certain Processes of the Human Understanding. 103 



CHAPTER III. 



APPLICATION TO DREAMS. 



In dreaming, the ideas which press themselves are either such as have been pre- 

 viously connected by association, or not. If they have not, Mr. Stewart's theory 

 cannot be applied, nor will such cases be found illustrative of the mode of expla- 

 nation adopted in this essay. Both, though in very different ways, involve the 

 principle of association. 



Cases of dreaming occur in. which the succession of thought appears too ca- 

 pricious to be easily referred to any of the waking habits of most minds, and 

 though even these may be, to a considerable extent, explained according to the 

 law of suggestion, yet it will be apparent enough that they cannot be considered 

 as cases of that succession of thoughts, which has become accelerated from the 

 effect of frequent iteration. In these it must be observed, that the process is 

 directly contrary to the process of waking reason. Awake — certain ideas are ac- 

 companied by a rapid combination (or acceleration), such as not only to facilitate 

 the course of the thoughts in some established direction, but to prevent any other; 

 whereas, in sleep, the occurrence of the same idea leads mostly to a different train, 

 which could not well take place if the same associative (or accelerating) faculty, in- 

 stead of being more alert, were not itself asleep, or nearly so; and it is very curious 

 to observe, how the suggestions of the waking faculties change in the very process 

 of falling asleep, so as, indeed, to indicate very clearly that the faculty which 

 governs the connexion of our thoughts has partially at least resigned its office. 

 The most familiar things take monstrous forms, and begin to play strange an- 

 tics, which are to be noticed as tending to show that particular operation of 

 habit, on which Mr. Stewart relies for his solution, to be diminished, and ren- 

 dered comparatively inert in sleep, just as the other faculties are. 



Now, let us see what Mr. Stewart's notion Involves. The associating faculty 

 acts in sleep with increased energy, and according to a new law. 



First, it acts with increased energy, or in other words, is more awake in sleep. 

 When awake it can only read, play the piano, or execute such operations as it has 

 learned from repetition; but asleep it acquires the power of accelerating all those 



