26 The Rev. James Wills on Dreams. 



■without it would be wholly unremembered, raises a presumption that the mental 

 element of our compound nature may, for anything we can ascertain, be always 

 more or less in a state of operation. 



The incidents of life, as they recede into the distance of our early days, fall 

 more or less into dim groups under some few leading remembrances, by which, 

 when accidentally revived, they may recur to the memory. On the other 

 hand, the incidents of the Present possess a separate identity of their own; and 

 are in general severally and forcibly apprehended. They are, for these reasons, 

 something less likely to be recalled by slight or indirect suggestion, or to be 

 quite compatible with the continuance of sleep. Hence, it may be, that when 

 the ideas of the dreamer have any distinct connexion with the realities of wak- 

 in"- life, they are mostly relative to distant times. The faint and shadowy inti- 

 mations which bear the imperfect outline and dim colouring of distance harmo- 

 nize best with the remembrances of the Past. It will thus oftenest happen that 

 the persons appearing in dreams are those who have not been recently known, — 

 often the dead. 



Many other curious illustrations might be found in the close observation of 

 the nature of dreams ; I will here, however, only further notice a few incidents 

 of more common occurrence. It often occurs that the dreamer thinks himself 

 to be engaged in preparing for some purpose, of which the actual execution is 

 not directly included in the preparation. Take, for instance, a case to be 

 argued ; a discourse to be delivered in public. In such cases all the constant 

 circumstances, as, form, time, place, assembly, will come in order ; but the spe- 

 cial matter, not being included in the general combination, will be wanting, and 

 the purpose will end in some strange frustration: — the Court will be seated, or 

 the shadowy audience met, but the business in hand makes no progress ; the 

 lecturer has lost his notes, or the lawyer left his brief at home. For, by the 

 operation of the same law of mind, some such notion is likely to occur. Many 

 persons, whatever may be their profession, will, in the earlier part of their pro- 

 fessional course, have had their apprehension led to a knowledge of all the 

 embarrassing contingencies against which it is the business of care and precau- 

 tion to guard; and the confused sense of failure, necessarily consequent on such 

 dreams as have not any special subject-matter included, in the leading idea, must 

 thus lead to some preconceived solution of the embarrassment. 



