Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-08-12
9ailg Hrnmbrt yanrnal.
CURIOUS DREAM.

Perhaps the most curious specimen OF
this class of dreams that ever came under
our notice was this one. The subject was
boy of IS, busily employed during the
day and devoting his evenings to the class
room To allow time for study he rose
early and retired late, and never wasted
moment, denied himself everything in the
shape of recreation, and with the excep-
ton of his walks between the school-room
and his place of business, took no exercise.
The classes he attended were formed in
great part of adults, all of whom had
much more leisure than himself, and most
of whom were merely renewing their &C
quaintancc with former reading; yet the
boy managed to keap abreast of the very
best of his class mates. OF course such
exertions could not be made by mere
child with impunity. After six or seven.
months of them, he became subject to
singular malady. He never left his books
so long as his eyes would keep open.
When they refused to labor longer he re-
tired-to fall at once into heavy sleep.
From this, however, he was sure to start,
in half an hour or thereabouts, under the
influence of nightmare, which compelled
him to recite aloud every word of the les
sons of the day. The thing was most
painful, but there was no escape from it.
Once in the grip of the tornenting fiend.
he was constrained 10 60 on repeating de-
clensions, coniugations, trigonometric for
mule, and so on, to the very last syllable.
Then theft left him to disturbed and I'M
refreshing slumber. There was no RENE
DIV for the disease save discontinuance of
study, and to this the boy would not con-
sent--even though this most repulsive
nightmare was, visibly and rapidly sap
ping his constitution. At length he was
favored with strange dream. A face
seemed to bend over him-one that he had
never seen before. but whose features re-
manned ever aiterward fixed in his men,
ory. In the decline of life he used to tell
a most interesting story of his meeting
with that face, twenty-four years later,
and the decisive influence which its
owner exercised over his destiny. This
face he described as beautiful, spoke in
tones delightfully."- sweet, TO this effect:
"If somebody win watch by your bed,
and when the nightmare seizes you. re-
cite certain passage" (Which we win
specify presently 'you be set free to
sleep in peace" 1t was not until the
dream required more than once that the
laughed at by all, save an elder sister,
who made up her mind to give fair tri-
al to the remedy so curiously suggested.
She did so when her brother was next un-
dergoing his torture. Hardly had she be-
gun to speak than he ceased to go over
his lessons, and taking up the passage
after her, he went through it to the end
quite involuntary as before. but very
differently, with an ease and comfort per-
fectly indescribable. When the recitation
was over he sank into calm and refresh
ing sleep. The experiment was repeat
ed night after night, and always with still
more satisfactory results than before. BY
degrees the pest relaxed its grasp, and in
nine or ten days vanished forever The
passage employed was ''the Lords
Prayer"
The dreamer used to explain the mat
ter thus. Once thinking of his strange af-
Fiction, as he often did, and casting about
for an antidote, there occurred to his men,
DRY q piece of old reading, in which it
was stated that the wounds made one day
by the application of heated irons, might
be cured on the next by a similar appli-
cation. While turning the story over in
his mind, conception of the remedy
which, in the end proved beneficial,
glanced before him, but SO vaguely. and
for 80 short period that he could not
grasp it, To this passing idea, and to his
efforts to arrest it. he attributed-rightly,
we think-the material portion of the Wis
ion. The passage recommended for reci-
tation he accounted for by the fact he
had been piously trained. But his later
opinion was that paragraph from pro-
fame author would do just as well. AS to
the temperance of the dream-face in
real life-a notion in which he was obsti-
nate to an extent inconceivable in mind
SO logical-we may remark that strong
imaginings and intense affections play
strange tricks with our impressions. The
CornhiH Magazine.