73Q POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



duced by boots on the foot, or the contact of the ground with the 

 soles; we are at once conscious of movement and conscious that the 

 soles of the feet are in contact only with the air. Thus in normal 

 sleep the conditions may be said to be always favorable for produc- 

 ing dreams of flying or of floating in the air, and any slight thoracic 

 disturbance, even in healthy persons, arising from lungs, heart, or 

 stomach, and serving to bring these conditions to sleeping conscious- 

 ness, may determine such a dream. 



There is another common class of dreams which, it seems fairly 

 evident to me, must also find their psychological explanation chiefly 

 in the visceral sensations — I mean dreams of murder. Many psy- 

 chologists have referred with profound concern to the facility and 

 prevalence of murder in dreams, sometimes as a proof of the innate 

 wickedness of human nature made manifest in the unconstraint of 

 sleep, sometimes as evidence of an atavistic return to the modes of 

 feeling of our ancestors, the thin veneer of civilization being removed 

 during sleep. Maudsley and Mme. de Manaceme, for example, find 

 evidence in such dreams of a return to primitive modes of feeling. 

 It may well be that there is some element of truth in this view, but 

 even if so we still have to account for the production of such dreams. 

 For this we must, in part at least, fall back upon the logical outcome 

 of dream confusions, owing to which, for instance, a lady who has 

 carved a duck at dinner may a few hours later wake up exhausted by 

 the imaginary effort of cutting off her husband's head. But I think 

 we may find evidence that the dream of murder is often a falsely 

 logical deduction from abnormal visceral and especially digestive sen- 

 sations. 



I may illustrate such dreams by the following example: A lady 

 dreamed that her husband called her aside and said : " Now, do not 

 scream or make a fuss; I am going to tell you something. I have to 

 kill a man. It is necessary, to put him out of his agony." He then 

 took her into his study and showed her a young man lying on the 

 floor with a wound in his breast, and covered with blood. " But how 

 will you do it? " she asked. " Never mind," he replied, " leave that 

 to me." He took something up and leaned over the man. She 

 turned aside and heard a horrible gurgling sound. Then all was 

 over. " Now," he said, " we must get rid of the body. I want you 

 to send for So-and-so's cart, and tell him I wish to drive it." The cart 

 came. " You must help me to make the body into a parcel," he said 

 to his wife; " give me plenty of brown paper." They made it into 

 a parcel, and with terrible difficulty and effort the wife assisted her 

 husband to get the body down stairs and lift it into the cart. At 

 every stage, however, she presented to him the difficulties of the 

 situation. But he carelessly answered all objections, said he would 



