The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-12-11
Dreaming.

I 3 -
\ has been treated, il is of that sort which
never seems TO lose interest for the gem
erality of persons. No doubt the sub
ject is a vague and to considerable ex-
/ tent an unsatisfactory one-one upon
4 which you may talk and write a very
long time, and at the end be not much
1 wiser than you were at the beginning.
But as long as people dream, they will
continue to talk about their dreams. Just
as mankind viii continue to talk about
the weather, so long as there is rain and
sunshine, heat and cold; and not only
Ito talk about, but to be more. or less
.euriOns concerning them. We have no
wish TO speak about dreams, either from
"a psychological or any other aspect.
What tits proposed, to do is to record a
few facts and observations, with the
preface that the greater portion of what
follows either came under the writer's
| own experience, or was related to him
by friends as having happened to them
selves, f. -
The following shows how dream
may be true and yet not true, in a curi-
Gus way. 1t was lately told to the wri-
ter by one secOndarily connected with
+ the circumstances. tIhe narrator cccu-
I pied lod gings in Edinburgh, lin company
/ with-a friend, at the time of the occur
rencey. One morning, during the winter
before last, his felloW-lOdger said to my
! informant; 81 had curious dream
about John Fleming last night. 1
I4dreamed- was drowned-wfile skating
on Dunsappie Loeb. I haven't been
| able to get the thing out of my head.
The loch will be bearing to-day. Sup
pose we walk over after office hours and
see the skating? - .~ItEftt - &
The two young men took their. way in
the afternoon to Dunsappie Loch.
|. There, sure enough, among the skaters
was their friend John Fleming. POr-
! tions of the ice were in but an indiffer-
ent state for skating, and the two young
men, who were not themselves skaters,
/ varied their friend off the dangerous
ground, But the skater made some
what light of their, fears, and showed
himself more bold and venturesome than
was quite judieious in the circumstances.
/ HOWeVeT,} no mischance befell, the
| skater finished his sport unscathed, and
1 the dreamer Of the dream and his COM
] paniOn,T my informant-the former a
| good deal relieved in mind-retuTned
home. While the dreamer was looking
| over the Scotsman next morning, one of
the first things his eye fell upon was a
paragraph recounting the death on the
previous day of a young man named
John Fleming, who. had been drowned
while skating. 1t was of course. some
other John Fleming-anOther young
man of the same name.
| In the above, though I have changed
! the name of the chief actor, the circum-
stances happened as here set down-the
form in which they were narrated to me
| by one in whose good faith l have i'm
7 III =
more curious result of the dream than
! if the friend of the dreamer had been
drowned 1t would almost seem to
| show that dreams may make mistakes
in the sense of going astray and visiting
the wrong people.
A well known and esteemed 'Edin-
burgh advocate, now dead, used some
! times to relate the following. While at
/ school one of the studies in which he
was most successful was mathematics.
! During the last sessions of his school life
| he was trying hard for one of the math-
ematical prizes. Another youth and
| himself were running a neck-and-neck
race for the coveted honor. On regular
ly recurring days the boys in the class
were set problems to work in a given
time. Each of the rivals had done all
the exercises correctly up till almost the
fairly baffied by one problem-the last
that was required to be done. By no
amount of labor and pains could he sue
ceed in solving it. On the evening be-
fore the day on which the exercises were
to- be given in, he had puzzled at the
obdurate problem Late into the night.
At last, still completely baffied, and
mentally and bodily wearied by his long
work, he gave way, bOy-like, to a flood
of tears of Vexation and modification,
and in this state went to bed. During
the night he dreamed that he was again
engaged in solving the problem, and
that he worked it out rapidly and easily
to what he felt sure was the correct re
suit. Then deep and dreamless-slum-
ber. succeeded, which lasted till morn
/ ing. When the boy rose, instead sOi
there remaining to him only confused
recollection of having dreamed about
working at the problem he sat down
and there and then solved the exercise
without the slightest difficulty.
1t is not, of course, an uncommon
thing fof persons to have dreams of thi,
character-for the poet to dream verses
the novelist plots and situations, the bar
risteI causes, the mathematician problems
but IL is very rarely that these dreams
are of any practical service to the
, dreamers. They vanish with the wax
; ing, 1eaving only a vague and incongru
Gus memory. We have all heard per
sons relate how they have successfully
, wrought out in their sleep some piece o
J work that has been exercising their men
tai faculties ali day but the above i
one of the few instances the presen
: writer has ever known of a dream O
this nature resulting thus practically.
Tbprn ar.a historical ov011,DlaS of Z
same kind, one of which relates to tn,
! poet Campbell, and is not, l think, YER
: widely known. While Campbell wa
J engaged in composing ''LochiePs Warn
2 ing he became perplexed as to how h
( should best put in rhythmical shape al
r idea which was working in his brain. H
? had been striving a whole day to fin,
f adequate expression for his thought, bu
! night found him still unsatisfied, 1t vii
: be remembered by readers that Camp
. bell was fastidious and difficult to pleas
\ in regard to niceties of language Wit
! his mind still running In the sam
! groove, he went to bed and fell asleep
While he slept the idea flashed through
e his brain, clothed in fitting and adequat
/ words. He started up in bed, suddenl
f wide awake, rose, struck light, sa
: down at q table, and instantly wrot
3 the well known couplet:
S 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lor
i And events to come cast their shadows before
e The poet then went to sleep again. L
the morning he made single alteration
a in the couplet, writing for "events t
{ come,'' % coming events,'' the shape i
1 which, of course, the lines appeared i
; the completed poem.-Englssh Mage
a zine.
+ TROUBLESOME leaks around chin
e neys and over bay windows can, it