Indeed, so impressed is Homer's imagination with the supernatural character of dreams, that he is careful to distinguish between the visions occurring during sound sleep and those between sleeping and waking. The dreams most pregnant with consequences occurred after midnight, "about the time when the cows were milked." Thus, in that beautiful dream so full of sweetest poetry, which is recorded at the end of the fourth book of the "Odyssey," Penelope, heart-wounded and weary with the pertinacity of her suitors, retires to rest "without refection due," and dreams at midnight that her "phantom-sister," Iphthimia, appears and prophesies: "Thy son the gods propitious will restore, And bid thee cease his absence to deplore." Penelope has been informed that the suitors intend to destroy Telemachus on his way home; and therefore this comforting dream at so fortunate an hour is needed to allay her maternal fears. Philosophers at the present day would probably say that the fact of going to bed foodless, and torn with distracting thoughts, was quite enough to account for her dream without the intervention of Pallas. Heraclitus, the Ephesian philosopher, who flourished about B. C. 500, ought to have been a good judge of dreams, for much of his life was spent in solitude. What does this "mourner" say? "All men while they are awake are in one common world, but each of them when he is asleep is in a world of his own." Addison, in commenting on this passage, says, "There is something in this consideration which intimates to us a natural grandeur and perfection of soul which is rather to be admired than explained." Setting aside the imagery of the Greek poets and the opinions of their merely speculative philosophers, we find that dreams were considered of such importance in the common life of the Greeks that one of the learned professions was that of oneirocritics, or interpreters of dreams. A Greek would probably consult one of these men as naturally as he would a lawyer or doctor, and no doubt oftener; for the oneirocritics were very badly paid at Athens, and there was no heavy fee "to open the eyes" of the dreamer. Thus we are told of a man who dreamed that he saw an egg hanging from the tester of his bed. Being sorely exercised at the unwonted vision he repaired to the oneirocritic, who informed him, as a wise and ready interpreter, that there was a treasure under his bed. He immediately set about digging, and, to his great joy, found some gold set round with silver. He gave the oneirocritic some silver in payment for his information; but the sage asked: "Was there no gold? If not, what meant the yolk of the egg?" Artemi dorus, another Ephesian, seems to have spent the best of his days in reducing dreams to the obedience of exact rules, but with little success. He said that all true dreams foretold some good or evil; that to dream of a chain meant a wife or hindrance, and to dream of the "belly" meant children, for they cry for meat. Coming to Latin writers of the later days of the republic and the empire, we find that the skepticism which pervaded their ideas of the gods and religion extended itself to dreams; and Ennius, who was often quoted by Cicero, is by no means prepossessed in their favor, or in that of the oneirocritic: "Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers, I ne'er consult, and heartily despise. . . . -Addison's Translation. Epictetus, whose opinions were so highly valued by the Emperor Antoninus, seemed to have a thorough appreciation of Roman skepticism, for one of his rules of conduct was, "Never tell thy dream, for though thou thyself mayst take a pleasure in telling thy dream, another will take no pleasure in hearing it"; from which we may infer that oneirocritics had a worse time of it at Rome than at Athens. The acute and learned Tertullian, converted from paganism to the doctrines of Christianity, naturally took the opposite extreme, and attached great importance to the soul's power of divining in dreams. By some connection with the disembodied state, he boldly asserts that the soul is able to see into futurity-a view which has been vindicated by many authors, both ancient and modern, who can not certainly be charged with enthusiasm or superstition. Passing on to the middle ages, and to the darker days of the Church, the interpretation of dreams became in the hands of unscrupulous priests a most dangerous power, and bore much bitter fruit. Dreams of fire and plagues were sure indications of consignment to eternal flames and everlasting agonies, unless the miserable and ignorant dreamers should place themselves unreservedly in the hands of mother Church, or rather in those of an abandoned priesthood. The tales of Boccaccio bear abundant evidence of such moral and religious depravity. The Mohammedans, too, were very superstitious about dreams. With them the most fortunate dream a man could have was to see his wife's tongue cut off at the root. It would be curious to inquire how far this feeling has developed since the intro duction of well-stocked harems. To dream of one's teeth signified that something good or evil was about to happen to the relations of the dreamer. The Caliph Almanzor dreamed that all his teeth fell out. He immediately sought an interpreter, who told him that all his relations would die. Not relishing such a construction put upon his dream, he cursed the interpreter's evil mouth, and sought another. The second sage told him that he should outlive all his relatives. This explanation suiting the Caliph better, he gave this prophet his blessing and ten thousand drachms of gold. Chaucer is very severe on dreamers and dreams; and his contempt for both is effectively set forth in the following lines, polished by the masterly hand of Dryden: "Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes: