96 DBEAMS AND DELUSIONS 



horse with imaginaiy races, as in the sporting dog with 

 imaginary coursing. 



The phenomena of dreaming in the parrot are much 

 more interesting than either in dog or horse, or indeed in 

 any other animal not gifted with articulate speech ; for it 

 prattles or talks or repeats its lessons in its sleep or dreams 

 (Houzeau). The same will probably be found to be the case 

 in starlings or other birds that can speak intelligently ; and 

 the subject of speech, coherent and incoherent, during sleep 

 and in the waking state is one of such interest as it is 

 illustrated by or among the lower animals that it is greatly 

 to be desired that owners of speaking parrots, starlings, or 

 other birds would carefully note and record all the modifi- 

 cations of their speech that occur in sleep and dreaming, or 

 in old age and disease. 



Bechstein has described dreaming in the bullfinch, and 

 it is noteworthy in his description that he points out that 

 the terror begotten during sleep, the result of its dreams, 

 which probably involved visual delusions of a horrifying 

 kind, was such that it required its mistress's interference to 

 prevent bad effects. It frequently fell from its perch in its 

 terror, we are told, but became ( immediately tranquillised 

 and reassured by the voice of its mistress." 



It may, perhaps, be supposed that it is impossible to 

 determine the presence of dreaming among the lower ani- 

 mals in the absence of the power of speech and writing, of 

 orally or otherwise describing past ideas or sensations. But, 

 in the first place, we must remember that, as regards man, 

 infants and deaf mutes cannot describe their thoughts or feel- 

 ings, and there are many idiots, imbeciles, and insane persons 

 in the same helpless condition, who, nevertheless, we have 

 every reason to believe, are quite as capable of dreaming as 

 more favoured individuals. In some of these cases, indeed, 

 imagination is probably at once more morbid and more 

 fecund than in healthier individuals, and dreaming corre- 

 spondingly more common. Life in some cases among the 

 insane may be described as a chronic dream, of lurid or 

 sunny character, as the case may be. 



In man the presence of dreaming and the nature of his 



