404 MAUEY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 



sensations and events ? Such questions might be vari- 

 ously multiplied. They tell us how much we have to 

 learn, and the difficulty of learning it. Hardly can 

 we reduce into shape the fleeting memories of our 

 own dreams. Harder still is it to authenticate those 

 of others, especially of classes of mankind little prone 

 to take account either of their sleeping or waking 

 existence. 



A word more here as to the relative rapidity with 

 which the successive images and thoughts of dreams 

 pass through the mind. The analogies we have been 

 pursuing may again give an answer. Though we can- 

 not bring numbers into the question, we have every 

 reason to believe that the succession of mental acts, 

 while awake, is habitually more rapid in some minds 

 than others, and even in the same mind at different 

 times. We think more rapidly r , as well as more vividly 

 in one state of the sensorium than in another. If this 

 be so, we may fairly presume the same as to the con- 

 ditions of dreaming in different minds. But we cannot 

 go beyond this presumption. 



Ee verting to the question before us, what are the 

 materials out of which dreams are formed ? The ob- 

 vious and sole answer is from the sensations, ideas, 

 emotions, acts, and events of antecedent life. Putting 

 aside all notions, ancient or modern, of supernatural 

 intervention, the phenomena of waking existence are 

 those alone to which we can look for their interpreta- 

 tion. The passage of Cicero, quoted below, while well 

 expressing this fact, denotes also those strange perturba- 

 tions, which form the distinctive character of dreams 



