Chapter X: Part 10

Among quadrupeds, it is probable that those which, by their half-reasoning instinct, approach nearest to the power of comparison, and those which, in contrast to the _callous-hoofed_, possess an acuteness of feeling, and therefore the nearest approximate intelligence, are the most prone to dream.

Although we know nothing of the dreams of that very learned dog, which Leibnitz assures us he saw, and which uttered an _articulate_ language, and often enjoyed a chat with his master; yet, of the _slumbering visions_ of the canines I have many illustrations. _Vic_, a fat terrier, was a somniloquist. She would bark, and _laugh_, and run round the room, or _against tables_; the surest proof of somnambulism. Indeed dogs are celebrated by many poets for their dreaming propensities. Ennius writes—

“Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.”

And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive poetical account of the dreams of brutes.

Even Chaucer refers to these dreams; and in the Hall of Branksome,

“The stag-hound, weary with the chace,
Urged in dreams the forest race.”

It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very _short_.

From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the dream of the _infant_; pure and innocent as the thought of a cherub. For delight is the common feeling of a dreaming child; and when its lips are touched in sleep, the memory of its mother’s bosom will excite its lips and tongue to the congenial action of suction, though a fright of the previous day will change its slumbers into moments of terror, and it will murmur and cry in its dream.

I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on the adoption of _plans of education_ for a child, grounded on the discovery of its secret thoughts during its simple somniloquent dream.

CAST. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our dream those scenes of our early life, which our waking efforts could not recollect.

This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dryden’s version of a fable:

“Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse’s legends are for truths receiv’d,
And the man dreams but what the boy believ’d.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day.”

EV. Yet do not associate this brilliancy of infantine reminiscence with _vigour_ of the thought. The brain in children is, as it were, like wax, _easily impressible_. And remember, the _ideas_ of children are more resembling the _imperfect_ associations of our dreams; the tutorage of our advancing mind fills it with more serious and rational images characterized by judgment.

The first impressions of childhood are bright as fancy; so that we think in waking more of things present. But, in dreams of things long agone there is, in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any one of our infantile impressions _may_ chance to be brought to us in our dream.

But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of childhood, and become as permanent. My friend, Dr. Uwins, told me of a patient who, in a joke, once amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted pirates on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic tendency succeeded; and ever after this, his dreams were of gibbets and chains, and to that degree, that his judgment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his fears.

And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of J. C. V., a youth, who, in his eighth year, had been attacked by a dog. His future, and, indeed, nightly dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as to reduce his health to a very low degree.

Now it is easy to believe the period of slumber so limited, that the subject of reflection shall not have disappeared, that the thought had scarcely time to cool:

“Lateat scintillula forsan.”

Thus Moses Mendelssohn had all the sounds, heard during the day, reverberating in his slumbering mind.

Or we may suppose, that the idea last imprinted on the mind, or by which it had been exclusively occupied, and the thoughts which are so much modified by our temperament, study, and contemplation, would be the _first to influence as the mind awakened_, ere the image of fresh objects had been again perceived.

Sir Walter, in his diary, thus writes: “When I had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, ‘Never mind, we shall have it all at seven o’clock to-morrow morning.’”

Warton, the professor of poetry at Oxford, after partaking of a Sunday dinner with a friend, repaired to his service at his Church. On his way, he was powerfully saluted with a cry of “Live mackarel.” He slumbered in his pulpit during the singing of the psalm, and, on the organ ceasing, he arose, half awake, and instead of his solemn prayer, cried with a loud voice, “All alive, all alive oh!”

I remember the storytellers in the coffee-houses at Aleppo, as if aware of this _last impression_, used to run out when they perceived they had _excited a deep interest_.

IDA. It is curious to hear, even by your own quotations, Evelyn, that poets have so revelled in the luxury of dreams, from Homer to Pope, chiefly employing them, however, as the _materiel_ of their poesy. Have they condescended to glance at their causes?

EV. Lucretius, Claudian, George Stepney, Dryden, and a few others. _Apropos_ as to causes.

In the “Anatomy of Melancholy” we have the following quaint summary: “As Tully notes, for the most part our speeches in the daytime cause our phantasy to work upon the like in our sleep, so do men dream on such subjects they thought on last:

“‘Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,
Nec delubra deûm nec ab æthere numina mittunt,
Sed sibi quisque facit,’” &c.

For that cause, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one sleep quietly in the night, he told him “the best way was to have divine and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in the daytime.” Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could sleep quietly and were not terrified in the night, they had such monstrous questions and thought of such terrible matters all day long. They had need amongst the rest to sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus paints in a white and black coat, with a horn, and ivory box full of dreams of the same colours, to signify good and bad.

_Cast._ These are the manufacture, I presume, of two of those sons of sleep, born to him by a beautiful but erring grace, “Phantasus,” or Fancy, and “Phobetor,” or Terror. With the relations and illustrations of these good and bad dreams, the pages of both fiction and authentic history abound: another poetical batch of causes, Ida. Lucia exclaims:

“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man,
Oh Marcia! I have seen thy godlike father—
A kind refreshing sleep is fallen upon him.
I saw him stretch’d at ease, his fancy lost
In pleasing dreams. As I drew near his couch,
He smil’d, and cried: ‘Cæsar, thou cans’t not hurt me.’”

