THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DREAMS.

The subject of the foregoing chapter is so intimately connected with the phenomena of dreaming, and I have expressed my views in regard to it at such length, that but few psychological points remain to be considered in the present discussion. What I have to say, therefore, in regard to the physiology of dreaming must be read in connection with the chapter on “The State of the Mind during Sleep,” in order that the whole matter may be fully understood.

It is contended by some writers that the mind is never at rest, and that even during the most profound sleep dreams take place, which are either forgotten immediately, or which make no impression on the memory. That this view is erroneous is, I think, very evident. If it were correct, the first object of sleep—rest for the brain—would not be attained. We all know how fatigued we are, and how indisposed to exertion the brain is, after a night of continued dreaming, and we can easily imagine what would be the consequences if such a condition were kept up night after night. To say that we really do dream not only every night, but every instant of the night, in fact always and continually when we sleep, but that we forget our dreams as soon as they are formed, remembering solely those which are most vivid, is making assertions which not only are without proof, but which are impossible of proof. For if, as Locke[65] remarks, the sleeping man on awaking has no recollection of his thoughts, it is very certain that no one else can recollect them for him.

The observations of Locke on this point are extremely appropriate, and, to my mind, very philosophical and logical. After insisting that, sleeping or waking, a man cannot think without being sensible of it, he says:[66]

“I grant that the soul of a waking man is never without thought, because it is the condition of being awake; but whether sleeping without dreaming be not an affection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man’s consideration, it being hard to conceive that anything should think and not be conscious of it. If the soul doth think in a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I ask, whether during such thinking it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or misery? I am sure the man is not, any more than the bed or earth he lies on, for to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it seems to me utterly inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible that the soul can, while the body is sleeping, have its thinkings, enjoyments, and concerns, its pleasure or pain, about which the man is not conscious of nor partakes in, it is certain that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the same person; but his soul when he sleeps and Socrates the man, consisting of body and soul when he is waking, are two persons, since waking Socrates has no knowledge of or concernment for that happiness or misery of his soul which it enjoys alone by itself while he sleeps without perceiving anything of it, any more than he has for the happiness or misery of a man in the Indies whom he knows not; for if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and sensations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal identity.”

In a subsequent section of the same chapter, Locke asserts that most men pass a great part of their lives without dreaming, and that he once knew a scholar who had no bad memory, who told him he had never dreamed in his life till after the occurrence of a fever in the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year of his age.

Examples of persons who have not ordinarily dreamed are adduced by the ancient writers. Pliny[67] refers to men who never dreamed. Plutarch[68] alludes to the case of Cleon, who, in living to an advanced age, had yet never dreamed; and Suetonius[69] declares that before the murder of his mother he had never dreamed.

A lady who was under my care for a serious nervous affection declared to me that she never had had but one dream in her life, and that was after receiving a severe fall in which she struck her head.

And yet, notwithstanding the experience of every one that sleep often happens without the accompaniment of dreams, the great majority of writers hold the view that the brain is never at rest. Doubtless this opinion has its origin partly in the doctrine that the mind is a something altogether independent of and superior to the brain. They appear to be incapable of appreciating the fact that when the brain is in a state of complete repose there can be no mental manifestation, and that all intellectual phenomena are the results of cerebral activity. Another cause for their belief is the fact that they make no distinction between dreaming and thinking, whereas it is very evident that the two are not to be placed in the same category. Thinking is an action which requires cerebral effort, and which is undertaken with a determinate purpose. We will to think, and we think what we please; but it is very different with our dreams, which come and go without any power on our part to regulate or direct them. To think requires all the faculties of the mind; to dream necessitates only the memory and the imagination. In thinking, the brain is active in all its parts; in dreaming, it is nearly entirely quiescent.

Writers who contend for the doctrine of constant mental activity regard the brain as the organ or tool of the mind, a structure which the mind makes use of in order to manifest itself. Such a theory is certain to lead them into difficulties, and is contrary to all the teaching of physiology. The full discussion of this question would be out of place here; I will, therefore, only state that this work is written from the stand-point of regarding the mind as nothing more than the result of cerebral action. Just as a good liver secretes good bile, a good candle gives good light, and good coal a good fire, so does a good brain give a good mind. When the brain is quiescent there is no mind.

Lemoine[70] begins his chapter “On the State of the Mind during Sleep” with the assertion that “there is no sleep for the mind.” He is obliged, however, to admit that “when the organs of the body are benumbed by sleep, the mind appears to be in a particular state; it seems to be submitted to other laws than those which govern it during wakefulness; it seems to have lost for a time its most precious faculties.”

During sleep the mind is, as he supposes, in a particular state, for, as has been shown in the previous chapter, it has lost many of its chief parts. The laws which govern it are, however, the same which always regulate it. The body upon which their power is primarily exercised—the brain—is not in the same condition during sleep as during wakefulness, and hence the differences in the evidences of cerebral activity.

