AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 63 



I might pursue this narrative to a much greater extent, and at 

 every step light upon some new scene of amazement and horror. 

 The want of judgment of the lapse of time, which is peculiar to 

 dreaming generally, is immeasurably increased by opium. Seconds 

 become hours, minutes days, and days centuries. And this, from 

 my own experience, I can more particularly allude to, after having 

 taken it, as I have done, some few times in the course of my life, 

 for the relief of bodily anguish. The mind then becomes, as it 

 were, disembodied, and roams through scenes it has before visited, 

 which seem to expand before it into primeval magnitude ; time 

 appears to grow with space, and becomes so extended that we are 

 unable to waste it. This, during pleasurable dreams, is a perfect 

 extacy ; but when we come, like the opium eater, to be buried 

 alive, with a perfect consciousness of existence, and a sense of the 

 unutterable horror of our state, we may well enter into his feelings 

 when the day chased away his dreams, and he wept for joy, as his 

 awaking once more enabled him to controul the ty raimical power of 

 his Imagination. 



The passions, modifying as they do in a most important manner 

 the constitution of the mind, exercise a powerful influence upon the 

 imagination of our dreams. Love, joy, hope, and those of a kin- 

 dred character, exalt and refine its ideas, and give a brighter and 

 more pleasing hue to all objects viewed by the mind when thus in- 

 fluenced. And as these clothe natural objects and moral impres- 

 sions with a garb of beauty ; so their opposites, remorse, fear, 

 shame, sorrow, disappointed love, and hc^e deferred, make the heart 

 sick, darken the intellectual faculties, and soon impair the body. 



Whatever may be the torture the mind undergoes during the 

 day, from these sources, night occasionally restores its tranquillity, 

 and once more fills it with delight : but though these visions are for 

 a time pleasing, and lead us to the very verge of long-lost happi- 

 ness, some demon dashes the cup from our lip, fate interposes, phy- 

 sical obstacles arise, and we are separated by an impassable barrier 

 from the haven which hope created, and the dwelling which love 

 made home. These phantoms of our dreams, like the wierd sis- 

 ters, " hold the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the 

 hope." These were the dreams of the unfortunate Eloise— 



*' When at the close of each sad sorrowing day. 

 Fancy restored what vengeance snatch'd away." 



Of this character, varied indeed in the melancholy and terrific 

 imagery which attended them, were the dreams of Dido for the loss 



