This connexion of Memory with dreams is more fully brought out by Bergson in his lecture before the Institut psychologique international, five years after the publication of Matiere et Memoire, entitled Le Reve. [Footnote:  Delivered March 26, 1901.  See Bibliography, p. 153.] The following is a brief summary of the view there set forth.  Memories, and only memories, weave the web of our dreams.  They are “such stuff as dreams are made on.”  Often we do not recognize them.  They may be very old memories, forgotten during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past, or memories of objects we have perceived distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake.  They may be fragments of broken memories, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole.  In a waking state our memories are closely connected with our present situation (unless we be given to day-dreams!).  In an animal memory serves to recall to him the advantageous or injurious consequences which have formerly arisen in a like situation, and so aids his present action.  In man, memory forms a solid whole, a pyramid whose point is inserted precisely into our present action.  But behind the memories which are involved in our occupations, there are others, thousands of others, stored below the scene illuminated by consciousness.  “Yes, I believe indeed,” says Bergson, “that all our past life is there, preserved even to the most infinitesimal details, and that we forget nothing and that all that we have ever felt, perceived, thought, willed, from the first awakening of our consciousness, survives indestructibly.” [Footnote:  Dreams, p. 37.  For this discussion in full, see pages 34-39, or see L’Energie spirituelle, pp. 100-103 (Mind-Energy).] Of course, in action I have something else to do than occupy myself with these.  But suppose I become disinterested in present action—­that I fall asleep—­ then the obstacle (my attention to action) removed, these memories try to raise the trap-door—­they all want to get through.  From the multitude which are called, which will be chosen?  When I was awake, only those were admitted which bore on the present situation.  Now, in sleep, more vague images occupy my vision, more indecisive sounds reach my ear, more indistinct touches come to my body, and more vague sensations come from my internal organs.  Hence those memories which can assimilate themselves to some element in this vague mass of very indistinct sensations manage to get through.  When such union is effected, between memory and sensation, we have a dream.

In order that a recollection should be brought to mind, it is necessary that it should descend from the height of pure memory to the precise point where action is taking place.  Such a power is the mark of the well-balanced mind, pursuing a via media between impulsiveness on the one hand, and dreaminess on the other.  “The characteristic of the man of action,” says Bergson in this connexion, “is the promptitude with which he summons to the help