Sir William Hamilton[71] is generally considered to have determined affirmatively the question of the continuance of the action of the brain during sleep. He caused himself to be aroused from sleep at intervals through the night, and invariably found that he was disturbed from a dream, the particulars of which he could always distinctly recollect. But a full knowledge of the subject he was investigating would have sufficed to convince Sir William that the conclusion he drew from his experiments was altogether fallacious. It is well known that dreams are excited by strong impressions made upon the senses, or by irritations arising in the internal organs. Thus Baron Trenck relates that when confined in his dungeon he suffered the pangs of hunger almost continually, and that his dreams at night were always of delicate meats and sumptuous repasts, spread before him on luxuriously-furnished tables. The mere excitation of waking a sleeping person is generally sufficient to give rise to a dream. Maury, in his very interesting work, to which reference has already been made, and which will hereafter be more specifically considered, adduces many examples of dreams produced by sensorial impressions. I have myself performed many experiments with reference to this point, and have generally found ample confirmation of Maury’s investigations. It may therefore, I think, be assumed, without any violence to the actual facts of the cases, that the brain is not always in action, and that there are times when we sleep without dreaming.

In the previous chapter the idea is sought to be conveyed that we originate nothing in our dreams. We may conceive of things which never existed, or of which we have heard or read, but the images we make of them are either composed of elements familiar to us, or else are based upon ideal representations which we have formed in our waking moments. Thus, before the discovery of America no Europeans ever dreamed of American Indians, for the reason that nothing existed within their knowledge which could give any idea of the appearance of such human beings. It is possible that Columbus and his companions may have dreamed of the continent of which they were in search and of its natives, but the images formed of the latter must necessarily have resembled other beings they had seen, or which they had heard described. After the discovery, however, it was no unusual thing for the Spaniards and others to have correct images of Indians appear to them in their dreams.

Dreams, therefore, must have a foundation, and this is either impressions made upon the mind at some previous period, or produced during sleep by bodily sensations. These impressions, however they may be formed, are subjected to the unrestrained influence of the imagination.

At first sight it may seem that we often have dreams not excited by actual sensations, and which have no relation to any events of our lives, or any ideas which have passed through our minds, but thorough investigation will invariably reveal the existence of an association between the dream and some such ideas or events. For instance, a few nights ago I dreamed that a gentleman, a friend of mine, had invented what he called a “dog-cart ambulance,” a vehicle which he declared was the best ever made for the transportation of sick or wounded men. On awaking, all the particulars were fresh in my mind, but I could not for some time perceive why I had had such a dream. At last I recollected that the morning before a gentleman had given me a very full description of Prospect Park, in Brooklyn. The friend of whom I dreamed has charge of the construction of this Park. His presence was, therefore, fully explained, and as dog-carts are driven in parks, this link was also accounted for. The ambulance part was due to the fact that I had that same morning found the card of a gentleman upon my table who really had invented an ambulance. The imagination had, therefore, taken these data supplied by the memory, and had combined them into the incongruous web constituting my dream.

Dreams are also frequently built upon circumstances which have transpired many years previously, and which have long since apparently passed from our recollection. A very striking instance of this kind is related by Abercrombie,[72] on the authority of Sir Walter Scott.

“Mr. R. J. Rowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithe). Mr. R. was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these teinds from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an industrious search among his father’s papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be discovered to support his defense. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. R. thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a stray consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. ‘You are right, my son,’ replied the paternal shade; ‘I did acquire right to these teinds, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ——, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never, on any other occasion, transacted business on my account. It is very possible,’ pursued the vision, ‘that Mr. —— may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token—that when I came to pay his account there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.’

“Mr. R. awaked in the morning with all the events of the vision impressed on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but, on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers and recovered them, so that Mr. R. carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.”

A friend has related to me some circumstances in his own case similar to the above, and illustrating the same points. In the course of his practice as a lawyer, it became necessary for him to ascertain the exact age of a client, who was also his cousin. Their grandfather had been a rather eccentric personage, who had taken a great deal of notice of both his grandsons—his only direct descendants. He died when they were boys. My friend often told his cousin that if his grandfather were alive there would be no difficulty at getting at the desired information, and that he had a dim recollection of having seen a record kept by the old gentleman, and of there being some peculiarity about it which he could not recall. Several months elapsed, and he had given up the idea of attempting to discover the facts of which he had been in search, when, one night, he dreamed that his grandfather came to him and said: “You have been trying to find out when J—— was born; don’t you recollect that one afternoon when we were fishing I read you some lines from an Elzevir Horace, and showed you how I had made a family record out of the work by inserting a number of blank leaves at the end? Now, as you know, I devised my library to the Rev. —— ——. I was a d——d fool for giving him books which he will never read! Get the Horace, and you will discover the exact hour at which J—— was born.” In the morning all the particulars of this dream were fresh in my friend’s memory. The reverend gentleman lived in a neighboring city; my friend took the first train, found the copy of Horace, and at the end the pages constituting the family record, exactly as had been described to him in the dream. By no effort of his memory, however, could he recollect the incidents of the fishing excursion.

