THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



illusion. But when the same form stands before our 

 dreaming mentality, its reality is unchallenged; we 

 believe ourselves to be in the actual presence of the re- 

 membered persons ; while we are dreaming we no more 

 doubt the substantiality of the apparition than we 

 doubt the direct evidence of our waking senses, when 

 an actual person stands before us. 



I have already offered a brief explanation of this 

 phenomenon, in the suggestion that the illusion is due 

 to the fact that the dream lacks the background of 

 varied impressions, memories, and conditioned ideas 

 that always give a more or less true sense of personality 

 to the thoughts of the day-dreamer. But we are not now 

 concerned with the cause of this phenomenon; we are 

 concerned with the fact itself, which accords with the 

 commonest experience. 



I suppose there is no reader of these pages who has 

 not dreamed of standing in the presence of some friend 

 who has long since departed this life. At all events, 

 such dreams are not uncommon with most of us. 

 Many students of the evolution of human ideas contend 

 as it seems to me with no little reason that such 

 dreams as this are responsible for some of the most 

 fixed delusional ideas that hold our race in subjection. 

 They believe that the savage, away back in those dim 

 prehistoric days, was wont to dream of meeting his 

 dead foes and friends, and that the undisciplined 

 child of nature accepted the apparition of the dream 

 state as a real manifestation. While he slept so he 

 verily believed his spirit had been set free from its 

 fleshly habiliments, and had wandered forth on ex- 



