I was at an inn at some watering-place with two or three people, I think relatives of mine, though my sister Annie is the only one I remember clearly. The landlady brought in a tray with drinks. For some reason or other, she knew I would not take what the others were taking, so she had brought me a glass of clear blackish brown fluid (like the water from a shingle roof in Australia, but darker) which she said was the speciality of the inn, and called 'tuccotine'. I took a mouthful of it and choked--not that I thought it exactly nasty, though it wanted sugar. What is a little remarkable is that I woke immediately after with the clear impression of having invented a taste.

--William Archer

EDITOR'S NOTE

It'd be startling enough to read of a dreamer claiming to have seen a distinct color unknown in waking life, or to have swung by a prehensile tail; but the visual and motor cortices are active in dreams, at least! Brain imaging usually shows little activity in lobes processing smell and taste. Vision, sound, movement yes... but some dreamers say they never smell or taste anything in dreams. A cardboard world. Ugh! Takes all kinds...

But dreamers do differ. I have tasty, smelly dreams, and clearly William Archer does too. Maybe you do. But a completely new taste?

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: On Dreams by William Archer, 1935

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