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

From my dreams | reconstructed for
him pictures of that vanished world in
which l do believe | once lived. l
told him of the terrors of that early
time, Of Lop Ear and the pranks we
played. of the gibbering councils and
Of the Fire People and their squatting
places.
He laughed at me and jeered and
told me tales Of ghosts and of the dead
that walk at night. But mostly did he
laugh at my feeble fancy. | told him
more, and he laughed the harder. |
Bwore in all earnestness that these
things were so, and he began to look
upon me queerly; also he gave amaz-
ing garblings of my tales to our play
mates until all began to look upon me
queerly.
1t was a bitter experience, but |
learned my lesson. | was different
from my kind. l was abnormal with
something they could not understand
and the telling of which would cause
only misunderstanding. When the sto-
ries of ghosts and COLLINS went around
| kept quiet. l smiled grimly to my
self. / thought of my nights of fear
and knew that mine were the real
things-real as life itself, not attenuat-
ed vapors and surmised shadows.
For me no terrors resided in the
thought of bugaboos and wicked Ogres.
The fall through leafy branches and
the dizzy heights, the snakes that
struck at me as l lodged and leaped
away in chattering fight, the wild dogs
that hunted me across the open spaces
to the timber-these were terrOrs con-
crete and actual, happenings and not
imaginings, things of the living flesh
and of sweat and blood. Ogres and
bug boos and / had been happy bed
fellows compared with these terrors
that made their bed with me through
out my childhood and that still bed
with me now as I write this, full of
years.
| have said that in my dreams l
never saw a human being. Of this
fact | became aware very early and
felt poignantly the lack Of my own
kind. AS very little child even had
I
of my dreaming that if | could find
but one man, only one human, l
should be saved from my dreaming,
that | should be surrounded no more
by haunting terrors. This thought OBJ
sessed me every night of my life for
years-if only / could find that one
human and be saved!
| must iterate that had this thought
in the midst of my dreaming, and l
take it as an evidence of the merging
of my two personalities as evidence
of a point of contact between the two
disassociated parts of me. My dream
personality lived in the long ago, be
fore ever man as we know him came
to be, and my other and wake-a-day
personality projected itself to the ex-
tent of the knowledge of mans ex-
istence into the substance of my
dreams.
Perhaps the psychologists of the
book will find fault with my way Of
using the phrase DISSATISFACTION of per-
sonality." | know their use of it, yet
am compelled to use it in my own way
in default of a better phrase. | take
shelter behind the inadequacy of the
English language. And now to the
explanation of my use or misuse Of the
phrase.
1t was not till was young man at
college that | got any clew to the sig
nificance of my dreams and to the
cause of them. Up to that time they
had been meaningless and without ap
parent causatiOn But at college | dis
covered evolution and psychology and
learned the explanation of various
strange mental states and experiences
For instance, there was the falling
through space dream, the commonest
dream experience. one practically
known by first hand experience to all
men
This, my professor told me, was
racial memory. 1t dated back to our
remote ancestors who lived in trees.
With them. being tree dwellers, the liza
bility of falling was an ever present
menace. Many lost their lives that
way. All Of them experienced terri