DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 259 



in the reality of dreams and in their hallucinations, 

 and derive from them fears, hopes, and warnings for 

 their future life. 



I will give one instance in a thousand to prove 

 the innate tendency even in the act of dreaming to 

 transform the image into a real object. It appeared 

 to me that I was in a large room filled with acquaint- 

 ances and strangers, who discussed an event which 

 had really occurred in the city a few days before. 

 All at once I raised my eyes to the wall of the room, 

 and saw a large picture, representing a landscape 

 with distant mountains, streams, cottages, and 

 animals. As I looked, the picture was gradually 

 transformed into a real object, and I found myself, 

 together with the company before mentioned, in the 

 midst of the fields, on the bank of the river, and 

 within one of the cottages. 



In another dream, I appeared to be conversing with 

 an old soldier on the shores of a lake; after some 

 incoherent talk, he began to describe a bloody battle 

 in which he had taken part ; he had not gone far 

 before the narrative was changed for an actual 

 occurrence, and I was in the midst of a real battle, 

 such as the soldier had undertaken to describe. 

 Another night I dreamed that I was reading a tragic 

 poem, relating terrible deeds of blood and rapine, and 

 suddenly I seemed to have become an actor or real 

 spectator of that which I had at first read in a book. 

 In another strange dream I was going over a difficult 



