688 



SLEEP. 



arch-fiend appeared in his sleep, and was 

 challenged by him to a trial of skill : the 

 dreamer lay entranced by the transcendent 

 performance of his visitor, which surpassed 

 anything he had ever heard or conceived ; 

 on awaking, however, he could not reproduce 

 the succession of notes, although he imme- 

 diately seized his violin, and endeavoured to 

 do so ; but, under the strong general impres- 

 sion of what he had heard, he produced a new 

 composition, which retains the name of the 

 " Devil's Sonata." 



But, although dreams may possess a re- 

 markable coherence, whether as regards pro- 

 cessses of reasoning, or the new combinations 

 of the imagination, the general fact is, that 

 such coherence is altogether wanting, and that 

 there is a complete incongruousness in the 

 thoughts and images which pass through our 

 minds. All probabilities, and even possibilities 

 of" time, place, and circumstance "are violated ; 

 the dead pass before us as if alive and well ; 

 even the sages of antiquity hold personal con- 

 verse with us ; our friends at the antipodes 

 are brought upon the scene, or we ourselves 

 are conveyed thither, without the least per- 

 ception of distance ; and the strangest combi- 

 nations of reality and fancy are presented, 

 either as objects passing before our con- 

 sciousness, or as affecting our own condition. 

 But of this incongruity we are seldom in the 

 least aware. We are not capable of testing 

 the probability or possibility of the phenomena 

 by our ordinary experience. And, as a conse- 

 quence of this, nothing surprises us in dreams ; 

 the feeling of surprise being the result, and 

 indeed the measure, of our perception of the 

 unlikelihood of a phenomenon. Not only is 

 there usually a want of congruity in the in- 

 tellectual processes, but a great disturbance 

 in the ordinary play of the emotions. " Thus, 

 in our dreams we may walk on the brink of a 

 precipice, or see ourselves doomed to imme- 

 diate destruction by the weapon of a foe or 

 the fury of a tempestuous sea, and yet feel not 

 the slightest emotion of fear ; though, during 

 the perfect activity of the brain, we may be 

 naturally disposed to the strong manifestation 

 of this feeling. Again, we may see the most 

 extraordinary object or event without surprise, 

 perform the most ruthless crime without com- 

 punction, and see what in our waking hours 

 would cause us unmitigated grief, without the 

 smallest feeling of sorrow." * This is, how- 

 ever, by no means uniformly the case. In 

 fact, our emotions in the dreaming state are 

 often highly wrought ; and it frequently seems 

 that the excitement of some particular emotion 

 gives the direction to the whole train of thought, 

 and causes it to possess an unusual coherence 

 and probability. This is most remarkable, 

 perhaps, when the emotion in question has 

 greatly occupied the mind in the previous 

 waking hours. Thus, a female, whose husband 

 is at sea, and for whose safety she naturally 

 feels anxious, especially in stormy weather, is 

 very apt to dream of shipwreck and all its at- 



* Prof. Wheatstone, quoted in Elliotson's Phy- 

 siology, p. 621. 



tendant circumstances ; or, on the other hand, 

 a man in love dreams of his mistress, of married 

 life, and of its various enjoyments. Even 

 here, however, the congruity is frequently in- 

 terrupted by the intervention of some strange 

 occurrence ; the oddity of which may be per- 

 ceived by the dreamer as being discordant, not 

 with the intellectual but with the emotional 

 state. 



In simple dreaming, as there is a loss of 

 voluntary control over the current of thought, 

 so is there an absence of control over the 

 muscular system. Movements expressive of 

 emotions, however, may stiJl take place, and 

 may afford to the by-stander an indication 

 of what is passing in the mind of the dreamer. 

 The indications of fear, horror, or disgust, or of 

 hope, rapture, or desire, laughter or weeping, 

 smiles or frowns, may all display themselves, 

 when there is an absolute cessation of all vo- 

 luntary movements. This is remarkably the 

 case in attacks of incubus, or nightmare ; in 

 which the dreamer is oppressed by intolerable 

 distress, from which he makes vain attempts 

 to free himself. His distress may be expressed 

 by moans, or by the agitation" of his coun- 

 tenance ; but none of his fancied efforts are 

 indicated by any respondent movements. This 

 condition may subside into a state of tranquil 

 slumber, or the agitation may increase to such a 

 pitch as to awake the sufferer ; and as the first 

 act of the waking state is usually to cry out or 

 kick violently, it has been supposed that the 

 return of volition has been the cause, instead 

 of being the effect, of the cessation of the op- 

 pressive dream. There are cases, however, in 

 which the dreamer executes movements in 

 consonance with ideas passing through his 

 mind, such as would, in the waking state, be 

 termed voluntary ; but these must be con- 

 sidered as belonging rather to the category of 

 somnambulism than to that of simple dreaming. 

 The direction of the current of thought in 

 dreaming is often given by impressions on the 

 organs of sense, which influence the mental 

 operations, by calling up associated ideas, 

 without being recognized and perceived as 

 distinct sensations. Thus, Dr. James Gre- 

 gory, having applied a hot bottle to his feet 

 on going to bed, dreamt that he was walking 

 up Etna and finding the ground intolerably 

 hot. On another occasion, he dreamt of 

 spending a winter at Hudson's Bay, and of 

 suffering much distress from the intense frost ; 

 this evidently the consequence of his having 

 thrown off the bed-clothes in his sleep, and of 

 his having been reading, a few days before, a 

 very particular account of the state of the 

 colonies in that country during winter. Dr. 

 Reid, having a badly-dressed blister on his 

 head, dreamt that he was being scalped by 

 Indians ; and a man in a damp bed, that he 

 was being dragged through a stream. A gouty 

 man, when beginning to feel his pain in his 

 sleep, may dream he is on the rack before 

 inquisitors. The sound of music may excite 

 delightful dreams. M. Girou de Buzarein- 

 gues* made some curious experiments on 

 * Journal de Physiologic, torn. viii. 