Another poet writes thus:

“But most we mark the wonders of her reign,
When sleep has lock’d the senses in her chain:
When sober judgment has his throne resign’d,
She smiles away the chaos of the mind;
And, as warm fancy’s bright elysium glows,
From her each image springs, each colour flows.
She is the sacred guest, th’ immortal friend;
Oft seen o’er sleeping innocence to bend,
In that dead hour of night, to silence giv’n,
Whispering seraphic visions of her heav’n.”

Then Richmond exclaims: “My heart is very jocund in the remembrance of so fair a dream.” While the coward conscience of Richard thus speaks:

“By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers.”

Aufidius thus recounts his slumbering memory of the prowess of Coriolanus:

“This happy Roman, this proud Marcius, haunts me.
Each troubled night, when slaves and captives sleep,
Forgetful of their chains, I in my dreams
Anew am vanquish’d; and beneath his sword
With horror sinking, feel a tenfold death—
The death of honour.”

And yet another:

“Tho’ thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep.
There are shades that will not vanish;
There are thoughts thou canst not banish.”

And, lastly, Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams:”

“That female fiend, why is she there?
Alas! I know her. Oh, begone!
Why is that tainted bosom bare?
Why fixed on me that eye of stone?
Why have they left us thus alone?
I saw the deed——”

ASTR. You will drown us in a flood of Helicon, fair lady, if you thus dole out the thoughts of these maudlin poets. The records of national and domestic history, the dreams of the conqueror of thousands, and of the midnight assassin, are replete with incidents, if we will search for them, more impressive, ay, and more romantic, than all this rhyming; and from the legends of history alone I could select a legion of dreaming mysteries, which would dissolve all these fine-spun theories of Evelyn, regarding the _essence_, as he terms it, of the dream. He must adopt a clearer course, in showing us his _causes_, than by harping on this favourite theme of _memory_; and we must listen through another moonlight, ere we be made wiser, by the unfolding of this grand secret of visions.

INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE BRAIN.

“I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.

EV. That I may explain to you the _predisposition_ of a dream,—in other words, the state of _broken slumber_,—it is essential that I recur to the physiology of the brain; and I must humble our pride, by combining some of the debasing conditions of our nature, as influential on the divine mind, through the medium of its _chambers of marrow_; for to the intimate condition and function of the brain and its nerves, and its _contained blood_, we must chiefly look for elucidation of the _physical causes_ of a dream.

Yet I may even grant you, for an argument, Astrophel, the flight of an immortal spirit, and all the amiable vagaries of Sir Thomas Brown; reserving to myself to prove at what moment we become conscious of this flight.

In natural actions, there are ever _three requisites_, like the points of a syllogism:

1. A susceptibility of influence;
2. The influence itself;
3. The effect of this influence:

And these I call the _predisposing_, the _exciting_, and the _proximate_ causes.

1. The brain is brought to this susceptibility by excited
temperament, study, intense and undivided thought; in short, by
_any_ intense impression.

2. The influence or excitement is applied; congestion of blood
producing impression on extremities, or origin of a nerve, at
the period of departing or returning consciousness. At these
periods, the blood changes, and I believe, _as it changes_, the
phenomena of mind, as in the waking state, obey these
changes:—rational and light dreams being the effect of
circulation of _scarlet_ blood; dull and reasonless visions and
“night-mare,” that of crimson, or _black_ blood.

3. The effect of this influence is recurrence of idea,
_memory_,—more or less erroneously associated, as the blood
approximates to the black or scarlet state, or as the brain
itself is constituted.

Now it is essential to the perfect function of the brain, not only that it shall have a due supply of blood, but that this blood shall be of that quality we term _oxygenated_. If there be a simple _deficiency_ of this scarlet blood, a state of sound undisturbed sleep will ensue (slightly analogous to the condition of _syncope_, or fainting). This may be the consequence of any _indirect_ impression, or the natural indication of that _direct_ debility, which we witness in early infancy, and in the “second childishness and mere oblivion” of old age. But this deficiency of arterial blood may be depending on a more positive cause, _venous congestion_, impeding its flow; for in sleep, the breathing being slower, the blood becomes essentially darker. Even arterial blood itself will become to a certain degree _carbonized_, by _lentor_, or stagnation. Venous congestion and diminution of arterial circulation are not incompatible; indeed, Dr. Abercrombie reasons very ably on their relative nature, implying the necessity of some _remora_ of venous circulation to supply that want or vacuum which the brain would otherwise experience from the deficiency of the current in the arterial system. Thus will the languid arterial circulation of the brain, which causes sleep in the first instance, produce, secondarily, that congestion of blood in the veins and sinuses, which shall reduce it to disturbed slumber, and excite the dream. May we not account, on this principle, for the difficulty which many persons experience in falling into a _second_ slumber, when they have been disturbed in the _first_?

IDA. Combe, I believe, observed, through a hole in a fractured skull, that the brain was elevated during an apparent dream.

EV. This is a matter of frequent observation with us. There was, in 1821, at Montpelier, a woman who had lost part of the skull, and the brain and its membranes lay bare. When she was in deep sleep, the brain lay in the skull almost _motionless_; when she was dreaming, it became elevated; and when her dreams (proved by her relating them when awake) were on vivid or animating subjects, but especially when she was awake, the brain was _protruded through the cranial aperture_.

Blumenbach states that he, himself, witnessed in one person a sinking of the brain, whenever he was asleep, and a swelling with blood when he awoke. David Hartley, therefore, may be half right and half wrong when he imputes dreams to an impediment to the flow of blood, a collapse of the _ventricles_, and a diminished quantity of their contained _serum_.

