THE WILDERNESS OF THE MIND 237 



we see that the prick of the pin itself, the serpent's 

 bite, is but the culmination and the last act and word 

 in a dramatic scene which had taken some time in 

 the acting. Yet the whole incident, with its feelings, 

 thoughts, acts, must both begin and end with the 

 pin prick. 



There is something else in a dream of this type, 

 just as wonderful as the inconceivable rapidity of 

 the mind in framing its usually far-fetched and 

 fantastic story and series of scenes to account for 

 the sensation. This is that imagination — the creative 

 faculty — often appears to live and function brilliantly 

 during sleep in persons who when awake appear to 

 be wholly without such a faculty. 



But I have long been convinced that there is 

 nothing in this dim spot which men call earth, per- 

 haps nothing in the entire universe, more marvellous 

 than the mind in its secret doings; also that all the 

 wonderful things, the apparitions, visitations and 

 revelations, new and old, the messages and tidings 

 of strange happenings in other worlds than ours, 

 and in other states of being, are all, all, all to be 

 found, if properly looked for, in this same well-nigh 

 unexplored wilderness of the mind. 



