ion, which is often
analogous to the initiation fast. In many parts of North America the
individual Indian acquires a tutelary spirit, known as _manito_ or
_nagual_, by his initiation dream or vision; the idea being perhaps that
the spirit by the act of appearing shows its subjection to the will of
the man. Similarly, the magician acquires his familiar in North America,
Australia and elsewhere by dreaming of an animal. Incubation consists in
retiring to sleep in a temple, sometimes on the top of a mountain or
other unusual spot, in order to obtain a revelation through a dream.
Fasting, continence and other observances are frequently prescribed as
preliminaries. Certain classes of dreams have, especially in the middle
ages, been attributed to the influence of evil spirits (see DEMONOLOGY).

_Classical and Medieval Views of Dreams._--Side by side with the
prevalent animistic view of dreams we find in antiquity and among the
semi-civilized attempts at philosophical or physiological explanations
of dreams. Democritus, from whom the Epicureans derived their theory,
held the cause of them to be the simulacra or phantasms of corporeal
objects which are constantly floating about the atmosphere and attack
the soul in sleep--a view hardly distinguishable from animism.
Aristotle, however, refers them to the impressions left by objects seen
with the eyes of the body; he further remarks on the exaggeration of
slight stimuli when they are incorporated into a dream; a small sound
becomes a noise like thunder. Plato, too, connects dreaming with the
normal waking operations of the mind; Pliny, on the other hand, admits
this only for dreams which take place after meals, the remainder being
supernatural. Cicero, however, takes the view that they are simply
natural occurrences no more and no less than the mental operations and
sensations of the waking state. The pathological side of dreams
attracted the notice of physicians. Hippocrates was disposed to admit
that some dreams might be divine, but held that others were premonitory
of diseased states of the body. Galen took the same view in some of his
speculations.

Symbolical interpretations are combined with pathological no less than
animistic interpretations of dreams; they are also extremely common
among the lower classes in Europe at the present day, but in this case
no consistent explanation of their importance for the divination of
future events is usually discoverable. Among the Gre