DREAMING. 619 



dangers were imaginary, and always threw himself down a pre- 

 cipice near which he dreamt he was standing, and thus destroyed 

 the illusion ; or, as Dr. Beattie, when, dreaming himself in dan- 

 ger upon the parapet of a bridge, and reflecting he was not 

 in the habit of such pranks and might therefore be dreaming, 

 determined to awaken himself by pitching over, and did so with 

 success. h 



Dreams differ much in their absolute vividness, as well as in 

 the impression they make and the degree in which they are re- 

 membered. 



We sometimes wake in our dream, and soon fall asleep and 

 experience a continuation of it. 



I conceive that all the phenomena of dreaming resolve them- 

 selves into partial activity of brain, partial not in Gall's view only, 

 who considers that there is activity of one or of a limited number 

 of cerebral organs, but also partial in regard to individual organs, 

 one portion of an organ being active and another not; and I con- 

 ceive that the activity of the organ or portion of organ or organs 

 may be of various degrees of intensity. All the phenomena of 

 dreaming may be thus explained : though some, strangely enough, 

 cannot understand how to view dreaming as a disturbed state 

 of brain is at all more explanatory than to view them inde- 

 pendently of the brain ; and call it " making insignificant speech 

 supply the place of analysis," or, " merely a translation of one 

 language to another," 1 to take into consideration the organ, the 

 disturbance of whose functions actually constitutes dreams. 



An idea, being excited, excites another associated with it by the 

 order of previous occurrence, by similarity, or some other of the 

 endless modes of association, exactly as happens in the waking 

 state. But, as our brain is imperfectly and partially active, so 

 that we are not, as in the waking state, intelligent enough to 

 perceive the grossest incongruities and impossibilities, nor pos- 

 sessed of power of volition sufficient to detain an idea and prevent 

 its floating off and being replaced by another associated with it 

 perhaps in the most trifling manner, and this by another and 

 another in endless successive images, thoughts riot on in con- 

 fusion, not in the order of previous succession, as some assert, but 



h Dr. Macnish, 1. c. p. 108. sq. 



1 London Review, No. II. p. 430. Isis revelata, vol. ii. p. 120. 



