measurements of time. The first word of the reply occupied a period sufficient for the action of a drama; the last left me in complete ignorance of any point far enough back in the past to date the commencement of the sentence. Its enunciation might have occupied years. I was not in the same life which had held me when I heard it begun."
This well-known fact, that we cannot measure dreams by our time scale, proves that subjective time does not correspond with objective, and that the "dream organ" of consciousness has a time scale of its own. If in our waking state we experience one kind of time, and in dreams quite another, the solution of the mystery should be sought in the vehicle of consciousness, for clearly the limit of impressionability or power of response of the vehicle establishes the time scale, just as the size of the body with relation to objects establishes the space scale. Time must be different for the ant and the elephant, for example, as space is different.
Our sense of time is wholly dependent upon the rapidity with which impressions succeed one another. Were we capable of receiving only one impression