410 MAURY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 



waking lives, if sometimes pleasant, are often harass- 

 ing and painful ; rendered so in part by the physical 

 conditions of sleep, and the impotence of the will in 

 regard to bodily functions. There is the feeling of 

 something to be done which we cannot do of en- 

 tanglement in difficulties which we cannot throw off 

 the hurried pursuit of some object which we cannot 

 reach the effort to speak without the power of utter- 

 ance dreams which often awaken the sleeper, and 

 from which, especially where painful memories are in- 

 volved, it is happiness to be awakened. In young 

 children, however, who do not so readily dissever the 

 real from the unreal, the images and agitation of a 

 fearful dream often continue for an hour or two after 

 sleep has come to an end. 



It is a saying of Sir Thomas Brown, 'Virtuous 

 thoughts of the day lay up good treasures for the night. 

 Men act in sleep in some conformity to their awakened 

 senses. Dreams intimately tell us of ourselves.' We 

 remember to have read a sermon and a very able 

 one inculcating the examination of dreams, as a 

 means of recognising and rebuking our faults. They 

 do in truth often denote not merely the grave, but also 

 those lighter shades of character which are lost to our 

 consciousness in the current and familiar events of the 

 day. 



We doubt whether the sense of personal identity is 

 ever absent in dreaming, though some writers have 

 supposed it to be so. Language here is incompetent 

 to express things which even thought fails to compre- 

 hend. But we may perhaps affirm that the conscious- 



