This is a mixed dream and is due to more than one cause. The first part is literal in its fulfilment, and belongs to the spiritual class; the other part of the dream is subjective, and therefore allegorical in meaning. Together with the letter, it was a forewarning of misfortune.
These dreams are more difficult of interpretation than those belonging to the spiritual type. In such dreams you may see water, letters, houses, money, people, and countless other things. The next day you may cross water or receive a letter; the other things you may not see, but annoyance or pleasure will follow.
Again, you may have a similar dream and not receive a letter or cross water, but the waking life will be filled with the other dream pictures and you will experience disappointing or pleasant surprises as are indicated by the letter or water sign.
I have selected the allegorical type of dreams for the subject of this work. Dreams that are common occurrences and are thought by the world to be meaningless.
I have endeavored, through the occult forces in and about me to find their esoteric or hidden import.
Dreams transpire on the subjective plane. They should therefore be interpreted by subjective intelligence. This, though burdened with many business cares, I have honestly endeavored to do. Through the long hours of many nights I have waited patiently and passively the automatic movement of my hand to write the subjective definitions without receiving a word or a single manifestation of intelligence, and again the mysterious forces would write as fast as my hand could move over the paper.
I will leave it for my readers to draw their own conclusions as to whether automatic writing is the work of extraneous spirits, through the brain and intelligence of the medium, or the result of auto-suggestive influence upon the subjective personality.
It is argued by the Materialist, with some degree of strength, that the healthy man does not dream, This is, perhaps, true, in a way, but the whole man comprises the past, present, and future. The past and future always embrace more of the conditions that surround him than the present. The present is only the acute stage, while the chronic stage, considered from a personal view, is the past and future combined. Man cannot eliminate entirely these states from himself, for, while they are past and future to the personal mind, they are ever present to the higher subjective senses; he is, therefore, never in perfect health unless these states are in harmony with the present. The personal self, in a normal state, cannot free itself from the past or from the anxieties of the future.
The reader should ever keep before his mind the fact that no man ever had the same dream twice. He may have had very similar dreams, but some detail will be missing. Nature seems to abhor duplicates. You could no more find two dreams alike than you could find facsimiles in two blades of grass. A man cannot live two days exactly alike. Different influences and passions will possess him. Consequently, no two dreams can be had under exactly the same influences. Stereotypes are peculiarly the invention of man and not of God or nature.
Since it is impossible to find a man twice in exactly the same mental state, it is equally impossible for him to dream the same dream twice; therefore, it is only possible to approximate dream interpretation by classing them into families. This I have attempted to do in a more comprehensive way than other writers who have preceded me.