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TITE SUNDAY OREGONIAN. PORTLAND, MARCH 15, 191i.
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BT BENE BACHE.
tEAMLAND Is the world of the
forgotten past of the human
race.
Such Is the remarkable and -wholly
novel theory advanced by an eminent
German psychologist, Professor Moritz
Pfister, who avers that our dreams,
while sometimes relating to current
events, are mainly memories of hap
penings in previous states of exist
ence. You see, it is lilce this. Each one of
os (according to Professor Pfister's
theory) has lived through a long series
of lives, and in them has had a great
Variety of experiences, pleasant and
otherwise. In- our dreams we go back
to them, and re-enact scenes which may
have been actual occurrences thousands
or even tens of thousands of years ago.
In dreams we often visit places
which certainly in this life we have
never seen. We meet people whom in
this life we have never met. and yet
they do not seem to us strangers. This
Is bcause both persons and places, in
such instances, belong to a past that
Is not of this life, but of a period
perhaps a long period previous there
to. For the very reason that it is not of
this life, we have no conscious recol
lections in our waking moments of
places and people belonging to that
period. "While awake we are living in
the present, even in respect to our
memories; but in sleep our dream
thoughts go back often bo far back
that the dreams themselves are mys
terious, puzzling, and obscure. It is
hardly to.be expected that happenings
of 100,000 years ago, say, should be,
in our dreams as vivid and compre
hensible as those of only a century ago.
As above remarked, some of our
dreams relate to current or recent
events; but most of them (as anybody
will testify from his own experience)
do nothing of the kind as Is quite nat
ural (says Professor Pflster), if one
considers that the happenings of no
body knows how many thousands of
years are concerned in our nocturnal
visions. A curious feature of the prob
lem is that there is no such thing as
time to the dreamer; and by the latter
the phenomenon we call death is not
recognized. In dreams we often meet
and talk with persons who have long
been dead, yet we are not in the least
surprised.
Dreamland.
"There are no dead" in
1 Y;7-7 TS T."JZr:r
Some people are greatly troubled
with horrifying or otherwise unpleas
ant dreams. "Indigestion," the doctor
says, satisfied that he is giving an ade
quate explanation. But Professor
Pfister believes that such "bad dreams"
are memories of actual experiences of
the more or less remote past, which,
by reason of their disagreeable or ter
rifying character, have impressed
themselves upon the mind with excep
tional vividness.
What we call "nightmares" are the
most distressing of such memories.
Ordinarily they involve sensations of
extreme dread. The sufferer (for such
he is in the re-staging of a scene in
the past) actually, groans, or, it may
be, cries out in agony. His face is
flushed, his forehead wet with cold
perspiration, his breathing stertorous.
When awakened, he. is overcome by
feelings of relief and gladness. His
emotions are those of one who has es
caped from a perilous and dreadful sit
uation. Such a situation, it is likely, never
confronted him in this life. It is a
vivid memory of something horrible
that happened in a previous state of
existence perhaps many centuries ago.
We, In these peaceful and comfortable
days, safe as we are in the possession
of life and liberty, do not at all realize
conditions as they were a few hundred
years back that is to say, in the so
called middle ages. There was no lib
erty then, except for those who could
procure it for themselves by superior
night. Necessarily they were the few;
the many were defenseless and at the
mercy of the strong.
Those were days when every feudal
baron, possessing a castle perched on
a rock and a few score of armed re
tainers, had the right to punish by
death anybody who was so unfortunate
as to displease him. Nay, more, he
could inflict torture if he chose, by
the rack, the thumbscrew and other
means of diabolic ingenuity. Today
in Germany the traveler will find many
an ancient stronghold of which a con
spicuous feature, still recognizable,
though the structure be more or less
in ruins, is the so-called Roth Thurm,
or Red Tower, wherein helpless pris
oners were tortured for the amusement,
or to satisfy the desire for revenge,
of the noble lord.
Suppose the case to be that of a
prisoner suffering on the rack. Would
he not display emotions much the
same as those exhibited by a person
in thrall of a bad nightmare? He
would be unable to control the move
ments of his limbs (the latter being
bound), just as is the case with the
victim of nightmare. And whereas the
latter wishes to cry out but cannot, so
likewise it would be with a man gagged
by the official torturer.
This, of course, is merely by way
of illustration to show how a night
mare of a certain kind might be noth
ing more nor less than a memory
reproduction of an actual happening to
the individual concerned. The dis
tinguishable feature of this kind of
dream is inability to use the limbs.
