Our advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in "definition"- a more accurate expression, by words in logy and ism, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries. - Thomas Hardy, Teas of the Tubervilles.

The theory of the symbolic nature of dreams underlies the teaching of all modern psychology. The discovery of this curious characteristic of the dream mind was first made by Freud, and on it he laid great emphasis. In the course of his discoveries in the unconscious he was the first to formulate the theory that beneath the dream itself a subconscious process has been at work fashioning the conscious dream; and he insists further that every dream, if fully analysed, would be found to have a symbolic nature and to be always the allegorical representation of the fulfilment of a sex wish.

I believe that there are indeed many dreams which are symbolic representations of some underlying mental experience, some wish, or trouble, or some pleasanter thought which has occupied our mind by day, and which is transmitted by the dream mind. We can, if we analyse our dreams, trace in certain of them a symbolism under the figure of which such thoughts and moods seem to be represented; but my experience convinces me that it is not true to say that all dreams are symbolic, any more than we can accept as of universal truth the Freudian theory that they are all symbols of repressed desire.

When I examine my own dreams I find that in the cases where these seem to be symbolic the symbolism appears generally to be of a simple and direct nature, relating the dream to some mood that I have experienced, or some problem that I have met with, and it is often fairly easy to trace this idea, which the dream represents in an allegorical form. In this modified sense it seems evident that many dreams are symbolical.

The true Freudian psycho-analyst would not, however, be content with such an analysis as this; for he insists that every dream, if completely analysed, would be revealed as the symbolic fulfilment of a "wish" which is always a "sex wish." He would not accept the definition that "a dream may be the symbolical expression of almost any thought"1 - a definition which perfectly sums up the conclusions to which my own limited experience has led me.

In the case of dreams whose form suggests that they may have a symbolic character, it is interesting to try to trace, with the help of our knowledge of our own mental experience, the underlying idea that the dream probably symbolises; and this idea, and the memories that help to make up the "manifest content" of the dream, can in many cases be easily recognised. We are, however, under an obvious disadvantage if we try further to apply the Freudian theories of analysis to our dreams, and to investigate their "latent content"; for we are warned at the outset that it is difficult, if not practically impossible, to trace this for ourselves, and to discern the repressed thoughts from which they spring; because the normal mind, whose office it is to suppress such thoughts from our consciousness, acts always as "censor," and forbids our becoming aware of them and prevents our recognising the secret impulses which dreams symbolise.

1 Morton Prince, "The Unconscious" p. 221.

"The work of the censor is so complete that the immoral, that is to say unsocial, nature of the wishes constantly striving for utterance is absolutely hidden by him from the dreamer's conscious life, and can be revealed only by psycho-analytic research."1

Only, it would seem, by way of the new confessional can we hope to arrive at the innermost truth about ourselves, and the process appears in some cases to be a somewhat tedious one, and possibly of doubtful usefulness.2

1 Lay, "Man's Unconscious Conflict".

2 The process of psycho-analysis varies in length "according to circumstances from one sitting to hundreds. Daily talks for eight months or a year may be necessary to resolve some of the problems brought by people who are physically sound, according to medical examination, while a single sitting has been known to remove a serious difficulty that has endured for years " - Lay, "Man's Unconscious Conflict," p. 149,

A mere student cannot weigh and judge all the evidence bearing on the "censor" theory, but a plea for the exercise of sober judgment and common sense in our study of this subject and the conclusions that we form, does not seem to be unneeded.

It has been said that symbolism of a simple kind is evidently to be found in some dreams, representing in a changed form a thought which has occupied our mind by day. In the following dream record the symbolism seems to be of a very direct nature:

A little party of people were gathered together in a large room. It was night-time, lamps were lighted, and some of the older ones were playing "patience." I was sitting near the fire with a book reading, and looking out through the long windows which opened on to a wide lawn flooded with moonlight beyond which the arches of a cloister could be seen. A number of girls and boys were dancing on the lawn; as I watched the dancing figures I slipped away from "myself" and ran out to join them; I glanced back from the open window for a moment at the group under the lamplight, at the patience players, and at myself sitting sedately in my low chair with my book open on my knee.

We danced hand in hand in a long chain running very lightly and fast, passing in and out of the shadows of the arches, and out into the moonlit spaces again. The lightness and slenderness of my body delighted me, and as I looked down at my feet I said, laughing, "The old ones by the fire would think that these silk shoes were much too thin for dancing at night upon the grass. "

A youth danced by my side, but he was without importance in the dream and did not interest me; "only," I thought, "I should not be at all in the movement if I were partnerless." A girl in the chain of dancers began to tell a story, another took up the recital, and so the dream went on.