Jack London. Before Adam -
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my vision. They were sharp and distinct. I was on terms of
practised intimacy with them. I saw every branch and twig; I
saw and knew every different leaf.
Well do I remember the first time in my waking life that I
saw an oak tree. As I looked at the leaves and branches and
gnarls, it came to me with distressing vividness that I had
seen that same kind of tree many and countless times n my
sleep. So I was not surprised, still later on in my life, to
recognize instantly, the first time I saw them, trees such as
the spruce, the yew, the birch, and the laurel. I had seen them
all before, and was seeing them even then, every night, in my
sleep.
This, as you have already discerned, violates the first
law of dreaming, namely, that in one's dreams one sees only
what he has seen in his waking life, or combinations of the
things he has seen in his waking life. But all my dreams
violated this law. In my dreams I never saw ANYTHING of which I
had knowledge in my waking life. My dream life and my waking
life were lives apart, with not one thing in common save
myself. I was the connecting link that somehow lived both
lives.
Early in my childhood I learned that nuts came from the
grocer, berries from the fruit man; but before ever that
knowledge was mine, in my dreams I picked nuts from trees, or
gathered them and ate them from the ground underneath trees,
and in the same way I ate berries from vines and bushes. This
was beyond any experience of mine.
I shall never forget the first time I saw blueberries
served on the table. I had never seen blueberries before, and
yet, at the sight of them, there leaped up in my mind memories
of dreams wherein I had wandered through swampy land eating my