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This curious book was evidently issued from a frankly personal interest. Dr. Stiles disclaims any serious interest in dream psychology and does not attempt to relate his observations to the investigations of other people. He merely happens to have been always interested in the manifest content of his own dreams and here offers abstracts and illustrations from a collection of thirty years.
It is a jolly little book written very amusingly and accompanied by a number of appropriate personal sketches. The author is evidently of a philosophic and amiable disposition and has the art of talking about himself in a way that is pleasing to the audience.
There is a casual reference to Freud and the author, as is so common, makes the mistake of thinking that the latter holds all dreams to be sexual. The following passages may be quoted in this connection: 'It is not easy to be fair to the Freudians. The temptation is strong to caricature their principles and to say that their rule is to put the worst possible construction on all they can find out about the patient. … Decent living is a somewhat recent attainment of the race, and recent attainments are insecure possessions. … The saints of the first century appear to have been closer to the Freudians than some modern disciples who maintain that a state of sanctification is possible in which no regressive tendencies shall exist. Would not such a condition be one of moral stagnation, and definitely less noble than one in which conflict is an acknowledged fact? If primitive tendencies do exist and are counterbalanced in waking hours by the best elements of character, why should they not be manifested when sleep has removed the restraint? Among these impulses are of course those of sex. They are not to be regarded as base, but their control is essential to the altruistic and social life' (pp. 34–35).
The author makes very few general observations: the two chief ones