to take it serious ly, to study its laws, and to accept the burdens and duties it imposes. It may be remarked that dreams give very little trouble, as a rule, to those whose waking hours are well spent, and whose minds and bodies are kept in a condition of healthful balance. We can indeed in the waking state take measures to reduce our dreams to a minimum, and to provide that at least they shall not be of a distressing character. Such being the case, it seems idle, to say the least, to speculate, as many besides M. Mélinand have done, on the possible reality of dreams. What Bottom said of his dream, "Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream," might be applied without much risk of error to dreams generally; unless the exposition takes the direction of endeavoring to explain what antecedent mental or physical condition, or what circumstances acting upon the sleeper, may have given rise to the dream in a given case.

M. Mélinand makes a remark which the experience of many will confirm, that dreams sometimes throw a light of extraordinary intensity on characters and situations, giving us, perhaps, truer views of certain things than we had ever attained in our waking hours. This, however, would only imply the withdrawal at such moments of influences or conditions which, in our waking life, may have the effect of rendering insight less keen and uncompromising. If, for example, we could in our dreams revert to the standpoint of childhood, we should see many things with a directness which is more or less lacking to our mature cogitations, and pronounce judgments in a correspondingly down-right manner, with perhaps a closer approximation to absolute truth. This, however, would manifestly not imply any extension of our mental range, nor afford any guarantee of the "reality" of the dream life. The intuitions of the novelist or dramatist, when they are true and profound, give a wonderful air of reality to the scenes which the author portrays, but do not make them real. There are various waking states in which our perceptions are more than normally acute; and, as we know, the loss of one physical organ leads frequently to an increase of power in others; but these facts throw little light on the main problem of life, which is how to develop and use our normal powers to the best purpose and with the best results. At the same time it is well not to despise any knowledge that may come to us from dreams in the way of self-revelation or otherwise, but to use it for the strengthening of what is weak and the rectifying of what is wrong. In that way dreams may be made subsidiary to the better government of our higher waking life.

As to the conclusion the writer draws, that, as we wake from dreams, so we may some day wake from this life, which is so like a dream, we leave it to the judgment of our readers, merely remarking that it would be very unfortunate if the thought of such an awakening should lead any one to think little of this life, or abate any effort which he can make to render it, if a dream, a happy dream to himself and others.