52 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAI^ 



who, after sleeping in a damp place, was, for a long time, liable to 

 a feeling of suffocation whenever lie slept in a lying posture ; and 

 this was always accompanied by a dream of a skeleton, which 

 grasped him violently by the throat. He could sleep in a sitting 

 posture without any uneasy feeling, and, after trying various expe- 

 riments, he at last had a sentinel placed beside him, with orders to- 

 awake him immediately he sank down. On one occasion he was 

 attacked by the skeleton, and a severe and long struggle ensued 

 before he awoke. On finding fault with his attendant for allowing 

 him to be so long in a state of suffering, he was assured that he had 

 not lain an instant, but had been awakened the moment he began 

 to sink. This person ultimately recovered from his distressing 

 state. Another gentleman dreamt that he crossed the Atlantic, 

 and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking, on his return, he 

 fell into the sea, and having awoke with the fright, found he had 

 been asleep ten minutes.* Similar to these relations was the al- 

 ledged dream of the prophet of Mecca, who fancied himself trans- 

 ported, by the angel Gabriel, to the world of spirits, through which 

 he wandered for years, and was initiated into the mysteries of hea- 

 ven and hell ; when awaking, he found that the pitcher which had 

 fallen from his hand as he dropt asleep, had not then reached the 

 ground. The uncontrolled Imagination of our dreams carries us to 

 worlds and elements our waking thoughts never conceived, and 

 peoples each with its appropriate inhabitants. We are carried to 

 heaven, and ravished with the harmony of angelic music — we are 

 plunged in Hades, and tormented with penal fire. We ride the 

 blast with the- " bonny nightmare," or revel in the cav^erns and 

 secrets of deep waters. Clarence's account of his dream is a mas- 

 terly description of this. It will be recollected that his Iraai»ina- 

 tion plunged him into the " tumbling billows of the main" — 



" And then methought what pain it was to drown, 

 What dreadful noise of waters in my ears ! 

 What sights of ugly death within mine eyes ! 

 I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ? 

 A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon ; 

 Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 

 Inestimable stores, unvalued jewels : 

 Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and in those holes 



• Many cases illustrating this point, of the inability of the judgment to 

 appreciate the lapse of time during sleep, will be found in Dr. Abercrombie*s 

 work On the Intellectual Powers, in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Hit- 

 man Mind, and elsewhere. 



