MAUEY ON SLEEP AND DEEAMS. 399 



variously infringed upon by those complex and inter- 

 mingling relations of body and mind to which, whe- 

 ther awake or asleep, we are unceasingly subjected. As 

 we feel and recollect them in ourselves, and note them 

 in others, dreams go through every grade of intensity 

 and reality ; and this, probably, in a certain inverse 

 ratio to the soundness of the sleep. We are using 

 here terms of vague acceptation thus applied, but we 

 possess no true vocabulary for the functions in ques- 

 tion. What we may affirm is, that sleep in its purely 

 physical part, and dreams in their aberrant intellectual 

 phenomena, are ever acting upon each other, and in 

 every degree of activity ; such mutual influence being 

 especially testified in the acts of going to sleep and 

 awakening from it. It is the same mysterious union 

 which pervades and gives continuity to life, and which 

 has excited and baffled curiosity in every age of the 

 world. 



We have already discussed the question which here 

 naturally recurs, whether there is any condition of 

 sleep utterly devoid of dreaming? The vague and 

 broken memories of dreams tell nothing certain as to 

 their time or duration, and without this aid we are 

 helpless as to any sure result. But, though failing in 

 this particular case, the memory is the faculty on 

 which we must mainly depend for our knowledge of 

 them, and of the enigmas they present. Aristotle, as 

 already noticed, put the question pertinently, ' Why do 

 we remember some dreams, others not ? ' implying, 

 of course, what we know by observation, that the 

 state of dreaming exists even when there is no after 



