MAURY OX SLEEP AND DREAMS. 411 



ness applied to these visionary events, however strange 

 and incongruous their nature, is in essence the same as 

 that which underlies our waking existence. To pursue 

 the matter further would be merely to clothe poverty 

 of knowledge with a garment of words. 



The events immediately preceding dreams might 

 naturally be expected to minister materials to them 

 more largely than those of distant date. And such 

 may probably be the case, especially when mental 

 emotions are mingled with these events. But we may 

 well marvel at the remoteness of those scenes of past 

 life to which our retrospective dreams often extend. 

 Incidents are repeated, and personalities restored, now 

 never present to the waking thoughts of the dreamer, 

 and which might seem wholly effaced from memory. 

 Here again, as so often before, we come to analogy as 

 the best mode of illustrating, if not explaining, these 

 mysteries, and of bringing them into accordance with 

 the unity and identity of our being. The memories of 

 past life embodied in dreams have close kindred with, 

 those evoked by incidents, often very slight, of our 

 waking hours. We know nothing of the actual nature 

 of the impressions or images thus latent in the brain ; 

 but there they are dormant, it may be, for ever, yet 

 capable of being revivified at any time, sleeping or 

 waking, by coming into sudden relation with present 

 sensations, emotions, or thoughts. In sleep these dis- 

 tant memories are usually vague and dateless when 

 awake they receive correction from the senses and 

 other faculties. Their origin, however, is the same ; 

 and the further we press such examination the more 