But, only a few centuries ago, the
practice of tying people up, whether
to secure their captivity or for pur
poses of torture, was the commonest
thing in the world. It was a matter
of every-day occurrence.
It is hard for us to realize what
a dreadful place the world was to live
in a few centuries ago. Death by vio
lence was so common that nothing was
thought of it. Lite in those days was
filled with what we would now regard
as horrors. To walk out in the morn
ing and come across two or three men
or women, for that matter lying
dead in the street was a commonplace
incident Even religion taught that
the thing to do with anybody who
did not happen to agree with you in
faith was to catch him if possible, tor
ture him by every devilish device that
ingenuity could suggest, and finally to
burn him. No wonder that we have
bad dreams sometimes, if, as Professor
Pfister believes, our sleeping recollec
tions carry us back into the far past.
Most curious are those recurrent
dreams which, involving no incidents
that have to do with this life, come
back to us again and again at intervals.
They recite the same story over and
over,' always with the same series of
happenings. Thus, for example, the
case is cited of a man who was made
almost a nervous wreck by an oft
repeated dream of a ruffian who pur
sued him with a drawn knife with in
tent to kill him. This dream (if the
theory set forth be accepted) may be
supposed to have been a vivid recollec
tion of an actual happening, which pos
sibly terminated in the death of the in-
ual concerned. If so, he carried trapdoor In the top of the piano rises past an assumption which gair
dividual concerned. If so, he carried
the memory of it on with him into a
subsequent life to be tortured by it
in his sleep.
Another case, not so easy of explana
tion, is that of a young lady who, at
the beginning of her dream, is engaged
at her toilet. Having put on her finest
gown, she leaves the house, steps into
her carriage, and, after a short drive,
ascends a steep hill, where she dis
mounts and enters a cottage. Going
into the parlor, she sits down at a
piano and begins to play.
When she strikes a certain chord, a
and out of it comes the severed head
of a man. A curious point is that she
knows in advance just what chord is
the "open sesame" of the horrible trap
and tries to avoid it; but the harmony
always leads up to this chord, and
she must behold the vision.
Such a thing, of course, has never
happened in the present lifetime of this
young lady. Whence comes the dream,
then, and why does it recur again and
again, always with exactly the same
series of incidents? It is impossible
to say. But there is something back
of it some memory of tragedy in the
past an assumption which gains a
sort of likelihood from the fact that
the piano in the dream is not a modern
instrument at all, but more like the
old-fashioned harpsichord of a century
and more ago.
One might imagine that the dreamer,
of a recurrent dream would after a
while become aware, at least in some
degree, of its unreality. But this is not
so. It seems just as real the twentieth
time as the first even though its in
cidents have become so familiar that
the dreamer knows in advance exactly
what, is going to happen. Indeed, this
very knowledge, where a bad dream is
Ofictf Cop.
concerned, renders the vision more
dreadful.
Such a case (mentioned by Professor
Tflster) is that of a man who finds
limsclf in a forest of leafless trees.
lie lias been there before, in his
dreams, and he has an impression that
something terrible is going to happen.
There is a deathlike aspect about the
surroundings. No song of birds is
heard, nor chirp of insects. The dry,
dead grass crackles under the dream
er's feet. Presently he sees a man ap
proaching and is seized with a sensa
tion of horror. The man confronts
him and his face is that of a dead
person, with eyes glassy and expres
sionless. It is the dreamer's own face.
Then he wakes up.
Does this vision signify that the
dreamer, in a past state of existence,
actually met death under such circum
stances and in such surroundings? The
question is at least interesting. Yet
another instance of the kind is that
of a man who dreams that he is at
tending his own funeral. The services
are always exactly the same; he notes
certain peculiarities of the casket con
taining his body; and the route pur
rued in going to the cemetery is al
ways through the same streets. In
variably he awakes just as the cus
tomary handful of earth is thrown
upon the coffin seemingly startled
into consciousness by the hollow sound
it makes.
People often dream complacently and
cheerfully of things which fill thetn
with horror on awakening. The best
of men do in dreams cruel and immoral
deeds. Professor Pfister attributes
this to a "'harking back" of the mind
to a period in the distant past, per
haps thousands of years ago. We do
not realize how much better, morally
sneaking, we are today than our forc-
K'onrlmid on Page 6.)
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PLAN-1 . OR L'iLDtDR
Mexico's Frightful State in Large Measure Due to the Lowly Agave
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BT Richard Hamilton byiid.
THERE would probably be peace in
Mexico today, said an American
traveler who recently returned
from the land of the Aztecs, if the Mex
icans had raised fewer plants of a spe
cies peculiar to the country, while this
peace would today be marked by great
er prosperity and wealth if more of
the same plants had been cultivated.
