MAURY OX SLEEP AND DREAMS. 409 



ceding day betoken the hesterna vitia by troublous 

 sensations and troubled dreams. Few so prudent as not 

 to have had experience of nights thus disturbed. The 

 nightmare is familiar as one example ; but the par- 

 ticular effects are as numerous as the disorders 

 producing them. The sensations arising from the 

 excretory organs mingle themselves variously also with 

 the incidents of dreams. Even posture, temperature, 

 a hard or soft bed, have effect in modifying them, by 

 altering the conditions of the sleep with which they 

 are associated. Such influences cannot be doubted, 

 difficult though it is to bring the facts into strict 

 evidence. Dream-land is not the land of logic or close 

 scientific induction. 



Though less practically important, there is a deeper 

 interest in tracing the connexion of dreams with the 

 events of prior life, whether immediately or remotely 

 antecedent. It may perhaps be affirmed that even in 

 the most entangled series of incidents haunting the 

 brain of the dreamer, there is always interwoven 

 something of his own individuality, present or past. 

 We have elsewhere spoken of the influence of personal 

 temperament and habits of life on the character of 

 dreams. Lucretius in some fine lines describes this, as 

 does Chaucer in a striking passage of good old English 

 verse. To the inimitable Queen Mab of Shakspeare 

 we have just referred. But apart from all authority in 

 verse or prose, we know from unequivocal experience 

 how faithfully particular traits of character, emotions, 

 passions, and personal propensities are portrayed in 

 the dream. The feelings thus reflected from our 



