All men are acquainted with health and sickness, love and hate, success and failure. Sickness, hate and failure belong to kindred families, and often ally their forces in such a way that it is hard to say whether the dreamer will fail in love, health or some business undertaking. But at all times a bad symbol is a warning of evil, though that evil may be minimized or exaggerated, or vice versa, according as signs are good.
Thus, if the dream symbol indicates wealth or fortune to the peasant, his waking life may be gladdened by receiving or seeing a fifty-cent piece, or finding assuring work, while the same symbol to a wealthy man would mean many dollars, or a favorable turn in affairs.
It is the same in physical life. A man may hear the sound of a wagon. He cannot determine by the rattle of the wheels whether it is laden with laundry, groceries or dry goods. He may judge as to its size and whether it is bearing a heavy or a light burden. When it objectifies he will be able to know its full import and not before. So with dream symbols. We may know they are fraught with evil or good, as in the case of Pilate's wife, but we cannot tell their full meaning until their reflections materialize before the objective sense.
Death is more frequently foretold by dream messages or visions, as explained in another part of this chapter.
During sleep the will is suspended, leaving the mind often a prey to its own fancy. The slightest attack of an enemy may be foretold by the unbridled imagination exaggerating the mental picture into a monstrous shark or snake, when, indeed, a much less portentous sign was cast from the dream mold.
A woman may see a serpent in waking life and through fright lose reason or self-control. She imagines it pursues her when in reality it is going an opposite direction; in a like way dreams may be many times unreal.
The mind loses its reason or will in sleep, but a supersensitive perception is awakened, and, as it regains consciousness from sleep, the sound of a knock on the wall may be magnified into a pistol shot.
The sleeping mind is not only supersensitive as to existing external sounds and light, but it frequently sees hours and days ahead of the waking mind.
Nor is this contradictory to the laws of nature. The ant housed in the depth of the earth, away from atmospheric changes, knows of the approach of the harvest, and comes forth to lay by his store.
In a like manner, the pet squirrel is a better barometer of the local weather than the Weather Bureau. With unerring foresight, when a wintry frown nowhere mars the horizon, he is able to apprehend a cold wave twenty-four hours ahead, and build his house accordingly.