Evening star., 1886-11-06
The Land Of Dreams.
FACTS AND PHENOMENA OF THE ACTIVITY OF
THE BRAIN IN SLEEP.

FACTS AND PHENOMENA OF THE ACTIVITY OF
THE BRAIN IN SLEEP.
Dreaming is not peculiar to man. So far as
can be ascertained, all animals dream more or
less, according TO the degree OF their cerebral
organization. Take dogs. A dog fast asleep
before the fire will wag his tail or show his
teeth and growl, according as his dreams are
pleasant or the reverse. II suddenly and rudely
Renos the rese s,eeR Sleeping
dogs lie" or what animals dream, we can,
cences more or less confused Of their waking
existence. You will have the most extraor-
sny scresn Sa s1s1 nna taseiSer
even by Brummell himself In his sad retreat at
Ca!als. Nothing astOnishes you in your dreams,
There Is a familiar dream-a very unpleasant
one-which has occurred to almost everybody.
.n1 lou oaeam tnat you are At dinner, or pail OF
your friends, and you suddenly become aware,
70 your horror, that like Adam you are abso-
ashamed. The curious part of the dream is, as
rule, that the other actors in 1t are entirely
nneoncerned at your condition, which only
makes the thing the more beWilderlng. Thls
particular dream Is confusion between your
waking state and your state of Sleep You are
sufficiently awake to be dimiy CONSCIOUS of
your own actual condition and surroundings.
Other forms OF this mixed dream cannot be en-
tered into Plato alludes to them in the Re-
public and grounds an argument ON them tor
his triple division of the soul into the intellect,
the courage, and the lower or purely animal de-
sires. The brute desires, according to him, have
their seat in the bowels and interior organs OF
the body, which, as he points out, are active
even during sleep. But living many centuries
before Bichat, he, of course, Knew nothing of
that great physiOlogist's attempt 20 divide our
organs into the equasi-vesetable, which are sim
which are double and require rest. Bichats
generalization was hasty, and there are many
distinct facts which altogether contradict 1t;
IKE the flash of q revolving lighthouse through
an Atlantic Jog.
difficult, by an effort of will, TO control them to
a greater or less degree. II you are in trouble
or distress of mind you will almost certainly
dream OF your anxieties. You cannot displace
them from your own mind, even when you
have hidden yourself In bed and darkened
your chamber. But when anxiety ceases and
you know tine certainty at its worst, the tension
OF the brain relaxes. Condemned criminals,
who are perfectly aware that their last attempt
TOP to procure mercy has failed, are reported as a
their execution. Lesser cases of the kind
are those OF the gambler who finds
himself beggared, OIL the invalid who definitely
learns the nature OF his malady, OF the man
who has been sleepless Tor weeks while those
he loved were lying ill, but, like David, sleeps
tense anxiety of the brain to recuperate itself
6y sleep is very singular phenomenon. 1t
follows, then. that to certain extent you can
check dreams OF a certain kind by ending the
day with the stolid determination to DISMISS
the matter from your thoughts. And, as rule,
you will find this method etficacous. Some
men Oniy need AN effort OF will tor this purpose.
Others have 10 try the mental recitation OF po-
etry or the working out of mathematical or
..any school boy has gone TO sleep very
comfortably while trying 10 make out how
mahy herrings you get for shilling when a
herring and l. half costs three halfpepce. TO
beginner in mathematics recommend the fol-
lowing prOblem: What are eggs dozen
when two more a shilling lowers the price a
nom no II f,iS ri. To,
sleep do not know what will. He will get
SO hOpelessly bewildered between the twelve
pence se IN aots the shining and the twelve eggs
in mercy To touch the tired eyelids with
his caduceus And yet there are many men
VINO have gone to sleep thinking over a
problem, whether mathematical or not and
have woke in the N rning with the solution
clear In their minds, although utterly unaware
matter or not. Psychologists call this un-
conscious cerebration by which portentous
phrase they hide their own ignorance. But
we have unconscious cerebration even in our
waking hours. AS you leave the house in
the morning your vile entruSts you with a
commission or reminds you that you have an
note OF the fact on the tablets OF your mind
and go away contented. An hour later you
forgotten everything about the matter. Some
people under such circumstances Try TO stimu-
lutte their memory 10y working through the
This "dodge" sometimes succeeds:
but, as rule, if you dismiss. the matter from
your mind altogether, you will suddenly find
the lost bundle oi ideas come back TO you with
a vivid jerk, not unlike that OF an electric
shock. Clearly, mere there must have been
some process OF unconscious cerebration, for
the mind has kept the thread the whole time
and has never dropped it,
In the dim border-iand of science, to which at
present the theory oi dreams undoubtedly be-
longs, will occur many isolated facts which 1t is
TO explain or reduce to any rule.
w nat Is called "day-dreaming" Is one of these.
The patient is wide awake with his eyes open,
but he is yet il a kind of trance. Sometimes
your entrance into the room viii rouse him; at
Others you IN usJ call out to him or touch linn
more or less roughly. He rOuSes himself with
a start and tells you ''he has been thinking"
W hat has he been thinking about, you ask him?
But tnat is exactly what for the Hie OF him ne
cannot tell YOU The whole thing has vanished.
1t Is oneoi the numerous mysterious phenom-