KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



145 



MENTAL ILLUSIONS. 



THE PLEASURES OF SLEEP. 



We are all dreamers. 

 When sleep, 'with starry circlet, presses down 

 The lids of gentle spirits, then is it that, 

 In some far land awaking, we again 

 The past live over ; and our hest affections, 

 Memories, and hallowed thoughts come thronging 



round us, 

 To melody of simple songs we loved 

 When we Were children. Laugh we then, and weep, 

 As Fancy takes a sad or merry mood. 



HERE ARE FEW PERSONS 

 WHO DO NOT DREAM ; but I 



have heard some declare them- 

 selves strangers to these pleas- 

 ing illusions of the mind. I 

 say pleasing, for such I believe 

 will be their general character ; 

 although they will ever partake much of the 

 animus of the party who dreams, and be some- 

 what allied to those pursuits, in which, when 

 awake, he delights. Nor is it unfair to suppose 

 that the soul, when away from her " clay tene- 

 ment " (and what are our dreamy flights but 

 visits of the soul to other more congenial 

 scenes, when the body is sunk in repose ?) 

 should delight in those pursuits which, if not 

 more in accordance with her nature, are at 

 least productive of agreeable and pleasurable 

 emotions. 



Neither are dreams i: a new thing." They 

 are of high antiquity — probably the first 

 sleep of the first man, was productive of the 

 first dream. Our great poet Milton, in his 

 " Paradise Lost," has represented the Evil 

 One, when on his errand of woe to our first 

 parents in the garden of Eden, as 



Squat like a toad close at the ear of Eve, 

 Essaying by his devilish arts to reach 

 The organs of her fancy, and with them forge 

 Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams. 



In earlier ages, as we read in the Sacred 

 Volume, dreams were the channels through 

 which many of the Divine communications 

 were conveyed to men. " In a dream, in a 

 vision of the night," says an inspired writer ; 

 and "like as a«dream when one awaketh," 

 says another. An angel spake to Laban 

 in a dream (Gen. xxiv.) ; the Lord appeared 

 to Solomon in a dream (1 Kings iii. 5); 

 Joseph was warned of God in a dream (Mat. 

 ii. 12) ; and though this is no longer the case, 

 a degree of importance is yet attached to 

 them by the more superstitious around us, 

 which has probably been thus originally pro- 

 duced. This is to say nothing of the many 

 nonsensical interpretations of dreams which 

 have appeared amongst us, and which almost 

 every one has seen. 



But it is not on account of their high anti- 

 quity, of their original importance, or of the 

 present superstitious feeling which prevails, 

 that I now write. An idea of a far more 

 interesting character has often struck me 



when reflecting upon dreams. 1 have fre- 

 quently been struck, with the vividness with 

 which these visions of the night have betn 

 portrayed, the distinctness with which they 

 have been remembered, the accuracy with 

 which every word spoken has been retained — 

 when the morning light has again aroused us 

 to a more material existence. This has led 

 me to consider, that a not very improbable, 

 but rather a pretty correct idea respecting the 

 existence of the soul after death, and of its 

 capabilities for enjoyments, or the reverse, 

 may be gathered from the phenomena of a 

 dream. 



That this is an idea altogether original, I 

 do not suppose. Death has so generally been 

 regarded as a " long sleep," that it would be 

 unfair to presume none have ever similarly 

 considered the existence of the soul during 

 that period as something like a " long dream." 

 May not also an after and continued existence 

 of the soul, or that part of the compound 

 man to which belongs volition, be positively 

 inferred from these phenomena ? I think it 

 may. Save the continued action of the 

 respiratory organs, and the pulsation of the 

 heart during sleep, we are frequently to all 

 appearance dead ; as motionless as ever we 

 shall be in the silent grave. Yet our minds 

 are active — probably never at rest, continu- 

 ally wandering here and there in our dreams. 

 And suppose that, by some sudden stroke, the 

 motion of those organs was to be stopped, 

 the heart's pulsations to be arrested, and 

 death, or the absence of life, to possess our 

 material frame : — what are we to expect 

 would result to that roving mind — that active 

 principle of volition of which we speak ; or 

 rather to that substance to which that prin- 

 ciple belongs ? Would the same blow arrest 

 it also in its career, and consign it to the 

 same state of inaction, no more to resume its 

 activity, as the body in which it was con- 

 tained ? or would it not rather release it from 

 the shell in which it could not longer be bene- 

 ficially employed, and restore it, a spark of the 

 divine effulgence, to that hand whence it first 

 sprung? Such I conceive to be by far the 

 most rational, as it is by far the most pleasing 

 idea.* 



In our dreams we walk, though our feet stir 

 not from the bed ; we touch, though our hands 

 never move from our sides ; we see, though 

 our eyes are fast closed by their protecting 

 lids, and the darkness of night surrounds us ; 

 we eat, drink, and enjoy food, though our 

 mouth is never opened, save to allow the 



* Our own conviction on this matter, is pre- 

 cisely similar to that of our correspondent. The 

 " spirit " of a good man no doubt returns, at his 

 death, immediately into the hand of his Maker. 

 The soul is imperishable — forming (for good or 

 evil) a grand link in the divine chain of Provi- 

 dence — through time and in eternity. — Ed. K. J. 



Vol. III.— 10. 



