DREAMS, are all those thoughts which people feel passing through their minds, and those imaginary transactions in which they often fancy themselves engaged, when in the state of sleep.
Scarce any part of nature is less open to our observation than the human mind in this state. The dreamer himself cannot well obverse the manner in which dreams arise or disappear to him. When he awakes, he cannot recollect the circumstances of his dreams with sufficient accuracy. Were we to watch over him with the most vigilant attention, we could not perceive with certainty what emotions are excited in his mind, or what thoughts pass through it, during his sleep. But though we could ascertain these phenomena, many other difficulties would still remain. What parts of a human being are active, what dormant, when he dreams? Why does not he always dream while asleep? Or why dreams he at all? Do any circumstances in our constitution, situation, and peculiar character, determine the nature of our dreams?
We may lay before our readers such facts as have been ascertained concerning dreaming, and the most plausible conjectures that have been offered to explain those particulars, about which we can only conjecture, or have at least hitherto obtained nothing more certain than conjecture.
1. In dreaming, we are not conscious of being asleep. This is well known from a thousand circumstances. When awake, we often recollect our dreams; and we remember on such occasions, that while those dreams were passing through our minds, it never occurred to us that we were separated by sleep from the active world. We are often observed to act and talk in dreaming as if we were busily engaged in the intercourse of social life.
2. In dreaming, we do not consider ourselves as witnessing
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A. Wilson Sculp. DRAWING: PLATE CLXXX.
W. Archibald Sculp!
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Engr by W. Archibald Edin.
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Engr. by W. Archibald Edin.