Shakespeare's frequent references to dreams will occur to the mind of every reader; and we need only revert to that horrible vision of Clarence in "Richard III.," the vivid imagery of which is enough to make the flesh creep as we read it. It is interesting, too, as being one of those dreams which are represented as “coming true," and of which so many people, whose veracity is unquestionable, can furnish examples within their own experience. Lord Bacon, in his essay on "Prophecies," relates some curious instances of dreams, which, however, crumble to pieces under the application of his keen intellect. "The daughter of Polycrates," he relates, "dreamed that Jupiter bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him; and it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun made his body run with sweat, and the rain washed it. . . . Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his neck; and, indeed, the succession that followed him, for many years, made golden times." He looks upon Cleon's dream as a jest; for Cleon dreamed that he was devoured by a long dragon, and it was expounded as referring to a maker of sausages who troubled him greatly. Bacon's judgment of dreams is closely identical with that of Chaucer. He says, “They ought to be despised, and to serve but for winter talk by the fireside"; and he thinks the publication of He then ex them has done much mischief. plains why they are often credited-an explanation which is sufficient to account for some coincidences, but quite inapplicable to special cases. He maintains that "men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss, as they generally do, and also in dreams." There can be no doubt that this incisive remark exposes one of the commonest fallacies in life. A chance coincidence is immediately seized upon and noted, while the numerous cases in which the prediction fails is passed over or neglected. Many popular superstitions are undoubtedly attributable to this fallacy. Sir Thomas Browne, a traveler and a physician, author of that charming book, the "Religio Medici," has some quaint and interesting remarks on dreams, which he had best relate in his own inimitable way, and which are by no means so skeptical as those of Bacon. He says: "We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleep. I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams. . . . Thus it is observed that men sometimes in the hour of their departure do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality." In another part of the “Religio" he expresses his belief in the supernatural with great fervor and point, and thinks those narrow-minded who refuse to grant that the soul in slumber may hold converse with disembodied beings. "We do surely," he says, " owe the knowledge of many secrets to the discovery of good and bad angels . . . and the ominous prognostics which forerun the ruin of states, princes, and private persons, are the charitable premonitions of good angels." He would much rather believe too much than too little; and in this respect is the exact opposite of the cautious, suspicious, logical Bacon. Coming nearer to our own times, we find Addison, in his grave and elegant way, discoursing on dreams. His opinions are always the results of much observation and experience. He discusses the subject philosophically, and propounds several questions which can not fail to set his readers reflecting, The cardinal point round " which his arguments center is that the soul is absolutely distinct from the body, and that the latter but clogs and cripples its marvelous activity. In dreams the soul has full play, being as free from the trammels of the body as if it had left it for a while, and was disporting itself in utter forgetfulness of its fleshly charge. If this be true, what must be the freedom and energy of the disembodied state; and what may not a soul develop and achieve when the millstone of the body, with its pains, its ailments, and its imperfections, does not require its watchful care! Then indeed may souls, now apparently sluggish and witless, be lively and intelligent, the grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit." This is a characteristic of dreams which is supported by considerable evidence, and Dr. Abercrombie relates some singular instances in confirmation of Addison's remark. Emotions, such as joy and sorrow, are intensified in dreams, and can not fail to have a great effect on the life. And so Addison asks these two questions, which, with him, we leave to the solution of the reader. First: "Supposing a man always happy in his dreams, and miserable in his waking thoughts, and that his life were equally divided between them, whether would he be more happy or miserable?" Second: "Were a man a king in his dreams and a beggar awake, and dreamed as consequentially, and in as continued unbroken schemes, as he thinks when awake, whether he would be in reality a king or a beggar, or rather whether he would not be both?" Although there can be no doubt of the independent action of the soul in dreams, and its increased powers, he thinks it a pernicious practice to lay stress and regulate the future conduct on the mere evidence of transient dreams, which may have no meaning beyond the present hour. Leaving history, let us ask ourselves, "What is it to dream? and what evidence have we of the state of the mind and body in dreaming?" Well, then, to dream, is to think during sleep. Ideas and trains of thought follow one another in quick succession, and in a manner over which we have no control. And what is thought? This is the question which has distracted the minds of philosophers from the most ancient times down to the present day. Broadly speaking, there are two important theories which have been