Dr. Macnish,[73] in stating his opinion that dreams are uniformly the resuscitation or re-embodiment of thoughts which have formerly, in some shape or other, occupied the mind, relates the following example from his own experience:

“I lately dreamed that I walked upon the banks of the great canal in the neighborhood of Glasgow. On the side opposite to that on which I was, and within a few feet of the water, stood the splendid portico of the Royal Exchange. A gentleman whom I knew was standing upon one of the steps, and we spoke to each other. I then lifted a large stone and poised it in my hand, when he said that he was certain I could not throw it to a certain spot, which he pointed out. I made the attempt, and fell short of the mark. At this moment a well-known friend came up, whom I knew to excel at putting the stone; but, strange to say, he had lost both his legs, and walked upon wooden substitutes. This struck me as exceedingly curious, for my impression was that he had only lost one leg, and had but a single wooden one. At my desire he took up the stone, and, without difficulty, threw it beyond the point indicated by the gentleman upon the opposite side of the canal. The absurdity of this dream is extremely glaring, and yet, on strictly analyzing it, I find it to be wholly composed of ideas which passed through my mind on the previous day, assuming a new and ridiculous arrangement. I can compare it to nothing but to cross reading in the newspapers, or to that well-known amusement which consists in putting a number of sentences, each written on a separate piece of paper, into a hat, shaking the whole, then taking them out, one by one, as they come, and seeing what kind of medley the heterogeneous compound will make when thus fortuitously put together. For instance, I had, on the above day, taken a walk to the canal along with a friend. On returning from it, I pointed out to him a spot where a new road was forming, and where, a few days before, one of the workmen had been overwhelmed by a quantity of rubbish falling upon him, which fairly chopped off one of his legs, and so much damaged the other that it was feared amputation would be necessary. Near this very spot there is a park, in which, about a month previously, I practiced throwing the stone. On passing the Exchange, on my way home, I expressed regret at the lowness of its situation, and remarked what a fine effect the portico would have were it placed upon more elevated ground. Such were the previous circumstances, and let us see how they bear upon the dream. In the first place, the canal appeared before me. 2. Its situation is an elevated one. 3. The portico of the Exchange occurring to my mind as being placed too low became associated with the elevation of the canal, and I placed it close by on a similar altitude. 4. The gentleman I had been walking with was the same whom in the dream I saw standing upon the steps of the portico. 5. Having related to him the story of the man who lost one limb and had a chance of losing another, this idea brings before me a friend with a pair of wooden legs, who, moreover, appears in connection with patting the stone, as I knew him to excel at that exercise. There is only one other element in the dream which the preceding events will not account for, and that is the surprise at the individual referred to having more than one wooden leg. But why should he have even one, seeing that in reality he is limbed like other people? This also I can account for. Two years ago he slightly injured his knee while leaping a ditch, and I remember jocularly advising him to get it cut off. I am particular in illustrating this point with regard to dreams, for I hold that if it were possible to analyze them all, they would invariably be found to stand in the same relation to the waking state as the above specimen. The more diversified and incongruous the character of a dream, and the more remote from the period of its occurrence the circumstances which suggested it, the more difficult does its analysis become; and, in point of fact, this process may be impossible, so totally are the elements of the dream often dissevered from their original sense, and so ludicrously huddled together.”

A dream which Professor Maas,[74] of Halle, relates as having occurred to himself, affords an excellent example of the dependence of dreams upon actual events, and shows how these latter are distorted and perverted by the imagination of the sleeper.“I dreamed once,” he says, “that the Pope visited me. He commanded me to open my desk, and he carefully examined all the papers it contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling diamond fell out of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however, neither of us took any notice. As soon as the Pope had withdrawn I retired to bed, but was soon obliged to rise on account of a thick smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon examination I discovered that the diamond had set fire to the papers in my desk, and burned them to ashes.”

In analyzing the circumstances which gave rise to this dream, Professor Maas relates the following events, which constituted its basis:

“On the preceding evening I was visited by a friend with whom I had a lively conversation upon Joseph II.’s suppression of monasteries and convents. With this idea, though I did not become conscious of it in the dream, was associated the visit which the Pope publicly paid the Emperor Joseph, at Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against the clergy; and with this again was combined, however faintly, the representation of the visit which had been paid me by my friend. These two events were, by the subreasoning faculty, compounded into one, according to the established rule—that things which agree in their parts also correspond as to the whole; hence the Pope’s visit was changed into a visit paid to me. The subreasoning faculty, then, in order to account for this extraordinary visit, fixed upon that which was the most important object in my room—namely, the desk, or rather the papers which it contained. That a diamond fell out of the triple crown was a collateral association, which was owing merely to the representation of the desk. Some days before, when opening the desk, I had broken the crystal of my watch, which I held in my hand, and the fragments fell among the papers; hence no further attention was paid to the diamond being a representation of a collateral series of things. But afterwards the representation of the sparkling stone was again excited, and became the prevailing idea; hence it determined the succeeding association. On account of its similarity it excited the representation of fire, with which it was confounded; hence arose fire and smoke. But in the event the writings only were burned, not the desk itself, to which, being of comparatively little value, the attention was not directed.”

