Research source

Stevenson's volume, Across the Plains (already referred to in the last chapter), contains a description of the…

Date of account: Published 1903
Source: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death
Reference: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death · selected passage 88
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Stevenson's volume, Across the Plains (already referred to in the last chapter), contains a description of the most successful dream-experiments thus far recorded

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The "Chapter on Dreams," in R. L. Stevenson's volume, _Across the Plains_ (already referred to in the last chapter), contains a description of the most successful dream-experiments thus far recorded. By self-suggestion before sleep Stevenson could secure a visual and dramatic intensity of dream-representation which furnished him with the motives for some of his most striking romances. His account, written with admirable psychological insight, is indispensable to students of this subject. I am mentioning these well-known phenomena, as the reader will understand, with a somewhat novel purpose--to show, namely, that the internal sensory perceptions or imaginative faculty of sleep may exceed that of vigilance in something the same way as the recuperative agency of sleep surpasses the _vis medicatrix_ of waking hours.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

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