We thus have not only a deficiency of _proper_ stimulus, but a _deleterious_ condition of the blood, which acts as a poison to the brain. In fatal cases of coma and delirium, we observe deep red points, chiefly in the _cineritious_ part of the brain, from this congestion of its vessels. Sound sleep is thus prevented, but the congestion of carbonized blood acting as a sort of narcotic, depresses the energy of the brain so far as to prevent waking, inducing that middle state, drowsiness or slumber; so that sleep may thus depend on congestion _from exhaustion_; and “spectral illusion” from congestion in that state _short of slumber_; and insanity itself from congestion _still more copious and permanent_.

From this results a disturbed condition of the brain; it is _irritated_, not excited, by its healthy or proper stimulus; and it follows that such derangement of the manifestations of mind ensues as we term a dream. Waking, however, soon takes place, and the blood is more scarlet, and the faculties themselves gradually awake. As this is more perfect, we remember the dream, and are enabled to explain it, and know _that it was a dream_. The mind is now _restored_, so that scarlet blood indicates _healthy thought_, and black blood its _reverse_. Your pardon for this prolixity and dulness. The healthy or unhealthy crisis of the blood is a most important subject in our argument, and too constantly slighted in the question of illusion.

Monsieur Denis records the story of a young man of Paris, in the 17th century, who was cured of a stubborn and protracted lethargy, by the transfusion of the _arterial blood of a lamb_; and another of a recovery from madness, by that of the arterial blood of a calf, and these in presence of men both of _science_ and _high quality_.

I do not affirm my implicit faith in this statement, of the effect of _gentle_ blood, but I am certain of the poisonous influence of that of _another quality_; and I will cite a passage from Hoffman, the German poet, whom Monsieur Poupon, in his “Illustrations of Phrenology,” adduces as a specimen of marvellousness, ere I offer my cases.

“Why do my thoughts, whether I am awake or asleep, always tend, in spite of all my efforts, to the gloomy subject of insanity? It seems to me as if I felt my disordered ideas escaping from my mind, like _hot blood from a wounded vein_.”

This was figurative, but it was true; for of itself this black blood may be suddenly the cause of furious and fatal mania. When Dionis, in his “Cours d’Opérations de Chirurgie,” is referring to that operation that has lately, by its revival, occupied so much of the attention of the medical world (the process of _transfusion_) he says: “La fin funeste de ces malheureuses victimes de la nouveauté, detruisit, en un jour, les hautes idées qu’ils avoient conçues; ils devinrent foux, _furieux, et moururent ensuite_.”

The relief of the brain, by the escape of this blood, is of deeper interest to science than the mere romancer may imagine.

Sir Samuel Romilly was for a moment, I believe, in a state of sanity, when blood had flowed from the divided vessels of his throat; for he attempted, it appeared, to stop its flow by thrusting the towel with some force into the wound.

So diseases of the heart, by keeping the black blood in the brain, predispose to dreaming. During the age of terror in France, organic diseases of the heart and _cases of mania_ were most prevalent.

I may for a moment indulge in analogies regarding this arrest of the blood. Cases of inflammation of the ear are often seen in confirmed maniacs (the _helix_ being usually the part most inflamed), and _black_ blood often oozes from the part.

M. Calmeil considers _chronic phlegmasia_ of the brain as the cause of insanity, the derangement itself being, as it were, _the moral result_ or disease, and the organic changes or proximate cause the _physical_ disease; both being but the _sequelæ_, or consequence of inflammation.

A boy, the servant of a medical friend (Mr. A——), was, some years ago, placed under my care for fever, with delirium. About the acme of his disorder the impetuosity of the blood in the vessels of the head was such as to project his ears prominently forwards, like those of a satyr, or, as the gossips thought, rather of a demon. Yet all this subsided _as the fever waned_.

Yet, believe me, I draw a decided distinction between mania and dreaming; though the phenomena may sometimes bear resemblance. In one essential point they differ; that the _transient_ illusion is not manifested, except _during slumber_, or a state closely analogous to it, when the senses are languid, or asleep. It is true, however, the maniac will, on his recovery, often _dream of the subject of his insanity_, yet insanity is more exemplified by _action_, the dream being usually _passive_.

The predisposition to insanity is often, too, _hereditary_, so that the slightest moral influence, imperceptible perhaps to the physician, may incite such a mind to madness; for where there is _no_ predisposition, that is, a perfect integrity of brain, a right judgment is evinced even under the potent influence of the passions.

As the condition of insanity, so the illusive vision, does not always primarily depend on _medullary_ disease; there are primary moral as well as physical causes. But even the exertion of thought, which the ultra spiritualist may term an immaterial faculty, is attended by increased action on the matter of the brain. The organ of mind will, if diseased, (though not always,) produce deranged actions. Yet it is equally true, if even a sound brain be _badly instructed_, and its passion uncontrolled, insanity may ensue; not however without quickly, I believe _immediately_, inducing structural change.

On one point, the dream and insanity are often _alike_; they are _mental fulfilments of a wish_: and the dreamer, during his slumber, and the madman throughout his derangement, are presented with the spectra of their desires, and their hopes and fears become, _for these periods, reality_.

It was with a reference to the wanderings of the understanding in dreams, that Sir James Mackintosh thus writes in a letter to Robert Hall:

“These will familiarise your mind to consider its other aberrations as only more rare than sleep and dreams, and, in process of time, they will cease to appear to you much more horrible.”