Feuchtersleben[75] takes the same view of dreaming as that enunciated in this chapter. Thus he says:

“Dreaming is nothing more than the occupation of the mind in sleep with the pictorial world of fancy. As the closed or quiescent senses afford it no materials, the mind, ever active, must make use of the store which memory retains; but as its motor influence is likewise organically impeded, it cannot independently dispose of this store. Thus arises a condition in which the mind looks, as it were, on the play of the images within itself, and manifests only a faint or partial reaction.”

Locke[76] contends that “the dreams of a sleeping man are all made up of the waking man’s ideas oddly put together.”

Observation and reflection show us that the mind originates nothing during sleep; it merely remembers—and often in the most chaotic manner—the thoughts, the fancies, the impressions which have been imagined or received by the individual when awake. Sometimes ideas are reproduced in dreams exactly as they have occurred to us in our waking moments, and this may take place night after night with scarcely the alteration of a single circumstance. A friend informs me that he is very subject to dreams of this character, and that on some occasions the repetition has taken place as many as a dozen times.

A very striking instance of this kind occurred to me a few years since, and made a deep impression on my mind. I had just read Schiller’s ode to Laura, as translated by Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, beginning,

and admired it as a striking piece of versification conveying some noted philosophical ideas in a forcible and beautiful manner. The following night I had a very vivid dream of a condition of pre-existence, in which I imagined myself to be. The connection between the dream and the poem I had been reading was sufficiently well marked, and did not astonish me. I was, however, surprised to find that the next night I had exactly the same dream, and that it was repeated three times subsequently on consecutive nights.

The dependence of dreams upon ideas which we have had when awake was well known to the ancients. Thus Lucius Accius,[77] a poet who lived more than a hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, says:

Lucretius[78] declares that during sleep we are amused with things which have made us weep when awake; that circumstances which have pleased us are recalled to our minds; that objects are presented to us which occupied our thoughts long before; and that recent events appear still more vividly before us.

Petronius Arbiter[79] cites Epicurus to the same effect. TryphÆna having declared that she had had a dream in which there appeared to her the image of Neptune she had seen at BaiÆ, “Hence you may perceive,” observed Eumolpus, “what a divine man is Epicurus, who so ingeniously ridiculed these sports of fancy.

It is related of an ancient tyrant that one of his courtiers described to him a dream in which the courtier had assassinated his master. “You could not,” exclaimed the tyrant, “have dreamed this without having previously thought of it,” and then ordered his immediate execution.

Now besides this foundation of dreams upon circumstances which have transpired during our waking moments, they may arise, as has already been intimated, from impressions made upon the mind during sleep. Sensations may be so intense as to be partially appreciated by the brain, and yet not strong enough to cause sleep to be interrupted. In such cases the imagination seizes the imperfect perception and weaves it into a tissue of incongruous fancies, which, however, generally bear a more or less definite relation to the character of the sensorial impression. Many examples of dreams thus produced are on record, and many others have come under my own observation. The interest which attaches to phenomena of this character must be my excuse for quoting some of the more remarkable instances of this kind which have been brought to my attention.

The following are related by Abercrombie:[81]

During the alarm excited in Edinburgh by the apprehension of a French invasion almost every man was a soldier, and all things had been arranged in expectation of the landing of the enemy. The first notice was to be given by the firing of a gun from the Castle, and this was to be followed by a chain of signals calculated to arouse the country. The gentleman to whom the dream occurred was a zealous volunteer, and, being in bed between two and three o’clock in the morning, dreamt of hearing the signal gun. He imagined that he went at once to the Castle, witnessed the proceeding for displaying the signals, and saw and heard all the preparations for the assemblage of the troops. At this time he was roused by his wife, who awoke in a fright, in consequence of a similar dream. The origin of both dreams was ascertained in the morning to be the noise produced by the falling of a pair of tongs in the room above.

A gentleman dreamt that he had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, condemned to be shot, and at last led out to execution. At this instant a gun was fired, and he awoke, to find that a noise in the adjoining room had both produced the dream and awakened him.

The next is a very extraordinary case.

