614 DREAMING. 



ourselves to discover the incompatibility of many circumstances 

 which we fancy. In a higher degree of activity, we answer 

 questions put to us, although often ridiculously, as our deficiency 

 of mental power prevents us from keeping our associations in a 

 proper train ; and we sometimes even perform a regular series 

 of movements. Somnambulism is but imperfect and partial sleep. 

 In it persons walk and even perform a variety of other actions, 

 without hearing or seeing, or consciousness of their situation, so 

 that they fall over things placed in their way, or down a descent. 

 They will sometimes write excellent letters, compose good verses, 

 and perform accurate calculations, in this state, and on being 

 roused into consciousness know nothing of what has happened. 

 This state generally occurs in sleep, but it occasionally seizes 

 persons awake, and is then termed ecstasis. w This is by no 

 means uncommon at the commencement or termination of epi- 

 leptic or hysteric paroxysms. In an opposite morbid affection, 

 the patient is conscious and sensible of every thing around, but 

 unable to move, or give the least sign of life. 1 



Dreaming and mental activity of all degrees in sleep, from 

 merely turning in bed, to talking, walking, and composing, are 

 partial activity of the brain. " Almost all physiologists agree," 

 says Gall, " that in dreaming animal life is partially active. 

 They are right, and yet they deny the plurality of organs ! But 

 dreams cannot be conceived without the hypothesis of this 

 plurality." 



** When, in sleep, particular organs of animal life become 

 active, the sentiments and ideas which depend upon them must 

 necessarily be awakened ; but, in this case, the activity is inde- 

 pendent of the will. 



" When one organ only is active, the dream is simple : the 

 object of our love is embraced, harmonious music is heard, we 

 fight our enemies, accordingly as one organ or another is per- 

 forming its functions. 



" The more organs are in activity at once, the more the action 

 of the dream will be complicated or confused, and the more in- 

 congruous will these be. 



w A remarkable example is given in the Psychological Magazine of a young 

 lady thus taken for dead, and after the funeral hymns were sung, &c. discovered 

 to be alive by a sweat breaking forth at the moment she found the lid of the 

 coffin was about to be nailed down. 