ASTR. And pray, Evelyn, how doth all this profound prosing affect the subject of dreams?

EV. By similitude. I may even remind you with devout veneration, of the dreams of a prophet, to prove the brain highly sensitive when these visions are before it. Listen to the words of Daniel, to whom “God gave knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.”

“I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit, in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.”

“And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick certain days.”

Even here, may we not believe, that the Creator did not alter his law?

It was Dr. Cullen who first drew a parallel between insanity and dreams. As some proof of his insight, we read in Lode of a man who never dreamed until he fell into a fever in the twenty-fifth year;—in Beattie, of a young friend who never dreamt unless his health was deranged.

And Mr. Locke thus writes: “I once knew a man who was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory, who told me that he had never dreamed in his life until he had fever.”

This immunity from dreams is also most marked in savages, unless during disorder or at the dying moment. Ulloa, Humboldt, and La Condamine, all agree as to the character of indolence and absence of thought and fancy in the native Americans, and it is as sure that they seldom dream.

Now whatever influence tends to arrest or derange the _upper circulation_ of the blood in its return to the heart, or to detain it in the vessels of the brain, or which presses on an important nerve, so as to disturb the function of the brain or _spinal cord_, by _continuous sympathy_, may be the _remote_ cause of the phenomena of dreaming.

Such are the results of repletion, _dyspepsia_, the supine position, &c. &c.

And here, Astrophel, I meet your metaphysician.

Galen, and indeed the ancients generally, attributed dreams chiefly to indigestion; but referred their immediate excitement to fumes and vapours, instead of to nervous influence, or cerebral congestion from interrupted circulation.

CAST. And here, Evelyn, courtesy might have prompted you to meet my poets. Let me see, is it not Dryden who writes of—

“——rising fumes of undigested food,
And noxious humours that disturb the blood?”

And in a poem believed to have been written by Chaucer, there is this passage: can I remember his quaintness?

“I supposed yt to have been some noxiall fantasy,
As fallyth in dremes, in parties of the nyght,
Which cometh of joy or grievous malady;
Or of robuste metes which causeth grete myght;
Overmoche replet obscuryth the syght
Of natural reasonne, and causyth idyll thowght,
Makyth the body hevy where hyt was lyght.”

And again, in the tale of the “Nonnes Preest:”

“Swevenes (dreams) engendren of repletions,
And oft of fume and of complexions,
When humours ben to habundant in a wight.
Of other humours cou’d I telle also,
That werken many a man in slepe moch wo,” &c.

EV. I sit reproved, fair lady. Herodotus also says, the Atlantes never dream; which Montaigne refers to their never eating anything which has died of itself. And Burton thus sums up his precepts of prevention:

“Against fearful and troublesome dreams, incubus, and inconveniences wherewith melancholy men are molested, the best remedy is to eat a light supper and of such meats as are easie of digestion, no hare, venison, beef, &c.; not to lie on his back,” &c.

Dryden, to ensure his brilliant visions of poesy, ate raw flesh; and Mrs. Radcliffe, I am told, adopted the same plan. We know that green tea and coffee, if we _do_ sleep, induce dreaming; and Baptista Porta, for procuring quiet rest and pleasing dreams, swallowed _horse-tongue_ after supper.

Indigestion, and that condition which is termed a weak or irritable stomach, constitute a most fruitful source of visions. The immediate or direct influence of repletion, in totally altering the sensations and the disposition in waking moments, is a proof of its power to derange the circulation of the brain and the mental faculties in sleep.

“Somnus ut sit levis, sit tibi cœna brevis.”

The influence of the great sympathetic nerve in this respect is very important. With many persons, a meal is usually followed by feelings of depression, impaired memory, unusual timidity, despondency, and other illusive characteristics of _hysteria_ and _hypochondriasis_. And events will appear of the greatest moment, which, after the lapse of some hours, will be considered mere trifles. So that, after all, there is some truth in the idea of that _archæus_, or great spirit, asserted, by Van Helmont, to sit at the _cardia_ of the stomach, and regulate almost all the other organs.

The posture of _supination_ will unavoidably induce that increased flow of blood to the brain which, under certain states of this fluid, is so essential to the production of brilliant waking thoughts; an end, indeed, attained so often by another mode—the swallowing of opium.

A gentleman of high attainment was constantly haunted by a spectre when he retired to rest, which seemed to attempt his life. When he raised himself in bed, _the phantom vanished, but reappeared as he resumed the recumbent posture_.

Some persons always retire to bed when they wish to think; and it is well known that Pope was often wont to ring for pens, ink, and paper, in the night, at Lord Bolingbroke’s, that he might record, ere it was lost, that most sublime or fanciful poesy which flashed through his brain as he lay in bed. Such, also, was the propensity of Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, who (according to Cibber, or rather Sheil, the _real_ author of the “Lives of the Poets”) “kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory.”

Henricus ab Heeres (in his “Obs. Med.”) says, that when he was a professor, he used to rise in the night, open his desk, compose much, shut his desk, and again to bed. On his waking he was conscious of nothing but the happy result of his compositions.

The engineer, Brindley, even retired to bed for a _day or two_, when he was reflecting on a grand or scientific project.

I deny not that the darkness or stillness of night may have had some influence during this inspiration. I may also allow that some few individuals compose best while they are walking; but this _peripatetic_ exertion is calculated, itself, to produce what we term determination of blood to the head. I have heard of a most remarkable instance of the power of position in influencing mental energy, in a German student, who was accustomed to study and compose with his head on the ground and his feet elevated, and resting against the wall.

