The analysis of the dreaming faculty has never yet been made. The nearest approach to it is in our own time, and by the doctors of Phrenology. The suggestion of a plurality of mental attributes, and of their independence, one of the other, affords a key to some of the difficulties of the subject, without altogether enabling us to penetrate the sanctuary. Many difficulties remain to be overcome, if we rely upon the ordinary modes of thinking. My own notion is, simply, that the condition of sleep is one which by no means affects the mental nature. I think it probable that the mind, accustomed to exercise, thinks on, however deep may be the sleep of the physical man; that the highest exercise of the thinking faculty—that which involves the imagination—is, perhaps, never more acutely free to work out its problems, than when unembarrassed by the cares and anxieties of the temperament and form; and that dreaming is neither more nor less than habitual thought, apart from the ordinary restraints of humanity, of which the memory, at waking, retains a more or less distinct consciousness. This thought may or may not have been engendered by the topics which have impressed or interested us during the day; but this is not necessary, nor is it inevitable. We dream precisely as we think, with suggestions arising to the mind in sleep, spontaneously, as they do continually when awake, without any special provocation; and our dreams, in all probability, did not our memory fail us at awaking, would possess that coherence, proportion and mutual relation of parts, which the ordinary use of the ratiocinative faculties requires. I have no sort of doubt that the sleep of the physical man may be perfect, even while the mind is at work, in a high state of activity, and even excitement in its mighty store-house. The eye may be shut, the ear closed, the tongue sealed, the taste inappreciative, and the nerves of touch locked up in the fast embrace of unconsciousness, while thought, fancy, imagination, comparison and causality, are all busy in the most keen inquiries, and in the most wonderful creations. But my purpose is not now to insist upon these phenomena, and my speculations are only meant properly to introduce a vision of my own; one of those wild, strange, foreign fancies which sometimes so unexpectedly people and employ our slumbers—coherent, seemingly, in all its parts, yet as utterly remote as can well be imagined from the topics of daily experience and customary reflection.

I had probably been asleep a couple of hours, when I was awakened with some oppressive mental sensation. I was conscious that I had been dreaming, and that I had seen a crowd of persons, either in long procession, or engaged in some great state ceremonial. But of the particulars—the place, the parties, the purpose, or the period, I had not the most distant recollection. I was conscious, however, of an excited pulse, and of a feeling so restless, as made me, for a moment, fancy that I had fever. Such, however, was not the case. I rose, threw on my robe de chambre, and went to the window. The moon was in her meridian; the whole landscape was flickering with the light silvery haze with which she carpeted her pathway. From the glossy surface of the orange leaves immediately beneath the window, glinted a thousand diamond-like points of inexpressible brightness; while over all the fields was spread a fleecy softness, that was doubly pure and delicate in contact with the sombre foliage of the great forest, to the very foot of which it stretched. There was nothing in the scene before me that was not at once gentle and beautiful; nothing which, by the most remote connection, could possibly suggest an idea of darkness or of terror. I gazed upon the scene only for a few moments. The night was cold, and a sudden shivering chillness which it sent through all my frame, counseled me to get back to bed with all possible expedition. I did so, but was not successful in wooing the return of those slumbers which had been so unusually banished from mine eyes. For more than an hour I lay tossing and dissatisfied, with my thoughts flitting from subject to subject with all the caprice of an April butterfly. When I again slept, however, I was again conscious of a crowd. A multitude of objects passed in prolonged bodies before my sight. Troops of glittering forms then occupied the canvas, one succeeding to the other regularly, but without any individuality of object or distinct feature. But I could catch at intervals a bright flash, as of a plume or jewel, of particular size and splendor, leading me to the conviction that what I beheld was the progress of some great state ceremonial, or the triumphal march of some well-appointed army. But whether the procession moved under the eagles of the Roman, the horse-tails of the Ottoman, or the lion banner of England, it was impossible to ascertain. I could distinguish none of the ensigns of battle. The movements were all slow and regular. There was nothing of strife or hurry—none of the clamor of invasion or exultation of victory. The spectacle passed on with a measured pomp, as if it belonged to some sad and gloomy rite, where the splendor rather increased the solemnity to which it was simply tributary.

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