The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-01 00:00:00

DREAMS AND DREAMING.

At the London Institution on Monday evening a
lecture was delivered by Professor D. Ferrier, M.D.,
on the above subject, being a sequel to that on " Sleep "
given last week. The brain, though a unity, was a
complex unity, and therefore while ,one portion of it
rested others could go on actively. Hence the reflex
actions of the brain took place as well, or even better,
during sleep than in the waking hours. All ideas
were the results of sensory impressions, of which the
brain might be termed the organic register, and when
we recalled ideas we, in reality, re-excited exactly the
same portions of the brain as were originally concerned
in taking the impressions. In a converse manner strong
ideas might and did occasionally cause absolute sensory'
impressions—optical illusions, for example, such as oc-
curred to "spiritualists" and persons labonring under
many forms of insanity. Not only might ideal phan-
tasms be thus produced, but pathological changes and
even disease might be engendered by a powerful
imagination. Dreams were the revival during sleep
of impressions registered during waking hours. None
of their elements were or could be new; the arrange-
ment alone of the elements might be novel. In short,
we had in dreams a series of permutations and com-
binations of facts that had come within our own past
or possible experience or knowledge, and therefore
to dream of future events was simply impossible.
Incoherent dreaming was caused by a kaleidoscopic
grouping of impressions. The causes that produced the
re-excitation of mental impressions during sleep were
various, but might usually be traced either to some
disturbing physical or physiological influences on the
body., or to the retention of some recent train of
waking thought. Thus indigestion produced the fami-
liar phenomenon of nightmare by transmission to the
brain of the sense of oppression on the chest; and con-
centration of thought on one subject during great part
of a day, brought about a morbid condition of the
brain cells, which caused the imagination during sleep
to revert to the strongly pre-occupying subject. It
was due to this that we occasionally heard of poets,
mathematicians, &c., completing daring sleep some
line, or stann, or problem on which they had pre-
viously unsuccessfully laboured. There could be little
doubt that all impressions once made on the brain
were permanently retained; it was merely the revival
of them that constituted the difficulties of a bad memory.
Some persons possessed-in ;in extraordinary degree the
power of retaining and combining impressions, the
lecturer quoting as an example of this an anecdote
from the recent review in the Daily News of Mr.
Trevelyan's "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay."
Somnambulism was described as "active dreaming,"
and "talking in one's sleep" as a mild form of som-
nambulism. It was an interesting fact that dreams
for the most part occurred while the brain was being
resuscitated—being frequently caused by the very
noise that awakened the dreamer. This led on to a
short dissertation ori, the duration of dreams, which
were as a rule, almost incredibly. short. Ihis was ex.
plainer' by the fact that it required but a very brief
time to re-excite impressions that were ready-formed
on the brain, although their formation might have
occupied many years.
Other topics of interest in connection. with the sub-
ject were introduced, inters: ersed with interesting
anecdotes, the lecturer on concluding being warmly
applauded by a crowded audience.—Daily Ncws