The subject was an officer in the expedition to Louisburg, in 1758. During his passage in the transport his companions were in the habit of amusing themselves at his expense. They could produce in him any kind of dream by whispering in his ear, especially if this was done by a friend with whose voice he was familiar. Once they conducted him through the whole process of a quarrel which ended in a duel, and when the parties were supposed to have met a pistol was put into his hand, which he fired, and was awakened by the report. On another occasion they found him asleep on the top of a locker in the cabin, when they made him believe he had fallen overboard, and exhorted him to save himself by swimming. Then they told him that a shark was pursuing him, and entreated him to dive for his life. He instantly did so, and with so much force as to throw himself from the locker upon the cabin floor, by which he was much bruised, and awakened of course. After the landing of the army at Louisburg, his friends found him one day asleep in his tent, and evidently much annoyed by the cannonading. They then made him believe that he was engaged, when he exhibited great fear, and showed a decided disposition to run away. Against this they remonstrated, but at the same time increased his fears by imitating the groans of the wounded and the dying; and when he asked, as he often did, who was hit, they named his particular friends. At last they told him that the man next himself in his company had fallen, when he instantly sprang from his bed, rushed out of his tent, and was roused from his danger and his dream by falling over the tent-cords.

A friend informs me that he has a brother who will carry on a conversation with any person who whispers to him in his sleep, and that his emotions are then very readily excited by any pitiful story that may be told him. Upon awaking, he has a distinct recollection of his dreams, which are always connected with the ideas communicated.

I recollect very distinctly the particulars of a dream which I had several years since, and which was due to an impression conveyed to the brain through the ear. The dream also illustrates the point previously brought forward, that a definite conception of time does not enter into the phenomena of dreams.

I dreamed that I had taken passage in a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. Among the passengers was a man who had all the appearance of being very ill with consumption. He looked more like a ghost than a human being, and moved noiselessly among the passengers, noticing no one, though attracting the attention of all. For several days nothing was said between him and any one, till one morning, as we approached Baton Rouge, he came to where I was sitting on the guards and began a conversation by asking me what time it was. I took out my watch, when he instantly took it from my hand and opened it. “I, too, once had a watch,” he said; “but see what I am now.” With these words he threw aside the large cloak he habitually wore, and I saw that his ribs were entirely bare of skin and flesh. He then took my watch, and, inserting it between his ribs, said it would make a very good heart. Continuing his conversation he told me that he had resolved to blow up the vessel the next day, but that as I had been the means of supplying him with a heart he would save my life. “When you hear the whistle blow,” he said, “jump overboard, for in an instant afterward the boat will be in atoms.” I thanked him, and he left me. All that day and the next I endeavored to acquaint my fellow-passengers with the fate in store for them, but discovered that I had lost the faculty of speech. I tried to write, but found that my hands were paralyzed. In fact I could adopt no means to warn them. While I was making these ineffectual efforts, I heard the whistle of the engine; I rushed to the side of the boat to plunge overboard, and awoke. The whistle of a steam saw-mill near my house had just begun to sound, and had awakened me. My whole dream had been excited by it, and could not have occupied more than a few seconds.

The following account[82] shows how a dream may be set in action by the sense of smell.

“On one occasion during my residence at Birmingham I had to attend many patients at Coventry, and for their accommodation I visited that place one day in every week. My temporary residence was at a druggist’s shop in the market-place. Having on one occasion, now to be mentioned, a more than usual number of engagements, I was obliged to remain one night, and a bed was provided for me at the residence of a cheesemonger in the same locality. The house was very old, the rooms very low, and the street very narrow. It was summer-time, and during the day the cheesemaker had unpacked a box or barrel of strong old American cheese; the very street was impregnated with the odor. At night, jaded with my professional labors, I went to my dormitory, which seemed filled with a strong, cheesy atmosphere, which affected my stomach greatly, and quite disturbed the biliary secretions. I tried to produce a more agreeable atmosphere to my olfactory sense by smoking cigars, but did not succeed. At length, worn out with fatigue, I tried to sleep, and should have succeeded, but for a time another source of annoyance prevented me doing so; for in an old wall behind my head, against which my ancient bed stood, there were numerous rats gnawing away in real earnest. The crunching they made was indeed terrific, and I resisted the drowsy god from a dread that these voracious animals would make a forcible entrance, and might take personal liberties with my flesh.

“But at length ‘tired nature’ ultimately so overpowered me that I slept in a sort of fever. I was still breathing the cheesy atmosphere, and this, associated with the marauding rats, so powerfully affected my imagination that a most horrid dream was the consequence. I fancied myself in some barbarous country, where, being charged with a political offense, I was doomed to be incarcerated in a large cheese. And although this curious prison-house seemed most oppressive, it formed but part of my sufferings; for scarcely had I become reconciled to my probable fate than to my horror an army of rats attacked the monster cheese, and soon they seemed to have effected an entrance, and began to fix themselves in numbers upon my naked body. The agony I endured was increased by the seeming impossibility to drive them away, and, fortunately for my sanity, I awoke, but with a hot head and throbbing temples, and a sense of nausea from the extremely strong odor of the cheese.”

