The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-06-10
A Dreamer's Senses.

If a strong light be held before the
sleeper's eyes he is almost sure to awake;
bat at the very moment he may have a
dream of some tremendous fire, perhaps
that his house is in flames. The ear OF
the DIRE amer is generally on the alert,
and proves a gong to the mysterious
spirit to make its airy rounds. To
some sleepers the sound of u flute fills
the air with music, or they dream of a
delightful concert. A loud noise will
produce terrific thunder and crashings
unutterable. and at the same time awake
the sleeper. According to DIR. Aber
crombie, a gentleman who has been a
soldier dreamed that he heard a signal
gun, saw the proceedings for displaying
the signals, heard the hustle Of the
streets, the assembling of troops, etc.
Just then he was reused by his wife,
who had dreamed precisely the same
dream, with this addition, that she
saw the enemy land and a friend
of her husband killed, and she awoke
in n fright. This occurred at
Edinburgh at the time when a French
invasion was feared, and it had been de-
cided to give a signal gun at the first ap-
proach of the foe. The dream was
caused, it appears by the fall of a pair Of
tongs in the room above, and the excited
state of the public mind was quite suifi-
cient to account for both dreams turn
ing on the same subject. An old lady,
a friend of the writer, relates a similar
dream which occurred to her Just before
the battle of Waterloo, when the fear of
an invasion by Napoleon was at its
height. She heard the march of troops
in the streets, and the screams of the
populace. They broke into her own
house, ransacked it, and pursued her
with bayonets. She fell on the floor
and pretended to be dead. After u n
dry thrusts which seemed to her '~r5ving
spirit" to be quite innocuous, the sol
diers remarked hat she was "done for
They departed, and she escaped to
consciousness This dream was
no doubt caused in the first instance by
a noise in the house or street, and the
painless bavonct thrusts by some slight
irritation, such as a hair-pin or other
adjunct to dress. Whispering in q
sleeper's ear will often produce a dream;
and there are cases on record Ill which
people who sleep with their ears open,
have been led through dreadful agonics
at the viii Of their wakeful tormentors.
The vivid description given Of II young
officer SO treated by his comrades is both
interesting ana suggestive. In chang
ing our position, rs we constantly do IN
sleep, We touch the bed clothes, etc, per
haps the nose gets ticlled or the sole of
the foot, and dreams painful or pleasant
are the consequence. These may seem
trivial causes, but it must be remem-
bored that the mind Is ready to fly into
the realms CT fancy at the slightest III
timation. People have often dreamed
of spending the severest winters in Slber-
in, and of joining the expeditions to the
North Pole, simply because the bed
clothes have been thrown off during
sleep. 1t is said that Il moderate heat
applied to the soles of the feet will gen
crate dreams of volcanoes, burning Goals,
etc. DIR. Gregory dreamed of walking
up the crater of Mount Etna, and that
he felt the earth warm under his feet.
He had placed II hot-water bottle at his
feet on going to led. The memory OF a
visit he had once paid to Mount Vesu-
vius supplied the mental picture. Per-
sons suffering from toothache imagine
that the operator is tugging at the faulty
tooth, and somehow cannot extract it;
or, as in DR.. Gregory's case, he draws
out the wrong one, and leaves the ach-
ing tooth in statu quo, A blister ap-
piled to the head is highly suggestive of
being scalped by Indians, especially if
Mayne Reds CHASTITY details are al all
fresh in the memory.-Temple Star.