American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-09-11

the door. | stopped directly into Utah.
Here joined party of mining pros
pectorS, consisting of several divinity
students, in an advanced stage of intox-
| ication, and Il panther. We began
tearing down the side of n mountain,
the panther distinguishing himself b.
| the energy with which he welded his
pick, his tail curling and quiveriny with
excitement. We were in search of a
gypsum bed, which we soon uncovered.
1t was securely boxed in rough hem
! lock boards. Desiring to own it
wholly myself. killed all my party by
the simple method of jamming the top
of my pick into their backs as they
were bent over examining the find. BY
using my full strength / was able to
double them up and drive them deep
into the ground, thus dispatching them
quickly and buryinS them in one mo-
ton. 1 then took possession of the
coveted gypsum bed, and n similar SC
ries of absurdities and crimes crowded
on one another, till | awoke. What 1
relate this nonsense for is to show that
in dream of this class not only is my
perception of distance blurred, but also
my sense of equity. l paid no atten-
ton to the fundamental principles of
the mining code, though l had had
practical experience of its absolute ne
cessity as the only means OF preserv-
| ing the semblance of order in a camp.
l deceived all my comrades, including
the inotfensive and hard working pam
Their. Few men would be more averse
to such a thing than 1. and l can
only plead that l was all asleep ex-
cept the savage instincts of the primitive
man.
In dreams. of the third class, even
these and the consciousness of personal
identity arc ut rest. There is left only
a vague consciousness of existence
probably about what the mollusk feels
when most awake.
| If this classification does not fit the
dreams of some people, 1 can only say
| that their sleep is not true sleep and
their dreams are not true dreams. What
they call sleep is probably abnormal
hypnotic coma or imperfect lethargy,
and what they suppose to be dreams are
merely irregular, spasmodic mental &C
ton, unworthy of strict scientific CLASH
fication.
The most intimate connection exists
between the mind and the body; and
not unfrequentiy some physical dis
order or idiosyncrasy, of whose exist
ence we may not be aware in our wax
when the body is more susceptible of in
ternal impressions. In a dream the
condition of the physical organization
reflects itself in the activity of the
nervous system, as surrounding objects
are mirrored upon the ruffled surface of
the waters beneath; and these distorted
images may serve as the index of the
state of the physical system.
In these facts / think we may find
the explanation of the first class of WIS.,
ions mentioned by the contributor writ
ing Of recurrent dreams. Why and
whence the particular visions which he
refers to l cannot tell, for in sleep
every man has a world of his own"
But I think that such indescribable
impressions are frequently made upon
the mind in childhood, as we know
that they occur In delirium and in
sanity.
From my earliest years, during my
childhood, was haunted by a strange
sensation in sleep. which called fall
ing off from the WORLD" and often now,
when fatigued in body or mind, the i'm
preston returns. l am alone in space,
and feel myself falling faster and still
| faster to some terrible unknown depth.
l refer this sensation to a disordered
state of the nervous system, consequent
upon excitement or fatigue. trace a
resemblance, a sequence, between the
"vast, impalpable something 'mov-
ing onward in enormous airy billows,"
the "tall white-clothed figure" and
| the " shapes of armed men approaching
with awful, silent tread" The first
second. and the second assumes the
outline of the third, as, in the Arabian
| Nights, the white, shapeless cloud at
length took form and became the huge
genie. To fix the limit of such fancies
is to set bounds to the Imagination, q
task impossible. In the child of ex-
citable temperament the mental i'm
pressiOns during sleep are more gro
tesque; but these shadowv shapes as
sumo more definite form in later years.
Concerning the recurrence of a GER
tain dream during a number of years,
to the exclusion of other forms of
dreaming, offer this explanations: A
dream is any mental action in sleep of
which we are afterward conscious. The
more wild and fantastic the dream, the
more wildly is it impressed upon the
memory. The fact that it is thus i'm
pressed leads to its recurrence, espe-
cially when the dreamer relates his
vision to another person. The readi-
ness with which a train of thought re-
ours to the mind is proportionate to the
frequency with which it is recalled.
Hence, these visions tend to reproduce
the mselves.
think that the nocturnal journeys
mentioned by the contributor are of fire.
quent occurrence in the experience of
others. l know physician who to long
daily rides in the practice of his profess
sion adds longer and more toilsOme
nightly journeys. Regularly, during
the hours of sleep, as he drives his
horses over almost impossible roads, his
loud cries, urging them on, or holding
them back, give evidence of the nature
of his dreams. In my own experience,
l find that a day of hard labor, physical
or mental, is quite often followed by
nights of driving over fearful roads, or
of plowiug through stormy waters. In
all these dreams the sense of imminent
danger or impending trouble is always
present Our actual travels do not
seem to affect the case.
Whence comes this sense of dangerp
Indistinctness is prevailing character
istic of our dreams. Certain features
of the dream may stand out clearly
from the rest, but in every vision there
is border-land of impenetrable mys-
terry. In every human mind obscurity
awakens an indefinable fear; terror and
dread overwhelm us when we wander
through the dim and UNEMPLOYED land
of dreams. Reason is not with us to
dispel our fears, and until we awake we
struggle on, the prey of fancies which
our own minds have created
The dream that recurs most fire.
WIf 10 "A