The most striking instance of the subnormal temperature of the dream emotions, so to call it, is given in the painful class of dream which may be labelled the inadequately clothed dream. In this class of dream it occurs to us to come down from our bedrooms, to mingle in society, even sometimes to be presented at court or to take part in the highest and most solemn functions, in a costume that we should deem scarcely adequate if we had been just roused from our beds by a shout of "Fire!" The degrees of this comparative nudity are very various, and it is remarkable that it is most unusual, so far as I can learn, for any human being (that is to say in the temperate climates) in his dreams to appear before his fellows in an absolutely Arcadian or idyllic lack of costume; but the costume is commonly very inadequate, so inadequate that the police would very rightly interfere in the bare interests of decency. Indeed that fear, the apprehension of police interference for the sake of public morals, is a factor in the general uneasiness that we feel in our dreams of finding ourselves going abroad in such dishabille.

For we are conscious of a measure of uneasiness, we can feel that we did wrong in not putting on this or that absolutely indispensable portion of our wardrobe before we left our room, but it is as nothing to the utter shame and horror that would overwhelm us were we really to find ourselves in such condition. And in the same degree the shock that our appearance gives our unfortunate friends among whom we show ourselves in such guise is not a circumstance to the pain those sensitive souls would feel if our appearance were a reality instead of a subjective fancy. Yet we retain a sufficient sense of shame to be conscious of a very real relief when we wake to find that we have not behaved ourselves in such a manner as to be the reprobation of every right - minded man and woman. Almost as common, perhaps, as the flying dream (and possibly instances of the naked dream ought to be classed fourth rather than third on the scale of frequent occurrence), is the dream that we are pursued by some lion or monster, and that all our efforts to escape are frustrated by an inexplicable paralysis of our limbs or by some substance of a sticky nature, like strawberry jam or birdlime, through which it is our unhappy fate to have to move knee - deep.

The paralysis, quite painless, of the limbs is the form under which I, personally, am compelled to await the bogey's remorseless approach; I have never had the experience of the strawberry jam about the feet, but I am told by others (perhaps they have been brought up on a more clayey soil) that this is the way in which the trouble besets them. And in any case it is satisfactory to think that in this instance again the denoument never comes. Perhaps, as before, it would have fatal results if it were to happen. But just as the monster is about to lay its fearful claw on us we awake, and again the sense of relief makes it almost worth while to have endured the previous suffering. There is a variant to this; and in this variant form it was a common and dreadful experience of my own childhood, wherein, instead of being pursued, while ones efforts to escape are clogged, one is remorselessly and mysteriously drawn towards the fearful object, whatever it may be, that object itself remaining stationary. Some force like hypnotism (though the actual name of hypnotism had hardly been invented in my childhood) seemed to impel me to walk, despite my wishes, to a certain landing on the main staircase, whereon the breakfast urn used in my dreams to appear, swollen to a huge size, and encircled, like Brunhild, with a wall of flame.

Towards this dreadful object (perhaps my fingers had been burnt by the urn sometime or other) I found myself bound to walk with slow steps, in spite of my own horror of its flaming fiery furnace and the prayers of my nurse who used to stand with me on the landing below, whence I began my reluctant ascent towards the flames and the urn.. I remember that I never could understand how it was that she did not stretch out a hand and pull me back from the horrid journey, but she never did. I cannot understand it even now. In consequence of this dream and its attendant horrors, the breakfast urn itself, harmless and rotund copper body, grew to be associated with pains and terror. I took an intense childish dislike to the thing, and probably many will be able to recall a like experience of a harmless inanimate object becoming endued with actively terrible attributes. Inanimate objects are not the only harmless things that the waking or dreaming fancy of children endows with such imaginary terrors that they become a principal part of what may be called the "bogey" dream. In many of my dreams the role of bogey was played by a middle - aged gentleman whom I constantly used to meet along the road, but whom I never spoke to in my life, nor did he ever address a single word to me.