put forth with equal vigor by opposing reasoners. The first maintains that thought is intuitive, an affair of the mind, is totally independent of the body, and can exist and will exist hereafter without it, that the body is a temporary habitation for the soul, a casket containing a precious jewel which must be yielded up at death, and that in dreaming the mind is "fancy free" and uncontrolled while its sluggish jailer is asleep. The other asserts that body and mind are inseparable, and can no more exist without each other than a fire can without fuel, that mind is a peculiar organization and development of matter, an affair of blood and nerve, a conglomeration of nucleated corpuscles which for all the world resemble infinitesimal tadpoles, bundles of fibers in which that mysterious phosphorus holds its sway in company with untold electric batteries. The development of thought is therefore the development of matter; ideas become embodied in ganglia and cerebral hemispheres, and as these increase in number and weight the intellect increases in 'wisdom and stature." Whether thought be identical with brain-substance and part and parcel of its structure, or whether it exist independently of matter, and use matter only as its vehicle for communicating with a material world, we will not stay to inquire, beyond hazarding the opinion that the truth as usual lies between the two, that the connection between them is as intimate as it is mysterious, and that if one suffer both suffer. It is, however, an established fact that intellect, as a general rule, is proportionate to weight of brain, and that, the more convoluted a brain is, the more intelligent is the being which possesses it. The average weight of the human brain, we are told, is about forty-eight ounces; but there are great occasional variations, as we might expect from the great varieties of men. Lord Campbell's brain, for instance, weighed seventy-nine ounces, Cuvier's sixty-four, Dr. Abercrombie's sixty-three, a Bushwoman's brain, mentioned by Mr. Marshall Hall, thirty-one and a half ounces, and that of an idiot woman, whose age was forty-two, only ten ounces. The last-mentioned could scarcely walk, was just able to nurse a doll and to say a few words. In the matter of convolution some qualification is necessary. Cuvier's brain was rich in convolutions, but men of known mental superiority have not been so distinguished in this respect as some of their intellectual inferiors. A dog's brain, moreover, is less convoluted than that of a sheep, though none would deny that a dog is far more intelligent than a sheep. It therefore appears that, if the bodily mechanism goes wrong, the mind will be more or less affected; and the phenomena of dreams are to a great extent referable to this principle. To seek out the physical disarrangement or discomfort is the first and most natural interpretation of dreams. But this physical explanation is often insufficient to account for the far-reaching powers of the mind in sleep, though it may account for the irritation which has started the dream. Then, again, it has been said that we are not wholly asleep when we dream, and that in really sound sleep dreams are unknown. The senses drop off one by one, and not altogether, as is popularly supposed. With the closing of the eyelids the sense of sight disappears, then taste and smell. Hearing follows, and last of all the sense of touch. The two latter are certainly more susceptible in sleep than the former, and it has therefore been said that they sleep with less soundness. Another explanation would be that the sleeper is more likely to be disturbed by sounds and touches than by other sensations from without. It is further asserted that certain muscles begin to sleep before others, that sleep commences at the extremities, beginning with the feet and legs, and creeping "toward the center of the nervous action." We all know the necessity of keeping the feet warm before going to sleep. It may be taken as an established fact that particular sensations are localized in particular portions of the brain; and it frequently happens that some of the mental faculties are suspended while others are still active. faculties, too, may be kept alive by an excess of These nervous energy flowing to them, and a train of thoughts kept up with surprising vigor. Association has full play, and there are no distracting influences from without. But this theory of dreaming, during partial sleep only, does not explain all circumstances, and it has, moreover, opposed to it the evidence of many of the deepest thinkers. Sir William Hamilton says that "whether we recollect our dreams or not, we always dream," though he goes on to add that, as a general rule, those faculties are most in action which have been least exhausted during the day." It is certainly a matter of observation that many dreams seem to have no direct connection with our present circumstances. Forgetfulness of dreams is common with some people, though they may have been heard to talk in their sleep. Kant says: "To cease to dream would be to cease to live; the mind must necessarily be active." Dr. Cunningham, in an article which he wrote some years ago, remarks that all thought is objective and pictorial. "We can not think," he urges, "without thinking of something, and that something must be thought of as outside the mind. It is not our thoughts, but the things we think of, that are present to our consciousness; and thus our thinking consists of a series of visions." But whatever impressions arise in our minds during sleep, we believe that they have a real and present existence; and our sensations are often so acute as to awake us in a manner anything but pleasant. Events that have happened long ago come before us; we take our part in them, and