hardly integral enough to be a series, of disconnected pools, many of them perhaps more enchanting than any parts of the waking stream, but not, like that stream, an organic whole with motion toward definite results, and power to attain them.  But suppose the dream life continues after the body’s death, and under direction toward definite ends, at least so far as the waking life is, and still free from the trammels of the waking life—­suppose us to have at least as much power to secure its joys and avoid its terrors as we have regarding those of the waking life; and with all the old intimacies which it spasmodically restores, restored permanently, and with the discipline of separation to make them nearer perfect.  What more can we manage to want?

The suggestion has come to more than one student, that when we enter into life—­as spermatozoa, or star dust if you please—­we enter into the eternal life, but that the physical conditions essential to our development into appreciating it, are a sort of veil between it and our consciousness.  In our waking life we know it only through the veil; but when in sleep or trance, the material environment is removed from consciousness, the veil becomes that much thinner, and we get better glimpses of the transcendent reality.

Does it not seem then as if, in dreams, we enter upon our closer relation with the hyper-phenomenal mind?  All sorts of things seem to be in it, from the veriest trifles and absurdities up to the highest things our minds can receive, and presumably an infinity of things higher still.  They appear to flow into us in all sorts of ways, presumably depending upon the condition of the nerve apparatus through which they flow.  If that is out of gear from any disorder or injury, what it receives is not only trifling, but often grotesque and painful; while if it is in good estate, it often receives things far surpassing in beauty and wisdom those of our waking phenomenal world.

Apparently every dreamer is a medium for this flow, but dreamers vary immensely in their capacity to receive it—­from Hodge, who dreams only when he has eaten too much, or Professor Gradgrind who never dreams at all, up to Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Piper.

As oft remarked, dreams generally are nonsense, but some dreams, or parts of some dreams, are perhaps the most significant things we know.  Each vision, waking or sleeping, must have a cause, and as an expression of that cause, must be veridical.  On the one hand, the cause of a trivial dream is generally too trivial to be ascertained:  it may be too much lobster, or impaired circulation or respiration; while on the other hand (and here the paradox seems to be explained), the cause of an important dream must, ex vi termini, be some important event.  But important events are rare, and therefore significant dreams are rare; while trivial events are frequent, and therefore trivial dreams are frequent.

The important and rare event may be such a conjunction of circumstances and temperaments as makes it possible for a postcarnate intelligence, assuming the existence of such, to communicate with an incarnate one.  That such apparent communications are rare tends to indicate their genuineness.