A great many of my correspondents, who have read the essay that I threw out tentatively to attract records of dream experiences, take me to task very strongly for saying that the majority of dreams are unpleasant Indeed, so many write to this effect that I am con-vinced I must be wrong, and that the majority of mankind find a balance of pleasure over discomfort in dreamland: a conclusion that is certainly more comfortable than the gloomy one which my own experience led me to offer in the first instance "I am sure," writes one of these correspondents, "that many could speak of the lovely dream world to which the Ivory Gate admits them. There are dreams of beautiful scenery, such as the waking eyes have never beheld of entrancing music, mostly heard at a distance - of hearing again loved voices, long hushed in death, This last comes under the class of dreams from which the waking is sad. But many others are most refresh ing. One is taken out of the narrow, depressing like of the sick room. One is well again, active, seeing and hearing beautiful things," and so on. A sufficient proportion of correspondents write in thin strain to convince me that the sad conclusion I drew, chiefly from my own nightmares, was wrong and that dreaming is to be reckoned on the side of the pleasured of life.

I do not know whether Sir John Lubbock, to speak of him by the name in which he wrote and by which he is best known, mentions dreaming among the pleasures of life in his category. Amongst the pleasures of dreams ought surely to be catalogued this most pleasant fancy of flying.

The type of it, that is to say its most general form, is I think a skimming, in a horizontal position, with some easy swimming - like movement of the arms, at a height of say eight or ten feet, either in a room or without The rising off the ground is effected by a jump; and so many have the feeling that this rising is assisted by drawing the breath in strongly, and to expanding the lungs, as to suggest that this flying dream is caused by some action of the breathing organs. It remains a conjecture. Of this typical "flying dream, as of the falling, there seem to be many variants. "The flying dream," writes one correspondent, "I often experienced, but in my version the flight is never overhead. It is like a sensation of skating on air, just above the ground, rather than of flying, that I have. I move forward rapidly, with long swinging strokes" (with arms or with legs?) "and feel surprised always either at my never having found out my powers in this line before, or at my having neglected so delightful a method of locomotion. For there is often a memory of former dreams of flight, though never as dreams. I think Why, I have done this before, 1 can't understand why I gave it up ." (This is a common experience.

I think, in the flying dream.) "Sometimes," my correspondent proceeds, "I soar slowly upwards, and move about a room " (here we pass into the typical form of flying dream) "for such soaring dreams have always their place in - doors, while the air - skating, if I may call it so, is always outside." This air - skating, presumably in an upright posture, seems to be not at all infrequent, but more commonly occurring to those who do not know what it is to fly properly. It seems, as it were, the beginning of flight, the sensations being very similar in kind though differing in degree, both having in common the sensation of moving forward through the air by - means that are not within man's power of locomotion (with all excuses to the levitationists) in waking life.

One correspondent says: "The flying dream I have never had; the nearest approach was floating down the stairs, upright, with my hand on the balusters, without touching the steps with my feet". This seems to be the very infancy of the art of dream - flying, and to belong almost as much to the falling as to the flying class. It is really scarcely more than a slightly glorified fall.

Another correspondent writes interestingly of the flying dream thus: "The flying dream is most pleasant In my dreams I am sometimes asked how I do it, and explain that it is perfectly easy. One has only (!) to raise oneself from the ground and can then skim along (upright)" (the position in this instance is really the only departure from the type) "without any exertion. There seems to be a slight exertion in raising oneself, and in getting up to a higher level, but that is all. I am almost always in a building, but sometimes it is of enormous height and I have often raised myself to the top. I do not see things below me, but look straight in front or to the side and notice details of architecture, etc." It is very singular how often people dream of flight within a building - singular because it seems so unnatural, so unlikely, so contrary to experience. In experience, when we see things flying, they are flying out of doors, with the exception of house flies and an occasional moth. The first idea that the word "flight" suggests to us is flight in the open air, not in a room; and generally we notice flight of birds going from tree to tree.

Now it never, so far as I know (and never is a big word) happens to any one to dream of Hitting from tree to tree, like a bird, or from flower to flower, like a butterfly. It is always a long skimming flight, sometimes aided by kicks on the ground, as a bad swimmer aids himself to swim in shallow water. Evidently it does not owe its origin to dream memories of birds and fancying ourselves capable of their flight. It is flight sxi generis.

In another letter I have an account of the flying dream not unlike the last, only that in this case the air - skating is done without any of those long powerful strokes, presumably of the feet and legs, that the former speaks of, in fact without movement of limbs at all, so that it were better described as air - sliding than skating, if words can indicate it at all. The writer says: "My experience of the flying dream is of a rapid movement at about a foot from the ground" (presumably in an upright posture, though this is not mentioned) " without any motion whatever of the limbs, and is only exceeded in pleasurable sensation by that of one which might be classed as the dream of discovering new and beautiful scenery in familiar haunts of one's waking hours - dream transformation of * My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood " In every instance, whatever the position of the body and the height of the so - called flight, it would seem that the sensation is a pleasant one, even as we all imagine that the sensation of flight, were we really able to fly, would be delightful. As a matter of fact the birds who can fly seldom seem to do it for amusement.