378 



ON SLEEP, DREAMING, 



variety of other curious phasnomenon in natural philosophy, which have 

 usually been supposed of very difficult elucidation. 



What is EE VERY ? It is the dream of a man whiJe awake. He is so 

 intently bent upon a particular train of thought, that he is torpid to every 

 thing else : he sees nothing, he hears nothing, he ft els nothing ; - and the 

 only difference between the two is, that in common dreaming, the sen- 

 sitive and irritative power of the external senses is exhausted progres- 

 sively and generally, while the will partakes of the exhaustion ; and that 

 in revery the whole is directed to a single outlet, the will, instead of being 

 exhausted, being revetted upon this one point alone ; and the external 

 senses being alone rendered torpid from the drain that is thus made upon 

 them to support the superabundant flow of sensitive and irritative power 

 expended upon the prevailing ecstasy. 



It was my intention to have cited a few singular instances of this won- 

 derful aberrancy of the mind ; and to have followed them up with a mo- 

 mentary glance at those iiiteresting subjects so closely connected with it, 

 night-mare, delirium, madness, idiotism ; but the time will by no means 

 allow me, and 1 hasten to close with a few observations upon winter- 

 sleep, and the revivification of certain animals after their appearing to bQ^ 

 dead. 



Upon a general survey of the preceding observations, it should follow 

 that every part of the animal system may safely sleep or become torpid 

 except the vital organs, or those that act independently of the will ; and 

 that the moment these participate in the torpor the prmciple of life ceases, 

 and the spirit separates from the body. Why the principle of life should 

 even then cease we know not, for we know not what produced its union 

 at first. There are various circumstances, however, which prove that this, 

 though a general rule, is not a rule without its exceptions. We have all 

 heard and read of r^uch extraordinary occurrences as trances, or apparent 

 absences of the soul from the body : we have heard and read of persons 

 who, after having been apparently dead for many days, and on the point 

 of being buried, have returned to a full possession of hfe and health ; 

 and although most of these histories are wrapt up in so much mystery 

 and superstition, as to be altogether unworthy of notice, there are many 

 too cautiously drawn up and autlienticated to be dismissed in so cursory 

 a manner. But let us proceed to a few fa<-ts of a similar, yet of a more 

 extraordinary kind, and which are or may be within the personal knowledge 

 of every one. 



In cases of suspended animation by hanging, drowning, or catalepsy, 

 the vital principle continues attached to the body after all the vital functions 

 cease to act, often for half an hour, and sometimes for hours. In the year 

 1769, Mr. John Hunter, being then forty-one years of age, of a sound 

 constitution, and subject to no disease /except a casual fit of the gout, was 

 suddenly attacked with a pain in the stomach, which was shortly succeeded 

 by a total suspension of the action of the heart and of the lungs. By the 

 power of the will, or rather by violent striving, he occasionally inflated 

 the lungs, but over the heart he had no control whatever : noj, though 

 he was attended by four of the chief physicians in London from' the first, 

 could the action of either be restored by medicine. In about three quarters 

 of an hour, however, the vital actions began to return of their own accord, 

 and in two hours he was perfectly recovered. " In this attack,", observes 

 Mr. (now Sir Everard) Home, who has given an interesting memoir of 

 his life, " there was a suspension of the most material involuntary actions : 



