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 Mrs H. O. Arnold Forster – Studies on Dreams

To begin with, the first thought and immediate occupation of the mind on awaking must be the recollection of the dream; the only thing further that is needed is a certain habit of mind that is better expressed in the French word recueillement than in any word of our own. An attitude of quiet attentiveness should be ours ; the mind must be unhurried, it must be watchful, as one who looks long and steadfastly into a still pool to see what is mirrored there. As it thus gazes there will come back to it one by one the scenes of the late dream.

The dream should first be allowed to unroll itself very quietly backwards in a series of slowly moving pictures, starting from the end and going back through scene after scene to its beginning, until the whole dream has been seen. In order to get a complete record of a long dream, this process should be followed, and then, if possible, the reverse process should be carried out and the dream retraced from its starting-point to its ending. In this way the scenes, events and conversations that have made up the dream story can, when the habit of recollection has been acquired, be retraced. They should then be written down at once. It is only thus, and by making the written notes immediately, that I find it possible to make accurate transcripts of long and complex dreams, and in this fact, no doubt, lies a great part of our difficulty in getting such records made.

The dreamer generally waits until the morning to retrace his dream, and then perhaps tells it or writes it down. It has by that time lost some of its sharp edges and its definition. There will be blank spaces left in his memory; there is nothing easier than for the memory half unconsciously to fill in those blanks. The dreamer may soon begin to think that he remembers what happened in the blurred intervals, or perhaps tries to complete his dream story which broke off with such disappointing suddenness, by an ending that suggests itself, and that makes an artistic finish to the story when it is told the next morning; but as the only possible value of the dream record lies, not in its artistic or dramatic character, but solely in its absolute truthfulness, the dream should always be written down as soon as possible. The mere fact that this is necessary often prevents the dream record being written at all. A 'good sleeper ‘ is apt to drop off to sleep again before he has attempted to do it, and an indifferent or ‘bad sleeper' naturally dreads the complete awakening and probable loss of further sleep if he exerts himself to turn on a light and write down his dream.