Clarksville evening chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn) 1886-1890, 1888-11-23
A CHAPTER ON DREAMS.
Little Do We Know of Them-Dyspepsla
N Prime. Factor.

Little Do We Know of Them-Dyspepsia
u Prime Factor.
Many have discoursed learnedly upon
dreams, propounding wise theories and
making plausible suggestions, yet no one
has ever arrived at any real solution Of
the matter. 1t is only barrier of cloud
that bars the way to knowledge thereof,
yet no fortress wall could be more inn
pregnable. 1t is but a step from our
noisy, busy world to the vague and vast
territory where,
Hollow as a breathing spell,
Dreamland lies forloTn of light
but no man may set up milestones along
that trackless waste. We only know that,
when all things lapse to "a sleep and a
forgetting" the imagination becomes a
f1y-by-night, and the wits speed over
land and sea like wild birds set free from
the cage.
There are few creatures exempt from
these nocturnal journeyings, however
brief and circumscribed they may be.
The dog ''hunts in Dreams" the cat
fights its battles over again, and the bird
sings in its sleep, while even the most
commonplace person can usually give
some crude account of his experiences in
slumber. Certain dreams are common
to all peopleAfalling from a precipice,
down, down, to some unfpthomed gulf
striving to walk upon floor that sinks
horribly beneath the feetz-endeavoring
in urgent haste, to put on garments that
drop off, turn wrong side out, and de-
velop other impish propensities- riding
in coach which suddenly crumbles to
pieces, and leaves one staring in the
road. So to speak, it is a marked pecu-
liarity of dreams that ''the bottom drops
out of everything"
So rebellious are dreams, and SO cratic
in their course, that they cannot be COM
PEELED by any effort Of will; wild fire
could be more easily chained. We may
long ardently to see once more, in ''the
wilderness Of sleep" some beloved and
vanished face; yet this poor soIace may
be denied, while alien images crowd into
the brain. Upon this subject Hazhtt
wrote, II never dream of the face of any
one am particularly attached to. have
thought almost to agony of the same per-
son for years, nearly without ceasing, SO
as to have her face always before me, and
to be haunted by perpetual conscious
ness of disappointed passion, yet I never
in all that time dreamt Of that person
more than once or twice, and then not
wildly" Nor can the last impression
received by the mind before slumber
overwhelms it be calculated upon; for we
may read of Mother Blood's execution,
and dream, Immediately afterward, of a
cabbage garden; or, transversely, we may
be Graded by the most soothing, placid
meditations, yet the weird magician,
who bears the branch Of peoples, will
beckon us to follow through seas of gore.
Experiment has proved that dreams
may be influenced, if not controlled.
through the inlotS Of the senses; the thun-
der of dlays upon the cobhlestones sug-
gests tempest to the dreamer, and the
fumes Of sulphur OF the pleasant odors Of
aromatic water near his n05trils trans
port him to strage countries. For this
reason the noises of awakening life give
color and movement to the visions that
chang upon the edge of day." rendering
them more real and vivid than those
which come at dead Of night.
1t is one Of the pecuIarities of dreams
to seem to be tending toward some stu
penduous climax, and then to turn away
with utter irrelcvance. The dreamer re-
mains imperturbable in the face of the
most astounding transformations; if ami
mails, and even inanimate objects, become
gifted with speech, he is not surprised;
yet he is likely to startled and terrified
by the most triAing things. Ii he dreams
of being pursued it is not by q lion or
tiger, but, perhaps, let us say, by an in
distinct yellow blur, lowering near the
ground like a c-wisp-unspeak
ably sinister to his fancy-darting from
thickets, and gliding in and out among
the trees.
1t is. somewhat Disseminating to realize
that dyspepsia is one of the prime factors
in dream making. 1t matters little
whether the conscience be clear, if the
digestion be not in equally good case
Most people have experienced the excita-
ton, the supcrsensitiveness of every
faculty, brought about by n febrile con-
dition of the blood--the lightness of head
and limb, extending, rs one fancies,
even to the loss of gravity-the strange,
unfamiliar aspect assumed by well known
objects about the room; for fever, like
indigestion, is fertile breeder of phan-
tasms. New Orleans Times-Democrat.
Supreme Council OF DIasOns.