I have on two occasions that I recollect had dreams which were due to odors. On one of them the smell of gas escaping in the room excited the dream of a chemical laboratory; on the other the smell of burning cloth caused me to dream of a laundry, and of one of the women ironing a blanket, which she scorched with a hot iron. A lady informs me that a similar odor produced in her a dream of the house being on fire and the impossibility of her escaping by reason of all her clothes being burned up.

Dreams are very readily excited through impressions made on the special nerves of sensation. Instances are given of persons sleeping with bottles of hot water applied to their feet dreaming of walking on burning lava, or some other hot substance. A patient related to me the particulars of a dream which occurred to him while he was asleep with a vessel of hot water applied to the soles of his feet. He had, just before going to sleep, read in the evening paper an account of the capture of an English gentleman by Italian brigands. He dreamt that while crossing the Rocky Mountains he had been attacked by two Mexicans, who, after a long fight, had succeeded in taking him alive. They conveyed him very hurriedly to their camp, which was situated in a deep gorge. Here they told him that unless he revealed to them the means of making gold from copper they would submit him to torture. In vain he plead ignorance of any such process. Pulling off his boots and stockings they held his naked feet to the fire till he shrieked with agony, and awoke to find that the blanket which was wrapped around the tin vessel containing the hot water had become disarranged, and that his feet were in direct contact with the hot metal.

In another case, that of a lady whose lower limbs were paralyzed, artificial heat was applied during the night to her feet. Frequently her dreams had reference to this circumstance. On one occasion she dreamed that she was transformed into a bear, and was being taught to dance by being made to stand on hot plates of iron. On another, that the house was on fire, and that the floors were so hot as to burn her feet in her efforts to escape. Again, that she was wading through a stream of water which came from a hot spring in the Central Park.

Another patient, a lady, subject to neuralgic attacks of great severity, frequently had the lancinating pains give rise to dreams in which she was stabbed with daggers, cut with knives, torn with pincers, etc.

Not long since I had an attack of erysipelas, in which the disease included the head and face. The pain was not severe, and yet it was sufficient to give rise to the following dream:

I dreamed that I was taking a cold bath, and that while thus engaged a Turk, armed with a pair of long pincers, came into the room and began to pull the hair out of my head. I remonstrated, but was unable to offer any material resistance, for the reason that the water in which I was lying suddenly froze, leaving me imbedded in a solid cake of ice. In order to facilitate his operations, the Turk sponged my head with boiling water, and then, finding the use of the pincers rather slow work, shaved the hair off with a red-hot razor. He then rubbed an ointment on the naked scalp, composed of sulphur, phosphorus, and turpentine, to which he immediately applied fire. Taking me in his arms he rushed down stairs into the street, lighting his way with the flame from my burning head. He had not gone far before he fell down in a fit, and in his struggles gave me a severe blow between the eyes which instantly deprived me of sight.

When I awoke in the morning I had a very distinct recollection of this dream. The incidents were in part due to the fact that I had, two or three days previously, been reading an account of the insanity of Mohammed, and of his being subject to attacks of epilepsy.

The sense of taste is not, for obvious reasons, so productive of dreams as the other senses, but the experiments of M. Maury and myself, to which fuller reference will presently be made, show that strong excitations made upon it are transmitted to the brain; and the following instance, which has recently come under my immediate observation, is an interesting case in point.

A young lady had, in her early childhood, contracted the habit of going to sleep with her thumb in her mouth. She had tried for several years to break herself of the practice, but all her attempts were in vain, for even when by strong mental effort she succeeded in getting to sleep without the usual accompaniment, it was not long before the unruly member was in its accustomed place. Finally she hit upon the plan of covering the offending thumb with extract of aloes just before she went to bed, hoping that if she put it into her mouth she would instantly awake. But she slept on through the night, and in the morning found her thumb in her mouth and all the extract of aloes sucked off. During the night, however, she dreamed that she was crossing the ocean in a steamer made of wormwood, and that the vessel was furnished throughout with the same material. The plates, the dishes, tumblers, chairs, tables, etc. were all of wormwood, and the emanations so pervaded all parts of the ship that it was impossible to breathe without tasting the bitterness. Everything that she ate or drank was likewise, from being in contact with wormwood, so impregnated with the flavor that the taste was overpowering. When she arrived at Havre she asked for a glass of water for the purpose of washing the taste from her mouth, but they brought her an infusion of wormwood, which she gulped down because she was thirsty, though the sight of it excited nausea. She went to Paris and consulted a famous physician, M. Sauve Moi, begging him to do something which would extract the wormwood from her body. He told her there was but one remedy, and that was ox gall. This he gave her by the pound, and in a few weeks the wormwood was all gone, but the ox gall had taken its place, and was fully as bitter and disagreeable. To get rid of the ox gall she was advised to take counsel of the Pope. She accordingly went to Rome, and obtained an audience of the Holy Father. He told her that she must make a pilgrimage to the plain where the pillar of salt stood, into which Lot’s wife was transformed, and must eat a piece of the salt as big as her thumb. During her journey in search of the pillar of salt she endured a great many sufferings, but finally triumphed over all obstacles, and reached the object of her journey. What part to take was now the question. After a good deal of deliberation she reasoned that as she had a bad habit of sucking her thumb, it would be very philosophical to break off this part from the statue, and thus not only get cured of the bitterness in her mouth, but also of her failing. She did so, put the piece of salt into her mouth, and awoke to find that she was sucking her own thumb.