I did not, nor do I now, know his profession, position in life (I think he belonged to what we should call the middle class) nor his name. He had a reddish, curling beard, and all the very little later knowledge that I picked up of him showed him to be a benevolent and perfectly harmless person. Yet this unfortunate man I had selected, for some reason not known to myself even, as the bogey of my dreams. I had no fear of him at all in real life, yet in dreams it was generally he, when it was not the urn, that was the incarnation of all terror to me. This in itself is a singular reflection, but what I think is even more striking, and not a little painful, is the consideration of the possibility that you, very gentle reader, or I, who deem ourselves kindly of heart and would not harm a fly, much less a human child, may be posing nightly as the horror and the bogey not of one, but of many children's lives. It is a humiliating and distressing reflection. Let us hope it has no foundation in the truth. After all, this red - headed, middle - aged bogey of my childhood may have been less innocent than he appeared, may have hidden a black heart beneath his rufous exterior. But I do not think so.

I think it was the amazing imagination of childhood that invested him with a majesty of terrors to which he had no just claim.

Rather analagous to the dream of inadequate clothing is the dream that we may name the "train fever" dream. Herein we find ourselves about to go on a journey, but one of the bags or boxes inexplicably declines to get itself packed, in spite of all the best endeavours of self and servants. It is like the waking experience of all those of us who are occasionally, but not often enough to make the process easy and familiar, obliged to pack for ourselves - the experience that whenever we strap up the last vehicle for luggage we immediately find another suit of clothes demanding to be packed - a suit of whose existence there was no previous sign. In dreams it is not only a suit, but a whole portmanteau load that will not get itself packed. As fast as one thing is put in another is created to be put in after it, and after the whole has been packed quite full it is often found in some mysterious way to be quite empty again, and all the things in a muddle on the floor.

Another form of the bogey dream, and in a small way a peculiarly distressing one, was probably peculiar to myself, personally, but no doubt others have their own peculiar forms that are analagous to it. I used, as a boy, to keep numbers of caterpillars, in the hope - sometimes gratified, often frustrated of their developing into perfect moths and butterflies to grace my collection. The peculiar form of bogey dream to which I have referred consisted in the escape of all these captives, which occupied their new freedom in crawling over my person in great numbers. The sensation of being crawled over by multitudes of caterpillars of the "woolly bear" texture was peculiarly irritating and distressing.

It is singular that, in spite of childhood's perpetual fear of ghosts, a dream in which ghostly figures play the role of bogey is seldom known. The bogeys almost always take the form of some familiar person or object, often ludicrously innocent of offence.

Although it is obviously true that dreams have a way of concerning themselves with objects and scenes familiar to us in waking sense, it is astonishing how utterly inconsequent is the order of events, and how entirely we lose all moral sense and all sense of proportion in them. It is nearly certain that the world of a sane man's dreams resembles not a little the mental waking world of the madman. The similarity of the conditions is more fully discussed elsewhere. But though it is true that the troubles and circumstances which occupy our waking thoughts also have a way of invading our dreams, still it is singular how perpetually and almost invariably we are defeated in any effort to command our thoughts in any particular train when we lay our heads on the pillow. Dreams seem to come and go of their own accord, free from the dominion of our volition. If we are awakened from a dream, it is nearly always in vain that we try to pursue its course when we turn again to sleep. Yet it is evident that the mind is unconsciously occupied during sleep with the subjects last presented to it in waking hours, otherwise how are we to account for the before mentioned fact that a schoolboy who has very imperfectly learned a piece of repetition over night will have it perfectly pat in the morning? - And dreams do follow, in their own vague, dreamy way, the general bent of the waking thought, as is indicated by the case that we cited of the famous cricketer who often used to umpire at boys' matches, and would startle his wife not a little at nights by starting up in bed, throwing up his right arm and shouting "no ball!" in a stentorian voice.

The loss of the moral sense is perhaps the most startling of the many curious phenomena of dreams, and there is not the slightest doubt that the mildest mannered bogey of a child's dream, the most innocent and blameless man in real life, must often have surprised himself by the atrocious actions that he is capable of committing without any reproach of conscience in his dreams.