Addendum to Proceedings of Wellington Philosophical Society 

 for 6th September, 1893. 



The following is an abstract of Mr. E. Coupland Harding's 

 paper " On Mental Operations in Sleep " (see p. 658). 



Abstract. 



The author said he did not intend to deal with the phenomena of 

 dreams in general— a wide suhject — but with those interesting and 

 exceptional instances in which there was continuous rational effort, pro- 

 ductive of a definite result, and in some cases, as those in which the 

 dreamer imagines ho reads from a hook or engages in a discussion, when 

 there was the appearance, at all events, of the operation of an inde- 

 pendent intelligence. A theory very commonly accepted, that dreams 

 were merely the imperfect reflection and confused repetition of thoughts 

 that had occupied the mind during waking-hours, however it might apply 

 in numerous cases, was entirely excluded in certain classes of pheno- 

 mena which he had himself noted. He was inclined to disbelieve the 

 common assertion that the action of the mind in sleep was incon- 

 ceivably swift. The anecdotes in support of this view were, as a rule, 

 ill authenticated, and, even if true, were exceptional. In natural and 

 healthy repose all the vital operations were much slower than in waking- 

 hours. The motion of the blood through the brain was slower and 

 steadier, and the mental operations were correspondingly deliberate. 

 Dreaming was a natural feature of healthy repose, and he doubted 

 whether sleep was ever absolutely dreamless. Like any other natural 

 function, it was perverted by disease ; but it was only to the normal and 

 healthy condition that his present remarks had reference. The difficulty 

 of exactly recalling dream-impressions, however vivid at the time, was 

 the cause of much embellishment, intentional and otherwise. At a 

 former meeting an English scientific authority had been quoted as 

 saying, "All dream images are vague and undefined." This assertion 

 was too sweeping. The generalisations of our waking-moments might 

 be as vague as any dream-image, as when Proctor vainly tried to 

 analyse the mental idea conveyed by the words "passer-bj'," or "by- 

 stander." His own dream-image of a ship, or of the skeleton of a beast, 

 for example, would be necessarily a vague phantom, — as a memory 

 sketch would be absurdly incorrect : but when he dreamed of a book 

 the image was clear enough. It might be unlike any book he had ever 

 seen ; but it was always such as he could reproduce in every detail of 

 form, size, style of type, and decoration. He would divide the more or 

 less orderly mental operations of sleep into four classes, examples of all 

 of which had come within his own experience : (1.) Active constructive 

 work, such as the composition of essays, problems, verses, &c., bearing 

 a general resemblance to ordinary work of the kind in waking-hours, 

 though, as a rule, exceedingly poor in quality, showing that the critical 

 faculty is in abeyance for the time being. (2.) The apparent passive 

 reception of matter of the kind, as in the reading, or hearing read, 

 narrative, essay, or verse. (3.) The debating or discussing such 

 matters with a supposed second person. (4.) The working-out of a 