It might be supposed that the brain during sleep is not excitable through the sense of sight. Many examples, however, are on record of dreams being thus produced, and several very interesting cases have come under my own observation. Among them are the following:

A gentleman of a nervous and irritable disposition informed me that he had dreamed of being in heaven and being dazzled by the brilliancy of everything around him. So great was the light that he hastened to escape from the pain which it caused in his eyes. In the efforts which he made he struck his head against the bedpost, and awoke to find that the fire which he had left smouldering on the hearth had kindled into a bright flame, the light from which fell full in his face.

Another, who had been under my care for epilepsy, dreamed that his room was entered by burglars, and that with lighted candles in their hands they were searching his drawers and trunks. He related his dream the following morning, and was told by his mother that she had gone into his room the previous night, and had held a lighted candle close to his face in order to see whether or not he was sound asleep.

No one has more philosophically studied the mode of production of dreams than M. Maury[83] in his remarkable work to which reference has already been made. I propose, therefore, to place a brief outline of his experiments and views before the reader.

Just before falling asleep, and immediately before becoming fully awake, many persons are subject to hallucinations partaking of many of the characteristics belonging to dreams. To them the name of hypnagogic (?p???, sleep, and ????e??, leader) hallucinations has been given, i.e. hallucinations which lead to sleep. Previous to M. Maury’s investigations, the phenomena in question had attracted some attention from German and French physiologists, but M. Maury’s investigations, many of which were performed upon himself, throw more light upon the subject than it has hitherto received.

According to M. Maury, the persons who most frequently experience these hypnagogic hallucinations are those who are of an excitable constitution, and are generally predisposed to hypertrophy of the heart, pericarditis, and cerebral affections. This may be true, but in two most remarkable instances which have come under my observation, the type of organization was the very reverse of this.

In M. Maury’s own case he finds that the hallucinations are more numerous and more vivid when he experiences, as is frequent with him, a disposition to cerebral congestion. Thus, when he has headache, nervous pains in the eyes, the ears, and the nose, and vertigo, the hallucinations make their appearance as soon as he closes his eyelids. Loss of sleep and severe intellectual exertions invariably produce them, as do also cafe noir and champagne, which, by causing headache and insomnia, strongly predispose him to the hypnagogic hallucinations. On the contrary, calmness of mind, rest, and country air lessen his liability to them. From the inquiries made of others by M. Maury, the results of his own experience, as well as from my own observations, I am well convinced that the hypnagogic hallucinations are directly the result of an increase in the amount of blood circulating through the brain rather than to actual congestion as he supposes. They therefore indicate the existence of a condition unfavorable to sound sleep. In the chapter devoted to the consideration of wakefulness the phenomena accompanying cerebral hyperÆmia will be more fully considered.

The theory which M. Maury proposes in order to account for the existence of hypnagogic hallucinations further presupposes that as the power of the attention immediately before sleep begins to be diminished, and the mind cannot therefore voluntarily and logically arrange its thoughts, it abandons itself to the imagination, and that thus fancies arise and disappear unchecked by the other mental faculties. This absence of the attention need not be of long duration, a second, or even a shorter period being sufficient. Thus he lay down, and the attention which had been fully aroused soon became weakened; images appeared, and these partially reawakened the attention, and the current of his thoughts was resumed, to be replaced again by hallucinations, and this continued till he was fully asleep. As an example, he states that on the 30th of November, 1847, he was reading aloud the Voyage dans la Russie MÉridionale, by M. Hommaire de Hell. He had just finished a line when he closed his eyes instinctively. In this short instant of sleep he saw hypnagogically, but with the rapidity of light, the figure of a man clothed in a brown robe, and with a hood on his head like a monk. The appearance of this image reminded him that he had shut his eyes and ceased reading. He immediately opened his eyelids and resumed his book. The interruption was practically nothing, for the person to whom he was reading did not perceive it.

M. Maury gives numerous examples of these hypnagogic hallucinations, all tending to show that they are induced by a congested condition of the cerebral vessels, and that thus, according to the views I have set forth relative to the condition of the brain in sleep, they are not to be regarded as precursors of that state, but of stupor.

In two very interesting cases of these hallucinations, which have come under my notice, they were brought about by any cause which increased the quantity of blood in the brain, or retarded the flow of blood from this organ. Thus, a glass of champagne, or a few drops of laudanum, would induce them, as also would the recumbent posture, with the head rather low.