And this is the fragment of a passage from Tissot, on the subject of monomania:

——“Nous avons vu étudier dans cette académie il n’y a pas long-temps, un jeune homme de mérite, qui _s’étant mis dans la tête_, de découvrir la quadrature du circle, est mort, fou, à l’hôtel Dieu, à Paris.”

You will smile when I tell you that the tints of the landscape are brighter to our eyes if we _reverse the position of the head_.

And now, with your leave, gentle ladies, I will bring phrenology to my aid.

If we assume that there may be distinct portions of the brain, organs of comparison, individuality, causality, &c., we naturally regard _them_ as the source of that combined faculty which we denominate _judgment_. We might argue, that if these organs were _permanently_ deficient, fatuity, or, at least, extreme folly, would be the result. By parity of reasoning we might infer, that if the function of such organs were _for a time suspended_, imagination, having lost its mentor, would, as it were, run wild, and an extravagant dream, granting an excitement, would be the result. If the organ of colour be excited, and form be asleep, we may have an _eccentric drawing_. If language and imagination are both awake, a poem or romance; so it _may_ chance, that if _all_ the proper organs are awake, there may be a rational dream.

I yield not to the too finely-spun hypotheses of Gall, and his first whimsical topography of the cranium; the incipient idea of which, by the by, he owes to the Arabian phrenologists who, even in the olden time, had glimpses, although they decided on a different location. Imagination was in the _frontal_ region, reason in the _medial_, and memory in the _occipital_.

In Dr. Spurzheim’s beautiful demonstration of the brain, he exhibits it almost as one large convoluted web. While the ultra-phrenologist is unravelling these convolutions, it is strange that he sees not the inconsistency of his cranial divisions. Some of the boundary lines of his organs _must be drawn across_ these convolutions. It will ever be impossible to decide the exact course of these, but the lines should be drawn in the direction of their fibres; for if the faculty be seated in one convolution, that faculty would proceed _in the course_ of its fibres, and not across the fissure from one lobule to another. Now the most frequent coincidence of the possession of great mental power, with full development of the frontal region of the skull, will naturally lead us to believe that it may depend on _causation_. Indeed a skull, as well as expression, may be phrenologically _changed_ by culture or thought. The skull of William Godwin, in early life, indicated an _intellectual_ development; then it became _sensual_, the _occipital_ organs being in excess; and again, as his mind was subject to more moral culture, the intellectual or _frontal_ again prevailed. I am informed, also, by Miss A——, that there was observed a progressive development of the intellectual region in the head of her father, an acute and deep thinker.

We have analogies to this in physiognomy. Caspar Hauser lost some of the negro fulness about his mouth after he had been introduced to society. Perhaps the contrasted beauty and deformity in the forehead and eye, and in the mouth of Sheridan, was a faithful indication of that paradox of mind which was never more perfectly displayed than in the intellectual dignity and moral deficiency of this man. As no function, then, either of brain or gland, can be carried on without a due supply of blood, it will follow that _position_ may materially influence the integrity of these functions. The seat of the organs I have alluded to, if cranial development supports me, may be determined on the fore part of the head, behind the _os frontis_, portions of the cerebral mass which, in the _supine_ position, are usually most elevated above the centre of circulation. “The more noble the faculties, the higher are the organs situated.” These, consequently, may endure a deficiency of stimulus, in comparison with other organs more favourably situated. The phrenologist, then, will endeavour to prove, that the supine position generally produces _vascular pressure_ on particular parts or organs of the _encephalon_; and he will argue that dreams arise from individual organs abstractedly or unconnectedly acting. There is one spot on the cranium, indeed, identified by Dr. Spurzheim as a most important item in the composition of a good dreamer. He tells us, that “persons who have the part above and a little behind the organ of _ideality_ developed, are much prone to mysticism, to see visions and ghosts, and to dream.”

It may not be difficult to believe in this _partial_ function of the brain, when we recollect how often the loss of one faculty will be connected with _paralytic_ disorders. The faculty of _perception_ may be lost, unless the impression on the mind is made through a _particular_ sense. Thus patients may be unable to comprehend that name or subject when it was _pronounced_, or related, which they will immediately do, if _written_ down and presented to the sight,—_the optic nerve may transmit while the auditory has lost its power_.

“Segnius irritant animos _demissa per aures_,
Quam quæ sunt _oculis subjecta_ fidelibus.”

Of this axiom there is an illustrative story, by Darwin, in his “Zoonomia.”—A paralytic man could see and hear, but the _mind_ was _conscious of vision only_. If the hour of breakfast were _named_ to him, he repeated it and was passive; but if the hour were _pointed out_ on the watch, he comprehended at once, and called for breakfast.

On the contrary, there may be the same imperfection of _outward transmission_; the _lingual nerves_, influencing the tongue to sound a name _inapplicable to the idea_, the person often reversing the names of articles which he is continually using.

These phenomena regarding nerves of sense, then, are strictly analogous to those which we recognize in those parts of the brain which are intimately connected with, or influenced by, these nerves of sense: thus in analogy to waking illusions, we have the _imperfect_ associations of a dream when the organs are irregularly acted on.

INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE.

“O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.

“Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,
And weigh thee down.”
KING RICHARD III.

