The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1915-06-12

DREAMS NOT OF HOME.
Soldiers Have Nightmares of Shells
and Night Attacks.

and Night Attacks.
The popular idea of the soldier IS
dream, as represented by the colored
supplements Of our weekly periodi-
Gals would appear from the statements !,
of men who have come home from the /
front, to be as fallacious as it is de-
hghtful. The soldiers dream, accord |
ing to the supplement artist, is dream
of home. He sees III vision the old
cottage with the roses climbing up the
wall where he spent so many happy,
peaceful days as a lad. He sees his
old mother and father, hale in their
longevity, comfortably ensconsed on
either side of the fireplace with OF
without fire); he sees his sweetheart
(or is it his sister?), clad in pink, set
ting the knives and forks for dinner;
he sees a small child with golden curls
playing with a cat and parti-colored
ball; and he sees himself coming in at
the door, bronzed and handsome, with
eager arms outstretched to embrace the
folk he left behind him. The dream
varies, of course, with the supplement,
but it il always q dream of home a
dream rooted in the sentiment that
would appear to go hand hand with
the three-color process. And that Is
| just whore the editor and artists who
are responsible for these heart-strino
| pullers make the mistake.
| 1t appears that one of the common
| est dreams is that of a sudden call to
arms. The dreamer imagines that he
has been suddenly awakened from his
sleep, and that All his comrades are
busy pulling on their clothes. He fol-
| lows suit-but he cannot find his gun,
| or else some article of attire He be-
| gins to search for it, while the others
| drift away. He goes on searching for
| it, suffering a mental agony more and
| more intense as every moment flies by,
| but he can find it nowhere. At last he
| is left alone. still searching -. That
is a real soldier IS dream. 1t is not a
good subject for supplement. 1t
brings home to one wildly the har-
RAISING anxieties of war.
Another common dream, according to
correspondent of the Lancet, is con-
cerned with live shells The dreamer
sees shell hurting through the air,
or he finds it in his bed. For some rea-
son he is unable to move. All he can
do is to stare and wait-wait for the
she'll to burst, as it win clearly burst
before another second has gone by,
and send him to the land of kingdom
come Everyone in the course of their
dreaming must have met with this ex-
traorlinary inability to perform some
perfectly simple action at a critical mo-
ment 1t is the basis of a large per
centage of Nightmares. How many
Nightmares, too, depend on the fever
ish attempt to accomplish some i'm
portant piece of work before the fall
of the thunderbolt! Several soldiers
have dreamed that an enemy is dashing
down upon them, while their bayonets
which they are unable to withdraw
have been rooted in the body of {
! German adversary.
1t must not be thought that 1t is the
nervous and neurotic soldiers who are
given to these terrifying dreams. APP
parently the bravest are subject tt
them. Sometimes they. become som
! nambulists. and wander about II
! search of their regiments. For one q
the greatest fears by which a soldier
is haunted is that he may lose contact
: with his regiment. He imaglnes he Is
; all alone. that he is stealing through
; some forest in an attempt to Tejoir
, his comrades. or that he is wandering
: 1 through Il Dew ilttcliuS dtlNA lAAtA ~ ~
! network of deserted trenches, as com
plicated and battling as the maze a
Hampton court
The war dreams of those at home
and we have all had our war dreams
are singularly tame in comparison
t though some of these, of course, have
a throb of terror in them. Often. how
h ever. the dreamer ut home remains a
: much a spectator in the face of dan
ger as he remains while reading som,
vivid newspaper account Of grea
battle The writer has twice
dreamed of Zeppelin raids, but OF
neither occasion had he the slightes
desire to seek safety in cellars. HI
remained calm and extremely inter
: ested member of an audience, though
once a Zeppelin came right up to hi
! window and one of the German airmel
thrust his head inside On another oc
easion he saw the entry of the Ger
mans into London along the embank
ment, while he was taking part in tn
Oxford and Cambridge cricket mattel
! in Spring gardens. The triumph o
! Germany left him completely unat
fected; the only point that trouble
his mind was whether it was goo
E FORM to go on playing while the Gel
A. 4