As showing how readily dreams can be excited by impressions made upon the senses, M. Maury caused a series of experiments to be performed upon himself when asleep, which afforded very satisfactory results, and which are interesting in connection with the points already discussed in the present chapter.

1st Experiment. He caused himself to be tickled with a feather on the lips and inside of the nostrils. He dreamed that he was subjected to a horrible punishment. A mask of pitch was applied to his face, and then torn roughly off, taking with it the skin of his lips, nose, and face.

2d Experiment. A pair of tweezers was held at a little distance from his ear, and struck with a pair of scissors. He dreamed that he heard the ringing of bells; this was soon converted into the tocsin, and this suggested the days of June, 1848.

3d Experiment. A bottle of eau de Cologne was held to his nose. He dreamed that he was in a perfumer’s shop. This excited visions of the East, and he dreamed that he was in Cairo in the shop of Jean Marie Farina. Many surprising adventures occurred to him there, the details of which were forgotten.

4th Experiment. A burning lucifer match was held close to his nostrils. He dreamed that he was at sea (the wind was blowing in through the windows), and that the magazine of the vessel blew up.5th Experiment. He was slightly pinched on the nape of the neck. He dreamed that a blister was applied, and this recalled the recollection of a physician who had treated him in his infancy.

6th Experiment. A piece of red-hot iron was held close enough to him to communicate a slight sensation of heat. He dreamed that robbers had got into the house, and were forcing the inmates, by putting their feet to the fire, to reveal where their money was. The idea of the robber suggested that of the Duchess d’Abrantes, who he supposed had taken him for her secretary, and in whose memoirs he had read some account of bandits.

7th Experiment. The word parafagaramus was pronounced in his ear. He understood nothing, and awoke with the recollection of a very vague dream. The word maman was next used many times. He dreamed of different subjects, but heard a sound like the humming of bees. Several days after, the experiment was repeated with the words Azor, Castor, LÉonore. On awaking, he recollected that he had heard the last two words, and had attributed them to one of the persons who had conversed with him in his dream.

Another experiment of the same kind showed like the others that it was the sound of the word and not the idea it conveyed which was perceived by the brain. Then the words chandelle, haridelle, were pronounced many times in rapid succession in his ear. He awoke suddenly, saying to himself, c’est elle. It was impossible for him to recall what idea he had attached to this dream.

8th Experiment. A drop of water was allowed to fall on his forehead. He dreamed that he was in Italy, that he was very warm, and that he was drinking the wine of Orvieto.

9th Experiment. A light, surrounded with a piece of red paper, was repeatedly placed before his eyes. He dreamed of a tempest and lightning, which suggested the remembrance of a storm he had encountered in the English Channel in going from Merlaix to Havre.

These observations are very instructive. They show conclusively that one very important class of our dreams is due to our bodily sensations. I have frequently performed analogous experiments on others, and had them practiced on myself, and have rarely failed in obtaining decided results. They strongly inculcate the truth of the conclusions arrived at in the foregoing chapter, and they serve as important data in enabling us to understand the division of the subject next to be considered.

In regard to the immediate cause of dreams the opinions of authors are very diverse. The older writers ascribe them to the rise of vapors from the stomach, to the visitation of demons, and other fanciful causes. Bishop Bull[84] declares that he knows from his own experience that dreams are to be ascribed “to the ministry of those invisible instruments of God’s providence that guide and govern our affairs and concerns, viz., the angels of God;” and Bishop Ken held a similar view.

It would neither be possible nor profitable to refer at greater length to views which positive physiology has overturned. Observation and experiment have aided us greatly in arriving at definite conclusions on this subject, and the instances quoted on page 30 of this treatise, even if standing alone uncontradicted, would go far toward guiding us in the right path. On page 37 I have referred to the case of a man who, some time after receiving a severe injury of the head by which a considerable portion of the skull was lost, came under my professional care. Standing by his bedside one evening, just after he had gone to sleep, I observed the scalp slightly rise from the chasm in which it was deeply depressed. I was sure he was going to awake, but he did not, and very soon he became restless and agitated, while continuing to sleep. Presently he began to talk, and it was evident that he was dreaming. In a few minutes the scalp sank down to its ordinary level when he was asleep, and he became quiet. I called his wife’s attention to the circumstance, and desired her to observe this condition thereafter when he slept. She subsequently informed me that she could always tell when he was dreaming from the appearance of the scalp.My opinion, therefore, is that dreams are directly caused by an increased activity of the cerebral circulation over that which exists in profound sleep. This activity is probably sometimes local and at others general, and never equals that which prevails in the condition of wakefulness, when the functions of the brain are at their maximum of energy. This view is further supported by a consideration of the state of the brain in sleep and wakefulness, the condition of dreaming being, in a measure, an intermediate one. Illustrations of the effects produced by a notable increase in the quantity of blood circulating through the brain will be given in the chapter on wakefulness. All of these, it will be perceived, have a direct bearing on the question now under consideration.