TELEPATHY IN

DREAMING

 

Dreams and Subliminal Perception

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the noted poet and author whose penetrating insights about dreams predated Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams by nearly 20 years, made the following observations about the acute level of perception that may be found in dreams:

"A prophetic character in all ages has haunted them. They are the maturation of ten of opinions not consciously carried out to statements, but whereof we already possessed the elements. Thus, when awake, I know the character of Rupert, but do not think what he may do. In dreams I see him engaged in certain actions which seem preposterous, out of all fitness. He is hostile, he is cruel, he is frightful, he is a poltroon. It turns out prophecy a year later. But it was already in my mind as character, and the sibyl dreams merely embodied it in fact."

In these remarks, Emerson recognizes that dreams often reveal what psychologists call "subliminal perception." For example, if a picture were flashed on a screen for just one hundredth of a second, and we were asked to report what we had seen, our reply would probably be: "I didn't see anything." But if we were then slowly shown several pictures and urged to guess which picture might have been projected, the flashed picture would be selected more often than the other pictures. Such experiments demonstrate that our behavior can be influenced even though we have no conscious awareness of ever having been prodded by some "subliminal" stimulus.

Emerson's quotation reveals his awareness that we have the ability while in the dream state to recognize and identify the subtle and elusive  cues  that  are  present, but  ignored, in