This ia. of course, a paradox; never
ttieless, nature has given
77rSSr7C? dSira.y' Z(ZJ 4 Z&ytJSjcy
prize it for washing their hair, which
it makes soft and glossy. It removes
stains from delicate fabrics and does
not shrink flannels.
each. Every plant bears from 25 to
50 leaves around a massive, fleshy base,
and the largest plants weigh as much
as two tons. The leaves of this giant
plant spend all the years of their im
maturity storing up quantities of sweet
leaves and the base, having exhausted The ancient Aztecs utilized the agave
themselves in this final effort, wither leaves for making a remarkably tough
and die. On the pulque plantations the Piper, upon which they painted in bril
plant is not allowed to flower, but the "ant colors their pictured historical
. . , , , records. home of these manuscripts
leaves are tapped regularly for their Btm exist collection8 an
juice.
production of the agave for food, paper, The hemp from this, or even that none excited more interest than the
cloth and rope, and less to the distllla- from the native Texas agave, it is be- agaves. Humboldt considered this
tion. of strong drink, it is probable that Heved, would yield an enormous sup- plant, next to Indian corn and potatoes,
there would be less turbulence and Ply of binder twine and other cord and the most useful of the natural products
bloodshed in Mexico. rope. The tremendous increase dur- of tropical America. There are about
The agave loves an arid or semi- recent years in the value of the 150 different species, of all sizes, and
MfTicn arid climate and it Is suirirested bv agave fiber, with its main market In their habitat ranges from the low
plant which has been at once a blessing Government specialists of the United the United States largely among the coastal plains to 10,000 feet above sea sap.
and a curse to the inhabitants of this States that there are some tens of tarmers, gives gooa promise or sue- level, i he agave requires years xor
irnutale-riddMi land. The mrnvo or con- thousands of aauare miles in Vcstn cess lor sucn an inausiry. xne pen- us development ana nowerins, aim '""'"""- rnaRted and eaten. somewhat re
tury plant furnishes both Mexican peon Texas and other Southwestern states, insula of Yucatan alone, In Southern this has given rise to the popular name fruiting arrives, and with marvelous sembUn& sweet potatoes; the hearts of toughness and durability some grades
and landlord with a host of the neces- of little value for anything else, where Mexico, now exports annually some "century plant," but It is doubtful if rapidity the gigantic central flower other kin(Js are boned and eaterl like almost equaling parchment. The agave
Ities and comforts of existence as well this plant would thrive and produce an l5,ooo,ouo worth of hemp from the any species spends more man id or
as profitable investment, but it is like- immense revenue. It Is proposed to in- "Agave sisalana." The sisal planta- 20 years in maturing.
wise responsible for pulque and mes- troduce, however, not the drinkable va- tions are.said to be exceedingly profit- The most remarkable looking of tho
cal, national alconolic drinks, the latter riety, but that producing the textile n- able. ... agaves Is the huge Pulque Maguey, the
colors and the paper appear to be little
The uses of the different species ana aftected by the lapse of centuries. Com
ir thn acrave are almost leerion. mercial manufactured paper from this
At the expiration of this period the Th fl,9h. bases of many kinds are useful Plant, ranging from the coarsest
moment or nowering: ana anA oaton -mowt .W1 . wuno muur
papLT, is an cnaracienzea oy unusual
characterized as ber which is quite similar to a wild 0f all the many Btrange and remark. Siant of the entire group, its great,
stalk shoots up 30 to 50 feet This
stalk is sometimes a foot in diameter
at the base, the upper portion branch
ing like a wonderful candelabrum,
bearing white flower clusters, while
artichokes; the flower stalks were for- 1R tne ready-made thread and needle
,1 tho Indians fnr lanrea "l uio wc.iii.-dn Jnuian. lie will DreaK
1 nr. wo a thifnu- f nH l ..
and the larger ones are still used as and stripping it away with "some of
house rafters and for fences, while the the attached fibers will have a sharp
broader leaves are employed to thatch and stout needle already threaded for
of which is often
linuid-hellflre. agave which is growing today over a 0w ifo ,,nH in th M.viron fleshy leaves belne- sometimes nine feet bright-colored birds and Insects sip the the houses. One species furnishes a re- use. The fibers of the Pulque
With more attention given to the large area in Texas, " derland of Cortex and, hlg followers, long and weighing over. 100 pounds nectar. After tho seeds form, the huge markable soap, The Mexican women are very long, aofj and silkVj
Maguey I