The skylark soars apparently for its pleasure, wild ducks fly in circles round towards roosting time, and rooks and starlings perform evolutions that do not seem to have any special purpose in the air; but these are exceptions from the general rule that the birds only use their wings to take them where their business calls them, and do not go flying about for the fun of flying, as we imagine we should do if we could. Our flight in dreams - so to call what really resembles a fast floating through the air rather than the series of impulsive movements that go to make flight - is always an amusement; we never seem to use the power as a base means of transit merely. It is something better. An exceptional case of the flying dream, in respect of the altitude of the height, is given by another correspondent who says: "The flying dream I often dream, only I always find myself flying at a great height, and a delightful sensation it is. I seem to dread getting nearer the ground, as I know I shall be unable to rise again, and yet eventually something drags me down, and when I get near the earth I always awake." Is this an instance of the flying dream passing into the falling dream? Its end has some of the features of the falling dream, and we have seen cases of the falling dream apparently passing into the flying dream, or at least into the air - skating or sliding.

These instances are to be noticed, because it is one of the commonplace remarks about dreams, that in spite of their incoherence they always follow the same emotional course. That is to say, that a pleasant dream is pleasant from first to last, the imagination selecting only the thoughts that are pleasurable and stringing them together in its own haphazard fashion, whereas in an unpleasant dream the imagination picks up only the unpleasant things that are suggested. This is a theory to which I find many contradictory instances, dreams often passing from the pleasant to the disagreeable and via versa, The passing from falling to flying, and perhaps vice versa are instances in point, for the falling dream, although generally unaccompanied with terror, is the reverse of pleasant, whereas the dream - flight is always pleasant, however lowly it may be. The idea that filling the Pangs,and so giving oneself the feeling of buoyancy, helps in levitation, occurs in several of the communications I have had under this head. "The flying dream," writes one, "was common with me some years ago, but I used to fly by going sideways, not far, say eighteen inches, from the ground, every now and again giving myself a fresh push on with my foot.

I fancied breathing helped me, but everything seemed to depend on the volition of the will. As I used to glide by people I used to pity their having to walk, and wonder that I ever walked when I could go thus!" This sense of wonder and compassion is very typical of the flying dream, and scarcely less so is the idea that a deal of the flight is done by hard willing. What is very unusual is the sense of flying sideways. The common sensation is of floating forward in a horizontal line, the body itself in a horizontal attitude, or, far less often, upright. This side swimming action, with a kick off the floor now and then, is quite abnormal Another writer confirms the service that the will seems to perform in the dream flight, as follows: "With respect to dreams of flying, I have never had them, but I have often and often felt in my dreams that I had a perfect power of swimming through the air, without any bodily action, but simply by a strong effort of volition. So vivid has this impression been, that on awaking I have been for some time unable to persuade myself that it was only a dream." In spite of the writer's preface to this account, it is evident that his is really the "flying dream "in the sense, perhaps too loose, in which I have used the term as a class - heading.

Not only does the account fall within the class, but it is fairly typical of it, so far as the account explains itself. The flying dream has a distinct type of its own. It is apt, as we have seen, to pass into the falling dream, in which case it seems to lose its pleasurable character and become disagree-able. But I do not think that in any typical case of the flying dream it gives other than a delightful sensation. One of my correspondents, it is true, writes in a contrary sense: "As regards what you say about flying dreams being a pleasurable sensation, it never was so to me. As a child I have a vivid recollection of constantly flying downstairs in my dream, but having all the time a perfect terror of dropping down, and was only too thankful when I found myself on terra

Jirma at the bottom."

This, which is given as a contradictory instance, is really not to be regarded in that light, for it is evident that this is a quite different dream from the typical flying dream. It is indeed quite as like the type of the falling dream, and is to be looked on more as an instance of the transition from the one class to the other. There is more of terror expressed in the account of it than is common even in the falling dream itself, from the type of which it is further separated by the ultimate safe landing at the bottom. But probably this is really to be regarded as one of the unclassified dreams which do not fall fairly under the one class or the other, for this reason, that the correspondent names the particular staircase (in their house in Amen Court) down which she used to take this dream flight or fall This sensation of a distinctly recognised locality of the fall or flight is not typical of either the falling or the flying dream. In general there is the sensation of falling or flying, but not falling down any particular precipice or well, nor flying to or from any particular place. There are exceptions, but this is the rule, and this singular dream we are talking about must rank, I think, among the great number of the unclassified.

It presents too many exceptions to come very kindly under either the falling or the flying head.