THE FABRIC OF DREAMS CHAPTER I SUBSTANCE OR SHADOW "There is no reason why we should not get together while we can and tell each other our dreams."-PLATO, The Apology. Notwithstanding its world-war, the twentieth century has wrought a truce between the Apocalyptic lion and lamb. Science, represented by Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna, Dr. Carl Jung of Zurich, Dr. Morton Prince of Boston, M. Jules Bois of Paris, Mr. Havelock Ellis of London, and numerous other savants of France, Italy, England and America, has granted the existence of a sixth sense, the subconsciousness, clairvoyance, crystal-gazing and dream interpretation. Thus a cosmic circle, formed of the thought of the ages, has merged ultra-modernism and ancient myth. The recent cognizance taken of dreams by physiology as well as by psychology, savors strongly of ancient philosophy; and an astonishing similarity between twentieth century thought and that of ante-Christianity is apparent in the resuscitated science of dream interpretation. The practice of translating dreams and of searching for their meaning was forgotten by the educated classes during the ages intervening between remote antiquity and our own era, albeit it was to a certain extent kept alive by the superstition of the masses, who, despite the ridicule of the enlightened few, clung to their dreams and to the established and symbolical interpretation thereof. They were a fantastic antidote for the oppression and misery of the lower classes during the Middle Ages. The emphasis with which the wise men of each century affirm or deny the validity of dreams indexes the enlightenment, spiritual or mental, of the era in question. In the dawn of recorded history dreams were held as divine. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks and Romans studied, recorded, and classified their visions, and various degrees of importance and divers meanings were attached thereto. Divinatory and prophetic qualities were attributed to the higher, holier dreams, and the temples of antiquity, notably those of Greece and Egypt, were provided with dormitories wherein the supplicant might slumber and await the message of his dream. From Noah in Genesis to John on Patmos the Bible abounds in dreams. That Jehovah of the Jews is believed to have appeared to His chosen ones as they slept is evidenced by the reverence with which Moses, Abraham, Elijah and other mighty men of the historic past received these nocturnal messages. "For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, then He openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instructions." Thus spoke Elihu, son of Barachel, to Job. The prevalent belief that men were unerringly consoled, warned or punished according to their deserts, established dreams as a medium for the expression of Divine wishes, whether these were thundered from Sinai by Him of the Unspeakable Name, or whether they were attributed to Osiris, the mighty, or to Zeus of the human foibles and numerous loves. The visions of Abraham were undoubtedly dreams and God's promises were made to him as he slept. "And the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said: Unto thy seed will I give this land and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him.” Philo Judeas (25 B. C.) in his "Book of Giants and of Civil Life," pronounces Abraham the first dream interpreter. Believers in an anthropomorphic Deity will note the significant fact that, notwithstanding His love for Abraham, when the latter sinned by denying Sarah as his wife to Abimelech, King of Gorar, God appeared to Abimelech in a dream of warning. And when Abimelech answered horror-stricken: "Lord, wilt Thou slay a righteous nation?" a dream reassured him: "Nay, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart." Herodotus and Josephus regard dreams with reverence, and their historical characters rely upon visions for counsel and guidance, but time has lessened the humility of the world toward these messages. Though still heeded as auguries and portents, dreams had obviously lost their esoteric significance and had assumed the nature of personal premonitions. Herod the Tetrarch dreams of his brother's death, and Mariamne, Herod's wife, is warned that her own beautiful body must perish, and these dreams, though verified, savour of the gathering shades of superstition rather than the glow of faith. Even the warnings of Christ's birth brought to Herod's dream interpreters the mere foreshadowing of an earthly monarch who might supplant the weak despot on a tottering throne held at the caprice of Rome. While the thunderous portents of the Christian Era were translated to Herod's puerile egotism as earthly rivalry, until, shivering under his own pigmy conception, he issued the edict that "fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet," the proclamation that spread woe among the mothers of Judea. Joseph's dreams concerning the son of Mary seem to have left him troubled and somewhat puzzled, while the forewarning sent to Pontius Pilate's wife pierces the centuries as the cry of an anxious woman, rather than the wail of a soul over the tragedy of all ages. Mary the Virgin and Saint Elizabeth dreamed with clearer vision than did their contemporaries, or than did the smoke smothered oracles of the past, but these two stood alone, even as Saint John of the mystic Revelation and Saint Paul, who became blind that he might see, were the pharos of their time, shining upon a world darkened with the double shadow that holds when the stars are set and before the sun has risen. Thus at the time of Christ's coming, not only men's dreamings, but their very souls had lost the sweep of the spiritual and had materialized to a circumstance in the individual life. The legend of the voice crying across the waters of the Nile, mourning the death of Pan, the god of nature, was founded upon a pilot's dream, yet it bore its literal and prophetic meaning: Pan's day was actually done, the sun had set upon old faiths; and although a brighter day was dawning a long darkness must follow before the sun could wax sufficiently strong to penetrate the materialism of the crepuscular mid-era. This chaos, however, prevailed chiefly in the civilized world. In the barbarous north, for the most part unknown and uncharted, the old gods held sway; the Druids prophesied and dreamed in their groves, and faith and vision remained mystic, strong and true. Saxo Grammaticus and Livy describe auguries, oracles and vivid, sentient dreams, invariably fulfilled, whether of good or evil portent, and received trustfully as sacred messages. They dealt with armies, dynasties and the fate of nations, and with arcana celestial or diabolical rather than with the ordinary individual. The women accompanied their men to battle, counseling with celestial wisdom or healing wounds by magic and by the art of simples. The prophetesses were called Vollen and their songs and lamentations were echoed in the north long after the introduction of Christianity; besides the Vollen there were the Valkyren, dreaming, battling maidens, whose celestial attributes entitled them to immortality, for piety was commingled with ferocity in the hearts of these deep-bosomed dreamers of the north. Vitellius, the first Emperor to make use of the northern troops to become ruler of Rome, was invariably accompanied by one of these sybils who interpreted his dreams. Boadicea, the |