MAURY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 413 



from the mind ; and as regards dreams, the similar 

 wandering of the brain among past memories, when 

 present sensations are dimmed by age, and life itself is 

 beginning to assume the character of a dream. 



One point remains to be noticed, of which, however, 

 notwithstanding its deep interest to mental physiology, 

 we shall only briefly speak. This is the relation of 

 sleep and dreams to those abnormal or diseased states 

 of mind which we call insanity though, indeed, a 

 single term feebly expresses the multiform shapes of 

 such disorders which observation unhappily brings before 

 us. A manifest distinction offers itself here in the out- 

 set, The one condition is natural, and periodical only 

 the other is abnormal, and more or less permanent. 

 But, nevertheless, there are certain links connecting 

 them which cannot be overlooked relations noticed by 

 Cicero and other ancient writers, and more explicitly 

 described by several eminent authors of our own time. 1 

 Many of the strange hallucinations of insanity, though 

 less changeful and fleeting than those of the dream, yet 

 have various characters in common with the latter. 

 Such especially are those where the mind may be con- 

 sidered wholly in a subjective state the brain coining 

 images, ideas, and associations within itself, uncorrected 

 by the senses, or by any clear memories of the past. 

 The singular phenomena of spectral illusions, in which 

 the sense of hearing also is concerned, furnish a striking 



1 ' Quod si ita paratum. esset, ut ea dormientes agerent, quse somnia- 

 rent, alligandi omnes essent, qui cubitum irent.' (Cicero De Divinatione, 

 lib. ii. 59.) In the valuable work on the ' Physiology and Pathology of 

 the Mind,' by Dr. Maudsley, will be found much that relates to this 

 interesting topic. 



