(08/09/39)[One of the dreams of last night seemed complex and vivid as I lay in a half-wakened condition, about 2 a.m., and I went back over the chief happenings so that they would be sufficiently impressed on my mind as to be more easily recalled. Then I wakened, sat up, got my notebook -- and found nearly all of what had seemed so clear gone. This is in line with what I have noticed on other occasions, namely that the mental effort involved in writing, or in repeating aloud, the chief events of a dream (even one that seemed so clear) often destroys nearly all remembrance of the dream. The change from the dream to the waking state seems to be, in some ways at least, a rather profound one (as the change from the pupal to the adult stage in an insect), blotting out a good many of the details of the dream]. In one dream certain government publications were gotten out illegally, that is, by people "not over 16." Someone, in explaining the matter to me, showed me cards (similar to the Biological Survey stomach cards) on which was written "not over 16."