ASTR. I will no longer hesitate to grant that the dream occurs in the moment of departing or returning consciousness. Still, are you not _reversing_ the order of these phenomena? may not the excitement of vague ideas in the mind be, itself, the cause of waking, and not the consequence of slumber, or half-sleep?

EV. I believe not, except the sensibility of the body be influenced by touch, or sound, or by oppressive congestions of blood in the brain, causing that state of disturbance which reduces sound sleep to slumber; as in the instance of “Night-mare,” which is to the mind what sensation is to the body, restoring it to a state of _half-consciousness_, essential to that sort of dreaming, in which we make a painful effort to relieve, and at last awake.

CAST. Mara, by my fay! the night-spectre of Scandinavia; that evil spirit of the Runic theology, who weighed upon the bosom, and bereaved her victims of speech and motion: that oppressive dream, therefore, termed _Hag-ridden_, or, in the Anglo-Saxon, _Elf-siderme_. Is it not she, of whom it is written,—

“We seem to run, and destitute of force,
Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course.
In vain we heave for breath, in vain we cry;
The nerves unbraced, their usual strength deny,
And on the tongue the faltering accents die.”

EV. A very faithful picture.

Sound sleep will often be broken by pain or uneasiness occurring in a particular part of the body; the dream will then often bear an instructive reference to the seat and nature of such pain. If cramp has attacked any of the limbs, or the head has been long confined back, the dream may be enlivened by some analogous tortures in the dungeon of the Inquisition; and it is curious, that a waking wish for some relief from unpleasant sensations will be _re_-excited in the dream,—a _dreamy fulfilment_. Captain Back, during one of the Arctic expeditions, when nearly in a state of starvation, often dreamed of indulging in _a delicious repast_. And Professor Stewart thus writes,—“I have been told by a friend, that, having occasion to apply a bottle of hot water to his feet, he dreamed that he was making a journey to the top of Mount Ætna, and that he found the heat of the ground insupportable. Another, having a blister applied to the head, dreamed that he was _scalped_ by a party of Indians.”

If on these occasions we are warm in bed, our dreams will be often pleasing, and the scenes in the tropics; if _cold_, or chilly, the reverse, and we shall believe ourselves in Zembla.

Holcroft had been musing on the probabilities of life and death, and one night went in pain to bed. He dreamed his body was severed above his hips, and again joined in a surprising manner. He was astonished to think he was alive, and afraid of being struck, lest the parts should be dissevered.

Tempests heard in a slumber will be often associated with a dream of shipwreck; and some persons will dream of their having given pain to, or injured, others: they wake, and find some close analogy to _their own_ sensations.

It is recorded that Cornelius Rufus dreamed that he was blind, and _so_ indeed _he awoke_.

In other cases, we have the _double touch_, as it is termed; dreams of forcible detention occur, and the sleeper has found that he had with one hand tightly grasped the other. If this hand had been _moved in sleep_ unconsciously, the dream, no doubt, would have been essentially changed. And thus we have all the phenomena realised, which Shakspere has referred to in the visitations of his incorrigible Mab.

Elliston was always awaked by nightmare when sleeping in a strange bed.

As in some persons, by submitting the body to certain impressions during sleep, associated dreams may be produced at pleasure; so if the body or legs hang over the side of a bed, we may instantly dream of falling from a precipice: and it is curious that, under these illusions, we awake when we are past hope and our despair is at its height: in falling, at the moment we are about to be dashed to atoms; and, in drowning, when the last bubbles are gurgling in the throat.

When we read in the Bodleian, Astrophel, I will point you to other curious experiments of this sort, by M. de Buzareingries.

Sounds also may be partly associated with the dream at waking, and with reality, when awake. Under this illusive impression, even murder has been _innocently_ committed, on one, who waked, and stabbed his brother at the moment he was _dreaming_ of assassins.

CAST. And so may be explained, I suppose, this funny anecdote. A young lover was drooping into a day-dream, while sitting with his brothers and sisters, and his thought had turned on the cruelty of his mistress. He was for a moment dreaming of her, when pussy, stretching her paws, scratched his leg with a claw: there was an instant association, I presume, of the wound with the lady’s cruelty, for he started and exclaimed, “Oh Arabella, don’t!”

EV. Hippocrates quaintly alludes to the dreaming about seas and lakes as an indication of _hydrothorax_; and to others, as symptomatic of _effusion on the brain_: and it has been asserted, that gloomy dreams in fevers indicate danger. But all this is hypothesis; indeed, the delirious dreams of fever are often bright and cheerful.

The “Opium-Eater” has a strange fancy regarding his dreams of “silvery expanses of water;” “these haunted me so much, that I feared that some dropsical state or tendency of the brain, might thus be making itself _objective_, and the sentient organ project itself as its own object.” I hope you understand this, Astrophel—I do not.

In the morbid condition of _hypochondriasis_, which is a sort of permanent _daymare_, similar fancies are excited. Esquirol’s patient at Notre Dame thought the pope held council in her belly;—her intestines were found _closely adherent_ together. Another monomaniac thought the devil had stretched a cord across her stomach;—her heart was _adherent to its bag_. Another believed that her body was stolen by the devil;—she was in reality paralytic, and _insensible_ to blows or pricking.

To explain some of these illusions, Jason Pratensis very gravely asserts, that “the devil being a slender incomprehensible spirit, can easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and, cunningly couched in our bowels, terrify our souls with fearful dreams.”

