New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1884-10-22
What Dreams are Made or

CAME TO examine IL later.
What Dreams are Made OF.
Impressions on some special sense
will produce very characteristic
dreams, the origin Of which may take
such trouble in its determination that
we may well be tempted to deny the
material origin of the vision. DIR.
Reid had blister applied to his head,
and dreamt accordingly that he had
been scalped by Indians. Here the
connection between the dream and the
outside impression, manipulated, so to
speak, by the brain, was clear. But
that connection may be anything but
patent in cases where a person dreams
of being frozen to death, the exciting
cause having been merely a deficiency
of bed clothes on chilly night. In a
case related by DR.. Carpenter, where
an eminent Judge dreamt of being tor
mented by a crowd of lizards which
were crawling over him, the origin of
the dream was still more difficult to
trace.
The cause of his reptilian visitation
was readily explicable, however, on his
entering the apartment in which he
had spent the previous evening, when
he saw on the base of the clock a num-
Der of carved lizards. A similar in
stance is afforded by personal expert
ence of the writer, in which he dreamt
that he was walking in forest in
which lizards of every hue and kind
were engaged in combat with hum
ming birds. Puzzling himself over the
origin of his dream, It at last dawned
upon his recollection that sometime
previously he had Travelled in railway
carriage, having for his vis-a-vis a lady
whose hat was decorated with hum
ming birds plumage, fastened by a
brooch accurately representing a liz
ard. By the same kind of association
revived by memory, and often project
ing forgotten "reminiscences into the
mental foreground, dreams are suggest
ed which deal with events at first sight
apt to be mistaken for those of utterly
spontaneous nature. Maury relates
that in early life Revisited a village on
the Marine named TrllpOrt. His father
had built a bridge at this spot. The
subject of one dream was that his
childhood days were being spent at
Tmlport, and that man in uniform, on
baiRg aakad his mama. tsld MauFy tk2t
he was the bridgekeeper, and mention
ed his name, which Maury distinctly
remembered when he woke. OF this
name he had no recollection whatever,
but on inquiring of an old servant of
his fathers if a person of the name in
question was once gatekeeper at Tril-
port bridge she replied in the affirma-
tive, and mentioned that the man kept
the gate when the bridge was built.
Thus does memory play strange
tricks with our imagination, especially
when the latter faculty runs riot in the
absence of will and consciousness and
relates itself to the world of dreams.
The supernatural theory of dreams and
warning recently revived in our midst
is, after all, but sop to the Cerberus
of ignorance. 1t is easy-far too easy
for the peace and comfort Of many
minds-to convert mere coincidence
between dream and an event into a
close relationship which seems in the
dream the foreshadowing of the event
in question. But in science, as in
healthy common sense, there is no JUS
LITIGATION for the continuance for such
superstition. If certain dreams are
warnings and p0rtents, what shallwe say
to those to which no so such functions
can be attached? And If of certain
trivial events we are forewarned, what
is the explanation of the striking an
omally that of the grave disasters of
life we usually receive no warning at
all.
DR.. Maudsly says: ''It has been just
ly remarked that if we were. actually
to do in sleep all the strange things we
dream we do, it would be necessary to
put every man in restraint before he
went to bed, for, as Cicero said, dream
ers would do more strange things than
madmen A dream put into action
must, indeed, look very much like in
sanity (e. g., the ordinary sleep-vigiD,
as insanity has at times the look of a
walking dream.
Poets without number have invaria-
bly, treated dreams as the best type Of
hands before or since, they knew bet
ter than I could have told them that all
animOsity had gone out of my heart,
and that I was their friend forever af-
ter. When could do so without break
ing down completely, / called upon
them, and though nothing was said
about the past, they knew and | knew
that my work as a newspaper fend was
over. From that day, gentlemen, l
have never tried to write an article that.
would cause pain to any man, woman
or child on the face of Gods green
earth. / have made many persons
happy in the years that have passed
since the day that my journalistic enc
mics lowered the body Of my baby into
the grave, have written much that
would amuse, but never word that
would harm, or cause heart-ache, or
make any person sorry that it was
written. Now, instead of enemies ev-
erywhere who would do me an injury,
| have friends among all the people that
I know, from little children to the gray
headed fathers and mothers, and that
kind of literature pays, because it has
brought not only friends but money in
plenty. Now, there are no persons
am prouder to meet and greet than
the idiots and demented fends who
publish alleged papers over the way.
That is the cause Of the change in my
style, the death of my baby and the 4
kindness / received at the hands of
those I had abused" and the red haired
man lit his cigar and went out on to
Clark street, thinking deeply, leaving
the other editors with tears in their
eyes, also thinking deeply Peck $ San