are not surprised in the least at their recurrence. We see friends who have perhaps 553 been long dead; we talk to them, and they talk to us, and often there seems nothing strange in the matter. Indeed, as a rule, the dead live again for us in our dreams. Another fact which has been pretty clearly ranged under three heads: First, those which With regard to dreams of sensation, it has already been remarked that hearing and touch seem to be the most acute in sleep, though sight and taste have much to account for in producing unpleasant visions. Indigestion, it is well known, is a fruitful cause of bad dreams; and to go to bed on a heavy supper is simply to court the most frightful apparitions. An empty stomach, on the contrary, seems to have a very favorable effect on the dreaming mind. Those who have been kept without food generally imagine themselves guests at a delightful feast, and it is related of Baron Trenck, when lodged in a dungeon, and almost dying of hunger, that he dreamed nearly every night of the table luxuries of Berlin. The dreams of such persons are, indeed, so remarkably bright and agreeable that Byron and other authors of his school when in Italy sometimes fasted for several days in order to produce brilliant effects on their imaginations. Particular kinds of food and plants, too, have a very powerful influence over the mind in sleep, and the frightful slumbers consequent on the habitual use of opium, Indian hemp, and other narcotics are well known. The visions of De Quincey "in his cups " make the blood run cold; and his Confessions of an Opium-Eater," if sown broadcast in China, where the pernicious poppy is so largely exported, should be enough to frighten even “celestial” pates into abandoning a practice which, like a canker-worm, is eating away the very life of the nation. But Chinese depravity and misery are, in this matter, India's gain. 66 It has been often remarked how singularly unproductive of dreams is the sense of smell; nor have we been able to find any properly authenticated cases caused by this sense alone. The organ of sight undergoes a curious change during sleep, as may be proved by slightly raising the eyelid. The pupil is observed to be contracted, and will quiver with an irregular motion as if inclined to dilate, but it at length ceases to move, and will remain contracted till the person awakes. If a strong light be held before the sleeper's eyes he is almost sure to awake; but, at the very moment, he may have a dream of some tremendous fire, perhaps that his house is in flames. The ear of the dreamer is generally on the alert, and proves a gong to the mysterious spirit to make its airy rounds. To some sleepers the sound of a flute fills the air with music, or they dream of a delightful concert. A loud noise will produce terrific thunder and crashings unutterable, and at the same time awake the sleeper. According to Dr. Abercrombie a gentleman who had been a soldier dreamed that he heard a signalgun, saw the proceedings for displaying the signals, heard the bustle of the streets, the assem bling of troops, etc. Just then he was roused by his wife, who had dreamed precisely the same dream, with this addition, that she saw the enemy land, and a friend of her husband killed; and she awoke in a fright. This occurred at Edinburgh at the time when a French invasion was feared, and it had been decided to fire a signal-gun at the first approach of the foe. This dream was caused, it appears, by the fall of a pair of tongs in the room above; and the excited state of the public mind was quite sufficient to account for both dreams turning on the same subject. An old lady, a friend of the writer, relates a similar dream which occurred to her just before the battle of Waterloo, when the fear of an invasion by Napoleon was at its height. She heard the march of troops in the streets, and the screams of the populace. They broke into her own house, ransacked it, and pursued her with bayonets. She fell on the floor and pretended to be dead. After sundry thrusts, which seemed to her "roving spirit" to be quite innocuous, the soldiers remarked that she was "done for." They departed, and she escaped to consciousness. This dream was no doubt caused, in the first instance, by a noise in the house or street, and the painless bayonet-thrusts by some slight irritation, such as a hair-pin or other adjunct to dress. Whispering in a sleeper's ear will often produce a dream; and there are cases on record in which people who sleep with their ears open have been led through dreadful agonies at the will of their wakeful tormentors. The vivid description* given of a young officer so treated by his comrades is both interesting and suggestive. In changing our position, as we constantly do in sleep, we touch the bedclothes, etc., perhaps the nose gets tickled or the sole of the foot, and dreams painful or pleasant are the consequence. These may seem trivial causes, but it must be remembered that the mind is ready to fly into the realms of fancy at the slightest intimation. People have often dreamed of spending the severest winters in Siberia, and of joining the expeditions to the north pole, simply because the bedclothes have been thrown off during sleep. It is said that a moderate heat applied to the soles of the feet will generate dreams of volcanoes, burning coals, etc. Dr. Gregory dreamed of walking up the crater of Mount Etna, and that he felt the earth warm under his feet. He had placed a hot-water bottle at his feet on going to bed. The memory of a visit he had once paid to Mount Vesuvius supplied the mental picture. Persons suffering from toothache imagine that the operator is tugging at the faulty tooth, and somehow can not extract it; or, as in Dr. Greg * Abercrombie, "Intellectual Powers." |