AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 55 



tioned by Locke, never dreamt till he had a fever ; a second, never 

 except when indisposed. It is extremely probable, though I do not 

 advance it as a positive truth, that we never dream but in a state of 

 bodily indisposition. The state of our health is hardly the same 

 two hours together ; the infinitely various modifications which this 

 undergoes can never be appreciated by us, but may be ascertained, 

 in some measure, by the variable state of the mind. We are trou- 

 bled with ennui, listless and unhappy we know not why, and again 

 are cheerful, gay, and merry, and are just as ignorant of the cause. 

 The variation in the condition of the body is, in a great measure, 

 the origin of this j and the extension of this influence to sleep, the 

 cause of the greater part of the phenomena of our dreams. A re- 

 mark of Aristotle's tends materially to confirm this view of the sub- 

 ject ; he says that persons who never dream till they are grown up 

 are generally liable, soon after their first experience of the kind, to 

 a change in the bodily constitution terminating in disease or death.* 

 It is plain that here, as in the case of the gentleman who never 

 dreamt except when indisposed, that the dream was solely produced 

 by variation in the state of the body, indicating an approach to, or 

 an actual state of, disease. Where disease is confirmed, the Imagi- 

 nation of our dreams is at once powerfully modified by it. The 

 sudden starts from sleep, which attend the approach of fever, are 

 produced, doubtless, from unpleasant dreams. We are hurried 

 along upon the blast, and plunged into caverns of infinite space and 

 chaotic gloom ; we are rocked to giddiness in the whirlpool ; ap- 

 palled with sounds so tremendous that they appear to be produced 

 by nothing less than the universal wreck of matter ; and plunged 

 thousands of feet down precipices, into the boiling cataracts below. 

 These mental images are produced by, and strictly dependant upon, 

 a morbid state of body, and are in strict relation to the degree or 

 danger of that state. The "visions, indeed, which occur in a state of 

 fever are highly distressing; the mind is vehemently lyjrried on 

 from one train of ideas to another, and participates in the painful 

 activity of the system. If, from any cause, we chance to be relieved 

 from the physical suflfering occasioning such dreams, the dreams 

 themselves wear away, or are succeeded by others of a more pleas- 

 ing description. Thus, if perspiration succeed to feverish heat, the 



* Silimachus informs us that the epidemic fever of Rome was ushered in 

 by dreams of the most frightful character ; and Sylvius Deleboe, who de- 

 scribes the epidemic which raged at Ley den, in 1669, states that, previous to 

 each paroxysm of fever, the patient fell asleep, and suffered a severe attack 

 of nightmare. 



