108 Rev. J. Wills on Mr. Stewart's Explanation of 



known illusions of the pencil ; a few imperfect, but characteristic, lines can be so 

 placed, as to convey as much as the most complete representation. But sleep 

 seems to carry the process of deception much farther. I have, for instance, fre- 

 quently observed, what must have occurred to many to notice, that in sleep the 

 mind is strangely imposed on as to resemblances. The absurdity of the most fan- 

 tastic changes and representations is seldom, if ever, noticed ; and if a dream of 

 any supposed incidents be attentively called over after waking, it will be observed, 

 that in many instances the impressions were not only unreal but false. 



Little now remains to be said, so far as the topic of dreaming is involved in 

 this inquiry. Our thoughts, as I have shown, present themselves in varied aggre- 

 gations. In different minds the constituent ideas of the aggregation are diversi- 

 fied by the habits and intellectual constitution of the individual ; but while these 

 aggregations are liable to be presented in sleep as in waking, there is j ust one 

 condition of difference, which, without altering any of the primary laws of thought, 

 by direct consequence changes the entire character of the result. This condition 

 is simply the realizing of the idea. Under this operation, the slightest and most 

 latent impression which constituted any part of the waking association, in sleep 

 starts into shape, and becomes an efficient and distinguishable feature of the 

 dream. A dream may thus be considered as a picture presented to the sleeper's 

 fancy, sometimes full of meaning and orderly subordination, sometimes strange, • 

 fantastic, and unaccountable ; at times the object is some preconceived associa- 

 tion, and occupies the ordinary duration of thought, but still undergoes the effect 

 of being dramatized in all its parts, because, in fact, such a consequence is abso- 

 lutely involved in its being realized ; and it Is thus also that those seemingly in- 

 stantaneous successions arise. Again, the actually present scene, or circum- 

 stances, may be part of a dream : and the sleeper will then awake under the 

 sense of reality. 



I shall now end with a few remarks upon the manner in which the ordinary law . 

 of association, considered simply as suggestive, may be supposed to operate in a 

 state of sleep. For this purpose it must be observed, that the action and reaction 

 of associations are mutual, and that, therefore, in sleep, if any moral affection of the 

 mind is, as may happen to be, induced by some fantastic cause, it will, according 

 to the known law of habit, immediately suggest some such occurrence as would 

 ordinarily have caused it ; suppose, for example, the parts of the frame which 



