324 An Essay on Dreaming, including 



case of Mr. Thomas Diamond, of Brenchley, as stated in the Kent 

 Herald, also strongly marks their faculty of discrimination, re- 

 collection, and disposition to retaliate. 



Yours trulv, 

 Oct. 9, 1819. ' Gavin Inglis. 



P. S. — This morning the water from tlie lake shows something- 

 like an internal commotion, although darker in the colour than 

 on former occasions. Upwards of 3000 eels were taken last night 

 in their way from the lake to the sea. — 12th Oct. 



LVI. An Essay on Dreaming, including Conjeclures on the 

 proximate Cause of' Sleep. By Andrew Caraiickael, 

 M.R.LA. 



[Concluded from p. 204.] 



iViANT inquirers have been perplexed to account for the lively 

 conversations we hold in our sleep, involving rational replies, sar- 

 castic retorts, and alternating arguments. This, however, can 

 be explained without any recurrence to the plurality of organs. 

 Whatever we are capable of thinking without an effort, we are 

 susceptible of dreaming; and during our waking reflections, we 

 frequently imagine what kind of reply an adversary might make 

 to an observation we had dropped — we immediately enter into the 

 warmth of argument, by coining an answer of our own in return ; 

 and when we have said all that occurs on that side of the ques- 

 tion, a reply naturally suggests itself on the other, all the merit 

 of which we ascribe to our antagonist ; and thus the disputation 

 goes on, as if two different minds were engaged in the contest^ 

 the words by a strange illusion tingling in our ears, and the ar- 

 dent looks and forcible gestures flitting before our eyes, till some 

 real object, breaking on our attention, recalls us to the perception 

 of the external world,- and the nature of the reverie, which, till 

 now, we thought real. In sleep there is no such intrusion ; but 

 the dream and the reverie do not differ from each other as long 

 as they last. 



A dream mi"st, therefore, be the necessary consequence of any 

 portion of the brain being awake, while the senses are asleep j 

 and the question naturally occurs — Are the senses ever awake while 

 the brain is asleep ? and if so, what is the consequence? Certainly, 

 not the perception of external things, because the sensorium be- , 

 jng involved with the remainder of the brain in sleep, tlie rays of 

 light would merely fall upon tlie retina, and the vibrations of the 

 air on the auditory apparatus, without conveying any further the 

 impressions of colour or sound. But if those sensories, and other 



limited 



