AbstractThis article is based on pre‐Freudian dream psychology as it was presented in English and American periodicals and journals during the half century from 1860 to 1910. The author briefly examines the place of dreams in early American psychology and the degree of professional interaction and cross‐fertilization of ideas. Major trends in nineteenth‐century dream theory and speculation are examined by discussion of four areas of the literature: the reporting and recording of dreams, dreams and memory, dreams and reality, and consciousness in dreams. The author concludes that the post‐Freudian tradition of experimental dream investigation and clinical dream interpretation has failed to incorporate a third trend in the pre‐Freudian literature: the popular interest in parapsychological dreams and the philosophical interest in the epistemology and metaphysics of