The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-02-26

sentative, as distinguished from th
plastic, faculty. 1t has been noted tina
f a dreamer can lay under contribute
e long unused stores of memory
reproduce the minutest details G
e events long past, the features of q fac
!, long dead, the tones of a voice that i
Y still. This fact, which has its parable
q in the experience of delirium, and in tn
momentary flash of recollection whicl
l occurs just before the unconsciousnes
OF drowning, goes to show not only tina
l there is no such thing as forgetting
| what we have once attentively observed
: and made part of our mental stores
/ but, also, how little consciousness ha
/ to do in the essential parts of the func
, tions of recollection and Imagination
, In his discussion of this subject DIR
Maudsley cites a pertinent anecdott
from the French scientist, Maury. Ii
! his childhood the latter had visited
Trilport, village on the Marve, where
his father had built bridge. Late il
life he dreamed once, we are told, thai
he was achild playing at Trilport, and
that he saw a man clothed in sort o1
Uniform, whom he asked what was his
name. The man replied c., and
that he was gatekeeper at the bridge,
the name & in his ears. which he
did not in the least remember ever to
have heard. Some time afterward, !,
however, he inquired of an old servant,
who had been in his fathers service, if
she recollected person named c.,
and she replied instantly that he was
gatekeeper at the Marve when the bridge
was built.
Proceeding from general reflections
to an inquiry into the causes and con-
ditions which determine the character
| of dreams, our author points out that the
material of our dream fancies, the ele-
ments out of which such products are
formed, must obviously be derived for the
most part, from precedent mental expe-
rience. This was notably attested in a
case cited by Darwin of gentleman who
having been so deaf for thirty years
that he could be conversed with only in
writing or by the finger alphabet, de-
clared that he never dreamt of persons
conversing with him except by the fin
gers or in writing, and had never had
the impression of hearing them speak.
Darwin mentions another case, how
ever, where the constituents of the
dream should not probably be referred
to personal experience, but should
rather be classed under the head of re-
versions in sleep to ancestral modes of
thought, feeling and action. This was
the instance of a man who used to make
a peculiar movement of the right arm
when fast asleep, raising it slowly in
front of the face and then letting it drop
heavily on the nose, and whose son and
granddaughter made exactly the same
movements when they were sound
asleep. In the case of the descendants,
it would seem that nervous sub-strata,
stimulated in sleep, gave out in motor
function what had been embodied
in their constitution by an
cestral experiences. It is true,
also, that dreams are largely nodded,
if not positively engendered, by organ
ic or systemic impressions. 1t is mat
ter of common observation that the
physiological action of the visceral or
the sexual organs has much to do with
the character of dreaming Excitations
of muscular sensibility likewise exert an
active influence, and number of ex-
amples are cited to indicate how con-
siderable part motor hallucinations,
combined, as they commonly are, with
sensory disturbances, may play in dream
phenomena. A not uncommon dream
with many persons is that they are in
imminent danger of falling from a
height, and they awake just as they are
making frantic effort to avert the
catastrophe. 1t has been surmised that
this hallucination is owing to the grad
ual relaxation of the muscles as we 90
to sleep, and to an ensuing sudden con-
traction of them, such as we observe to
happen when persons head (who is
very drowsy) sinks gently forward as
the muscles relax, and then is pulled
suddenly up with jerk by their auto
matte contraction. This view is sup
ported by the fact that when Braid
reused, in the minds of persons whom
he had put into the hypnotic sleep,
ideas associated with certain bodily
attitudes, he stimulated the mem
tai states through their suitable
muscular acts by putting the
body into the proper postures. There
can be little doubt that what was thus
done experimentally in artificial sleep
is a common occurrence in natural
sleep, and should be taken into account
in prosecuting inquiries into the causa-
ton of dreaming. Concerning the at
mospheric conditions, whether of cleo
trical or other obscure nature, which
may modify the tone of the nervous
system, and so affect the soundness of
sleep and the tendency to dream, DIR.
Maudsley considers an influence of the
kind very probable, although we have
not yet any exact knowledge of it. Sys-
tematic observations of dreams, collected
in connection with corresponding
series of meteorological data, are
entirely wanting. But, remembering
the profound effect produced upon some
persons, both in the day and in the
night, by that oppressive state of the
atmosphere which precedes and accom-
panies thunder storm, our author does
not hesitate to express a conviction
that we do vibrate in unison with more
subtle influences of earth and sky than
we have learned to measure in our phil
osophy.