Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-11-02
A RAID INTO DREANu.AND.
Some Queer Experiences that Almost
Surpass Belief.

| MORNING News of the present viii
excuse an occasional alteration from the
| line marked out when a subject of general
interest suggests itself. This find in ar
article in the issue Of Sunday, Oct. 10
! 1884, entitled "a Trip into the Land o.
Nod" which, though very interesting in
itself, appears to advance the ides
of dreams being the progeny Of sleep
! while everyday experience teaches
| us that our most vivid dreams
are almost always those that come upon
| us in broad day, or at least in the twilight
! of the early morning, or the still hours OF
the night, when, with eyes wide open, we
look upon life as dream that is past, OF
anticipate the future and draw pictures
of what is to be from shadows on the
wall, as an artist finds grand conceptions
in the smoke stains on the ceiling or in
| the gorgeous cloud piles of our western
| horizon. Alasl how often do the most
rational anticlpations disappOint US and
our best laid and most success-worthy
| plans end in failure and, ''like the baseless
fabric of vision, leave not Wrack be-
hind"
Before invading the realms of Dream
land with the intention Of investigations
the mystery of its existence and the true
| nature of its products, l must assure the
| reader that, in attempting to account for
! the physiological in dreams, l neither
deny the existence of a psychological
existence of which the visible body is
the dwelling-place, nor join with those
| who think that science can find no place
| for the SOUL" since l accept as perfectly
reasonable and quite tenable in argu-
ment the dogma of the reunion
of the soul and body of man, when
the present state of being shall
pass away, preparatory to the appear
ance of a new heaven and a new
earth. How this was to be brought about
did not pretend to imagine till when
walking in the Anatomical Museum in
Florence, Italy, L beheld the wonderful
figures in wax made by the Florentine
monk by years of labor. First, saw the
beautiful nude figure of a man in full
health and strength; next. the same with
the skin removed, and successfully the
muscular, the venOus and the nervous
system, and after it the skeleton alone
Except in color and in the liny appear
ance of the surface the nervous figure was
exactly as the first with the skin on it,
which will be understood when we recol-
lect that the organs of sensation lie so
close together that needles point only
is required to excite them painfully.
where then is the place for the souli"
asked, and the reply came at once, as if
whispered into my ear by "a still small
voice." SIS it philosophical to deny the
existence Of form OF being because it is
not appreciate to our mortal senses?"
The nerves are hollow. Life may circu-
late through them as the blood through
the veins, and if solicited at death may
leave the man as he was in mind, soul
and bOdy-since, 'As the tree falleth so
it lieth." Then l went on to follow out
fhof osa frFvr ,I,,
ism, that when all that is destructible in
nature shall be redissolved into the Origi-
nal nebular form, that these indestructi-
bic forms may be immersed like
wires in the laboratory in the vast
bath of the new chaos and issue
therefrOm, clothed IN their right minds,
and the mortal put on imnOrtdlity. This
admitted as possible, there may be in
ferred an intermediate state, invisible to
us, but more real than our own, the ten
ants Of which, with powers of mind, body
and soul far beyond ours, may by dreams
or whispered communication warn, in
struct, rejoice or torment US. Upon this
suppOsition only can we account for facts
that have mystitied and defeated the
wisest in all attempts to explain what
cannot be denied. OF two or three of these
l am myself cognizant and cannot ex-
plain, while of ordinary dreams think |
have a satisfactory explanation, and Of
ordinary ''ghosts" have had so many ex-
periences as not to believe in them at ALL
But first let me account for the ordinary
dreams that cross us in sleep or in de-
lirium. In long course of inquiry into
the cause and cure of disease, which my
grandmother attributed to the fall of man,
and our family physician to unripe fruit,
fevers and other things incOmprehensible
to child, l came, as | got deeper in
sight into physics and physic, to the con-
clusion that the human being in his ami
NAL nature was a combination of organs
well represented by the elements of cleo
tricity in its various forms. viz: the legs
by the electromagnetic machine, the in
testines by the thermO-etectric pIle. the
body by the Leyden jar, the spine by the
helidcdL coil, excited by the magnet
thought and acil, the whole kept
in action by the nerves receiv-
ing their impulse from the prime
cOnductOr-the brdin-charged with cleo
tricity by the passage of the atmospheric
air over the pituitary membrane, the OIL
factory nerves and the cribriform bones
of the head. But the map of the brain,
with its positive and negative lobes, is
also an accumulation of an almost in
finite number Of sensitive molecules, on
which images formed through the agency
of the senses are more or less deeply
fixed. These, under the influence of an
exciting cause, are revived in perfect,
vague or utterly confused shape,
constituting memory, visionary or dream
forms, or the shapes present in dilirium.
The dream is more or less distinct,
as the images are mingled, while
in dilirium they are utterly broken and
distorted and present themselves as the
fragments of the kaleidoscope. Loss Of
memory is the result of a faint first i'm
preston, or of the gradual failure of nerve
force in particular parts of the brain-in
the Inflammation thereof, or in the utter
paralysis of the same.
Now, however satisfactory this ex-
PLANTATION may appear-and the teachings
of the photograph and telephone seem to
support it-there are other facts and
appearances which cannot be explained
upon it-appearances which cannot be
denied or rejected, and are not be be
accounted for upon any other ground
than that we are the creatures of two
worlds-the material, composed of body,
mind and spirit: and the spiritual, exist
ing in a like trinity IN aRtty-which
we cannot realize by our mortal
senses, but the deniZens OF which
surround us as a crowd of witnesses and
occasionally appear to or act on US for our
good or evil. am forced TO belieUe this,
not only from the teachings of Scripture,
but from the asserted experiences of 9TH
ers, and from my own-in two or three
instances-pertect knowledge of facts.
Moreover. who is there who, at some time,
has not felt the approach of one thought
to be far away, and of whom they had not
just then been thinking?
My first experience Of this mystery was
very early in life. When returning at -
O'Clock from the Chatham Academy, now
Pavilion Hotel, found the family in con-
sternation over the dead body Of a negro
boy of my own age, who had inst died
without any apparent cause. We were in
Savannah, and my grandmother and her
head servant, the mother Of the boy, were
on the plantation on Port Royal island,
at least 40 miles away in direct line.
Ny grandmother was seated in her par
lor, TRANQUILITY knitting and reading, when
Molly burst in the room, threw herself
on the floor in an agony of grief, exclaim-
ing:
"Oh. Missis. Missis, Sidh deddp
"Pshaw, Molly, the letter received yes
terday reported him perfectly well, and
as full Of life and mischief as ever, and
YOU cannot have heard from there SINCE"
sob, yes, mann, L has! Jim his younger
brother) v0u knOlc, born lCid a cdui, and
what he see always come true, and just
now be was sitting at the back door eat
ing his dinner out of his tin pan, when he