102 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



the faculties of memory and of imagination, 

 and the powers of mental association, appear as 

 if excited to an astonishing degree ; and hence 

 arise those dreams which seem almost of 

 a miraculous nature, but of which the truth 

 cannot be doubted. These classes of dreams 

 comprehend warnings, the communication of 

 information relative to bygone events, the re- 

 vealing of murder, the burial-place of the mur- 

 dered, and much more. It does not enter into 

 our present plan to analyse the metaphysical 

 subtleties and difficulties which are necessarily 

 involved in a disquisition upon such visions. 

 We refer our inquiring reader to Dr. Aber- 

 crombie's " Inquiries concerning the Intel- 

 lectual Powers," and to other works.* We 

 have here to look at sleep in reference only to 

 organic beings. Somnambulism, however, may 

 require some brief notice at our hands. Som- 

 nambulism does not appear, we think, to differ 

 from dreaming so much in its nature as it does 

 in the intensity of the affection of the organic 

 functions. In fact, the somnambulist generally 

 begins by talking in his sleep ; the next step 

 in the progress of the affection is that of rising 

 and dressing, or of departing from the room 

 without dressing, often by a dangerous and 

 unusual mode of exit. Some object is to be 

 accomplished ; either something is to be done 

 out of the ordinary routine of affairs, some 

 accustomed task is to be performed, or some 



* See this subject referred to In the volume of the Monthly 

 Series, entitled Remarkable Delusions. 



