356 The American Naturalist. [April, 
affect the organ of vision just before the beginning of sleep. - Some such 
theory seems necessary to account for the facts brought out in these 
experiments. 
In a note in the Revue philosophique, M. E. Goblot speaks of the 
connection between dreams and the act of awakening. He urges the 
view that dreams which we remember are those which accompany the 
latter state. The passage from sleep to wakefulness, like that from 
wakefulness to sleep, is not an instantaneous process; it occupies at 
least an appreciable time. The dreams which we are able to remember 
afterwards are those that belong to this period of transition; and this 
fact, the author insists, is more than a mere coincidence. When we 
analyze a remembered dream, we find in its last stages always some 
elements of external sensation, which gradually (or quickly) unfold into 
the conditions of normal waking life. All the organs of sense and 
movement do not wake at the same time; and to this is due the transi- 
tion period just mentioned. It is only the dreams of this period—in 
which some of the conscious elements are those of sleep, while others 
belong to waking life—that we are able to connect through memory 
with after-consciousness ; and the memory connection is due to precisely 
this association of elements of waking consciousness with the dream 
elements. This is the reason, says M. Goblot, why we do not remember 
those dreams occurring early in the night, in which we talk, cry out, 
gesticulate, or walk, though such dreams can scarcely fail to have been 
most vivid; for, unless they result in our awakening, there is no asso- 
ciative element in waking consciousness capable of recalling them. 
Even those dreams which we do recall have usually so slender an asso- 
ciative element that they are speedily forgotten, unless we take special 
pains to impress them upon the memory by writing them down, or 
rehearsing them soon after waking. 
The present writer would suggest that more attention be paid, in the 
study of dreams, to determining the normal visualizing power of the 
individual. It is well known that some persons habitually “ visualize ” 
their visual memories (i. e., represent them in the form and color of the 
original); while others, including those more accustomed to abstract 
thinking, are lacking in this power, and substitute words or other 
symbolism for the visual picture. The same is true to some extent of 
sounds and other classes of sense memories. In sleep, where outer 
stimulation is practically wanting, central images play the chief rôle, 
and in the absence from consciousness of more vivid presentations are 
mistaken by the subject for primary sense impressions. It would seem, 
then, that there ought to be a broad distinction of some sort between the 