I may add that we see, in some, a delirious _transmigration of sensation_. Parkinson relates these cases. One referred his own sensation to others, telling his nurse that his visitors were hungry, while his own voracity plainly indicated that the _hunger was in himself_. Another, in a fit of intoxication, insisted on undressing all his family, as they were drunk, and could not do it themselves.

Now we certainly move ourselves unconsciously in our sleep as a relief from painful positions. If, however, these uneasy sensations are increased from stagnant blood about the heart and lungs, the oppression is extreme, and _loads_ the moving powers; producing a transient agony and an intense effort. If this were unsuccessful on the limbs and speech, the result would be often destructive.

The night-mare dreamers are usually lethargic, and their ideas are often wild and visionary.

Polidori, the author of the “Vampire,” was a prey to night-mare; he died with a laudanum bottle in his bed. And Coleridge might have thus left a sad and pointed moral; blazoning his wretched suicide to that world, which unconsciously has pored with a thrill of admiration over those fruits of his delinquency, the romantic and unearthly stories of Christabel and the Ancient Mariner.

The grand feature of night-mare, then, is _impediment_: but how can I record all its varieties of miserable struggles; of attacks and manglings from wild monsters: of the rolling of mountains on the heart: or the unhallowed embraces of a witch?

The young lady who reads mythology, will fancy herself a syrinx, and struggle to escape from the amorous clutches of Pan. If we have been thinking of Chamouni and her giant peaks of snow, we may be overwhelmed in our sleep by the fall of an avalanche; or we may be dashed off a precipice, and feel ourselves falling into interminable space without a hope of resting.

A lady whom I know, and who is a frequent subject of night-mare, is very uniform in this dreamy occupation. She is shaken to and fro in her bed by fiends, and the process seems to her to occupy considerable time. And there are many who are tortured by the feeling that they are buried alive, and attempt to cry out, and beat against their coffin-lid in vain. Aurelian writes, that the epidemics in Rome were premonished by _incubus_.

These, and thousands of a similar kind, might be cited; but a vivid imagination, with a hint or two, will readily create them at its pleasure.

“A battalion of French soldiers, during the toils and dangers of a campaign, were marching on a certain point on a most oppressive day, and at double the usual speed; their strength was eight hundred men, all hardy, seasoned, and courageous; careless of danger, despising the devil, and little occupied with the thoughts of ghosts and phantasmagoria. On the night of the occurrence in question, the battalion was forced to occupy a narrow and low building at Tropœa, barely calculated to accommodate three hundred persons. Nevertheless, they slept; but, at midnight, one and all were roused by frightful screams issuing from all quarters of the house; and to the eyes of the astonished and affrighted soldiers appeared the vision of a huge dog, which bounded in through the window, and rushed with extraordinary heaviness and speed over the breasts of the spectators. The soldiers quitted the building in terror. Next night, by the solicitations of the surgeon and _chef-de-bataillon_, who accompanied them, they again resumed their previous quarters. ‘We saw,’ says the narrator, ‘that they _slept_. We watched the arrival of the hour of the preceding panic, and midnight had scarcely struck when the veteran soldiers, for the second time, started to their feet. Again they had heard the supernatural voices, again the visionary hound had bestrode them to suffocation. The _chef-de-bataillon_ and myself heard or saw nothing of these events.’”

The superstitious thought this spectre to be the devil; but the heat and _carbonic acid gas_ were, I believe, enough for the excitement of the phantasm and the feeling.

There can scarcely be imagined a more terrific feeling than this sense of extreme danger, or difficulty, this intense impediment, without a power to avert it. The constant labour of Sisyphus, with his rolling-down stone, and the punishment of Tantalus, would yield in severity to the agony of night-mare, but for its _transient_ existence.

It seems to me, that this want of balance between will and power influences human nature so much, that life itself may be termed one long and painful _incubus_. The actions we perform seldom reach the perfection which the will desires. Hence arises that constant dissatisfaction, which even the close approach to perfection of some of the most accomplished professors of art and science cannot avert.

We must confess, with Socrates, that the extent of our knowledge is indeed but a conviction of our ignorance. The metaphor of Sir Isaac Newton, on the insignificance of his own scientific attainments, is well known. Sir Joshua Reynolds so highly appreciated perfection in his art, that he was ever discontented with his own paintings; and frequently, as I have heard, by repeated touches, destroyed the effect of a picture, which had been in its early stages beautiful. And Dr. Johnson, after astonishing the world with his perfect specimen of lexicographical composition, confessed that he “had not satisfied his own expectations.” May I add to these the frequent _discontent_ of the unrivalled Paganini?

IDA. The desire of the mind is, indeed, unlimited; and when this is intense, it wishes to appropriate to itself all which it can _comprehend_. But disappointment _must_ ensue; for all wish to be the whole, when they form but a part. Thus will ever be proved the futility of _worldly_ ambition,—it is never satisfied. But the desires of religion are not a phantom, or an incubus. True devotion, which aspires to heaven, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, will never fail. Its fervent hopes and devout prayers, we believe, will be blessed by their accomplishment.

CAST. Then the visitations of the incomparable Mab are nought but the infliction of the night-mare? Gentle Master Evelyn, how should I be aweary of your philosophy, but that I am half won over to believe it true? In good faith,

“The Gordian knot of it you do unloose
Familiar as your garter.”

