The Rev. James Wills on Dreams. 27 



Abercrombie, and others who have professedly or incidentally taken up the 

 subject of dreams, have related instances which are not easy to explain on the 

 principles of any theory. It is not unlikely that most of these are of the nature of 

 somnambulism. This disease has, however, itself one valuable application in the 

 present theory, as in some of its forms it exempUfies the main difficulty by which 

 it seems to be incumbered. That is to say, it proves the extent to which the 

 mind or the brain may be in a state of considerable activity, while the common 

 consciousness of our ordinary waking state is wholly suspended. There is there- 

 fore the less objection against the assumption of any degree of mental excite- 

 ment or activity in the state of sleep that any given case may require, — though 

 in the ordinary condition of sleep the mental activity is comparatively feeble ; 

 and it must be allowed that the result of any more than ordinary stimulus should 

 occasion the ending of a dream. These cases may, however, be to some 

 extent explained from the conditions of the theory of the preceding pages. 

 For instance, I take the rare and seemingly unaccountable case, in which some 

 thing lost or mislaid beyond any effort of the waking memory to find, has been 

 found by some intimation in a dream. Now, I should certainly not much blame 

 any sceptical inquirer for treating such an instance as on a par with most 

 ghost stories. But it will not appear unaccountable that it might be true if it 

 be called to mind that the feeble and remote association which the very effort 

 of recollection must have only put aside, by the interposition of many and per- 

 plexing possibilities, — is just the very first idea that is likely to offer itself in 

 sleep, when, the key of suggestion being touched, some true combination will 

 return the actual circumstance as it happened, undisturbed by any interference 

 of will, or useless effort of reason, by the true and only condition of memory. 

 Thus, the old parchment, or the key, when suggested to the thoughts in sleep, 

 will not be sought for by the perplexing consideration of numerous possibilities, 

 each of which but tends to mislead; instead of which, the mind is conducted 

 at once by the simple and uniform working of a uniform law, to the single inci- 

 dent which it offers. In the habitual paths of waking life the mind is placed in 

 the current of contingencies and routines, amongst which it is steered by habits 

 rather than by distinct efforts of reason: — and the common course which most 

 men follow, depends much more than is commonly assumed, on the succession 

 of incidents, and the customary courses they impose, than on the independent 



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