Unfortunately, in some instances, which are not, therefore, here transcribed, my waking memory failed to recall accurately, or completely, certain discourses heard or written words seen in the course of the vision, which in these cases left but a fragmentary impression on the brain and baffled all waking endeavor to recall their missing passages.

These imperfect experiences have not, however, been numerous; on the contrary, it is a perpetual marvel to me to find with what ease and certainty I can, as a rule, on recovering ordinary consciousness, recall the picture witnessed in my sleep, and reproduce the words I have heard spoken or seen written.

Sometimes several interims of months occur during which none of these exceptional visions visit me, but only ordinary dreams, incongruous and insignificant after their kind.  Observation, based on an experience of considerable length, justifies me, I think, in saying that climate, altitude, and electrical conditions are not without their influence in the production of the cerebral state necessary to the exercise of the faculty I have described.  Dry air, high levels, and a crisp, calm, exhilarating atmosphere favor its activity; while, on the other hand, moisture, proximity to rivers, cloudy skies, and a depressing, heavy climate, will, for an indefinite period, suffice to repress it altogether.  It is not, therefore, surprising that the greater number of these dreams, and, especially, the most vivid, detailed and idyllic, have occurred to me while on the continent.  At my own residence on the banks of the Severn, in a humid, low-lying tract of country, I very seldom experience such manifestations, and sometimes, after a prolonged sojourn at home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never to return.  But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my nightly visions.

Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and even details, of stories which from time to time I have contributed to various magazines.  A ghost story,* published some years ago in a London magazine, and much commented on because of its peculiarly weird and startling character, had this origin; so had a fairy tale,** which appeared in a Christmas Annual last year, and which has recently been re-issued in German by the editor of a foreign periodical.  Many of my more

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* “Steepside”  
** “Beyond the Sunset”
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serious contributions to literature have been similarly initiated; and, more than once, fragments of poems, both in English and other languages, have been heard or read by me in dreams.  I regret much that I have not yet been able to recover any one entire poem.  My memory always failed before I could