EV. Then, I pray you, let me counsel you not to court such visits, dear Castaly. There is some peril in the touch both of Mab and Mara; for although rare and transient cases of night-mare excite no alarm, yet its repetition, in a severe form, is not to be slighted. It sometimes has been the forerunner of _epilepsy_; its immediate cause being obstruction to the course of the blood by which the brain especially is surcharged, and the action of the lungs and heart impeded, as we prove by the extreme labour of breathing at the time we awake.

I believe that there is usually a fulness of blood, also, in the vessels of the spinal marrow; as, although nightmare may occur in the _sitting_, it is far more frequent in the _recumbent_ position. Thus the marrow is oppressed, and there is then no force transmitted by the nerves to put the muscles into action.

Distention of the stomach should be prevented, as the _diaphragm_ is thus pushed up against the lungs, and the gas is accumulated in the cavity. All these conditions often occur in our waking moods, but _then_ our judgment tells us how to relieve them speedily; whereas, _in sleep_, the load accumulates. All indigestible substances, therefore, should be avoided, as nuts, cucumbers, shell-fish, &c.

Early and light suppers we advise to those whom Madame Mara so unmercifully overlies. A mattress should be our couch, and we should endeavour to compose ourselves _on one side_, having, previous to our rest, taken _gentle exercise_.

SOMNILOQUENCE.—SOMNAMBULISM.

“It is a sleepy language; and thou _speak’st_
Out of thy sleep.”
TEMPEST.

“_Doct._ You see, her eyes are open. _Gent._ Ay, but their _sense_ is shut.”

“_Doct._ A great perturbation in nature. To receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effect of watching.” MACBETH.

EV. In the common dream, ideas float through the _mind_, but the body is passive. When the power of _expressing_ these ideas by _speech_ is added, it is _somniloquence_. When there is the _conscious_, yet _powerless_, will to move, it is _incubus_. When the _unconscious_ power of _moving_ in accordance with the ideas or wishes of the dream exists, it is _somnambulism_.

The common dreams of sleep are not unfolded to us until the waking recollections of the dreamer relate them; but the matter of a dream may be half developed during its existence, by the curious propensity to unconscious talking and walking in the sleep.

Sleep-talking is the slightest of these phenomena, and, indeed, closely resembles the speaking _reveries_ of some absent people, and the raving of a maniac. The sleep is, at this time, little deeper than a reverie.

The voice of the somniloquist is usually _natural_, but as again, in the cases of mania and of delirious excitement, a common voice may become sweetly melodious, and there will be an imparted fluency allied to the inspiration of the improvisatore.

Indeed, in some young ladies, subject to _hysteria_, I have known, at certain periods as it were, a new accomplishment—a style of singing which was far beyond their power in waking moments. Dr. Dewar relates a case of a girl who, when awake, discovered no knowledge of astronomy or the sciences in any way; but when she was _asleep_ she would define the rotations of the seasons, using expressions the most apt to the subject, such as “the globe is now set agee.” It is probable that this was the memory in slumber of some geographical lesson which she had heard, but did not remember while her _senses_ were active, that is, in her waking moments. And an American lady, during a fever, commenced a course of nocturnal prating, composing most eloquent sermons, chiefly made up, however, of _remembered_ texts of Scripture.

I am informed, too, that a lady of Edinburgh, during her somnolent attacks, recited somewhat lengthy poems; and it was curious to notice that each line commenced with the final letter of the preceding.

These sleep-talkings are sometimes the mere lispings of an idiot; although Astrophel, perchance, may contend that the following, written down from the lips of a servant-maid, is a proof of special inspiration, converting a rustic girl into an improvisatrice.

“You may go home and wash your hose,
And wipe the dew-drops from your nose,
And mock no maiden here.
For you tread down grass, and need not;
Wear your shoes, and speed not,
And clout leather’s very dear;
But I need not care, for my sweetheart
Is a cobbler.”

I have heard this trash cited as a proof of facility of composition in slumber. You do not believe it such; like other specimens, it was a ruse of a wanton girl to excite admiration. In the magnetic somnambulism of Elizabeth Okey, that cunning little wench, who was the _prima buffa_ of the magnetic farces enacted at the North London Hospital, would often skip about and sing snatches of equal elegance:

“I went into a tailor’s shop
To buy a suit of clothes;
But where the money came from,
G—— Almighty knows.”

These are indeed the very burlesque of somniloquence. And yet Okey _was_ an invalid, and presumed on the credulity of those who ministered to her.

True somniloquence is often preceded by a cataleptic state; and in girls like this, the senses are often so dull, that the firing of a pistol close to the ear does not rouse them, until the poetic fit is over.

CAST. Were sleep-talking more common, it would indeed be a very dangerous propensity. If the confessor were to prate in his sleep of the peccadilloes of the fair penitents that kneel at his confessional; if the minister on his couch were to divulge his state secrets or his fine political schemes; where would be the tranquillity of domestic or national society? Yet the lips of the love-sick maiden have not seldom whispered in sleep her bosom’s secret; and sometimes the unconscious tongue has awfully betrayed even the blood-stain on the hand.

Thus did the ill-mated Parisina of Byron:

“Fever’d in her sleep she seems,
And red her cheek with troubled dreams;
And mutters she, in her unrest,
A name she dare not breathe by day.”

The fate of Eugene Aram, I believe, may be imputed to such an unfortunate propensity; and in Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot!” was confessed her participation in the murder of Duncan and the grooms.

Somewhat like this, too, was the half-sleeping exclamation of Jarvis Matcham, after he had committed the murder of the drummer boy. Starting from his bed, when roused by the waiter, his first words were: “My God! I did not kill him.”