Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-03-15

ufeSIn, WHICH Is 50 ldni4IlIF " you dAu
me and all of us, we never strike bot
TOM To strike bottom would be de-
struction. Those of our arbOreal an
cestors who struck bottom died forth
with. True, the shock of their fall
was communicated to the cerebral
cells, but they died immediately before
they could have progeny. You and
are descended from those that did not
strike bottom. That is why you and
| in our dreams never strike bottom.
And now we come to disassociation
of personality. We never have this
sense of falling when we are wide
awake. Our wake-a-day personality
has no experience of it. Then-and
here the argument is irresistible
must be another and distinct personal
ity that falls when we are asleep and
that has had experience of such fall
ing-that has, in short a memory OF
past day race experiences, just as our
wake-a-day personality has memory
of our wake-a-day experiences.
1t was at this stage in my reasoning
that l began to see the light. And
quickly the light burst upon me with
dazzling brightness, Illuminating and
explaining all that had been weird and
uncanny and unnaturally impossible in
my dream experiences. In my sleep it
was not my wake-a-day personality
that took charge of me. 1t was anOth-
er and distinct personality, possessing
a new and totally different fund of ex-
periences and, to the point of my
dreaming, possessing memories of those
totally different experiences.
What was this personality? When
had it itself lived wake-a-day life on
this planet in order to collect this fund
of strange experiences? These were
questions that my dreams themselves
answered He lived in the long ago,
when the world was young. in that
period that we call the midpleistOcene.
He fell from the trees, but did not
strike bottom. He gibbered with fear
at the roaring Of the lions. He was
pursued by beasts of prey, struck at
by deadly snakes. He Chartered with
his kind in council, and he received
rough usage at the hands of the Fire
People in the day that he fed before
them
But, hear you Objecting. why is it
that these racial memories are not ours
as well, seeing that we have a vague
other personality that falls through
space while we sleep?
And | may answer with another
question: Why is a two headed calf?
And my own answer to this is that it
is a freak. And so l answer your
question. l have this other personality
and these complete racial memories be-
cause i am freak.
But let me be more explicit. The
commonest race memory we have is
the falling through space dream. This
other personality is very vague. About
the only memory it has is that of fall
ing. But many of US have sharper.
more distinct other personalities. Many
of us have the flying dream, the pur-
suing monster dream, color dreams.
suffocation dreams and the reptile and
vermin dreams. In short, while this
other personality is vestigial in all of
us, in some Of us it is almost obliter-
ated, while in others of us it is more
pronounced. Some of us have stronger
and cOmpleter race memories than
others.
1t is all q question of varying degree
Of possession of the other personality
IN myself the degree of possession is
enormous. My other personality is al
most equal in power with my own per-
sonality And in this matter | am, as
| said, q freak--a freak of heredity.
| do not believe that it is the pos
session of this other personality-but
not so strong q one as mine-that has
in some few others given rise to belief
in personal reincarnatiOn experiences.
1t is very plausible to such people.
most convincing hypothesis. When
they have visions of scenes they have
never seen in the flesh, memories OF
acts and events dating back in time,
the simplest explanation is that they
have lived before.
But they make the mistake of ignOr-
ing their own duality. They do not
recognize their other personality. They
think it is their own personality, that
they have only one personality, and
from such premise they can conclude
only that they have lived previous lives.
But they are wrong. 1t is not rein
carnatiOn. | have visions of myself
roaming through the forests of the
younger world and yet it is not myself
that see, but one that is only remote
ly a part Of me, as my father and my
grandfather are parts of me less re-
mote. This other self of mine is an
ancestor a progenitor of my progeni-
tors in the early line of my race, him
self the progeny of a line that long be-
fore his time developed fingers and
toes and climbed up into the trees.
| must again at the risk of boring re-
peat that | am iii this one thing to be
considered a freak. Not alone do |
possess racial memory to an enormous
extent, but | possess the memories Of
one particular and far removed pro-
genitor. And yet, while this is most
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