Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-07
THELAADOF DREAMS
Visions That Are Prophetic of
Actual Occurrences.
PHANT0MS OF THE NIGHT
Bringing Presages of Happiness or
FOrebOdings of Evil.
HELPED BY HER ANGEL BROTHER.
The Strange Story of the Lady With the
Purple Eyes.
PHANTOMS OF THE NIGHT
HELPED BY HER ANGEL BROTHER.
ACCIDENTS FORESEEN AND FORETOLD
rwR1rrEH FOR THE DISPATCH,

The following article has been prepared
from material collected by the American
Society of Psychical Research:
The insight we have into our dream-life-
q life in which we pass fully one-half of our
existence-is at the best very incomplete.
The keenest minds have worked at the
problem, from the Greek philosophers down,
but in every case they have proved too little
or too much. Multitudes of facts are
known about dreams, sheets of statistics
have been written, but our very material,
founded as it is on actual experience, shows
how infinitely varied are the conditions of
dreaming. They seem to admit of no law.
Some persons dream constantly, others not
at all. Plutarch tells of Cleon, who lived to
an advanced age without ever having
dreamed. 1t would seem sometimes as if
our dreams depended solely upon our bodily
health, as in the case of man mentionedby
Locke, who, taken i'll with a fever at 26
wears of age, dreamed for the first time. But
as against this it has been gradually ac-
cepted that the most common age for
dreams is in the early twenties. Darwin de-
clared that our dreams toward morning were
much more varied and colored than those of
the early night. Again, it is said that In
the deepest sleep processes of the mind are
apt to fall into more normal operation and
we have the most vivid dreams. Elsewhere
we read of the sweet, dreamless repose of
the laborer contrasted with the nightmares
of the nervous and wakeful.
THE LAWS OF DREAMS.
In trying to deduce the laws, many q
writer has declared that all mental opera
tions that are independent of the will may
be active during sleep. But the very fact
that we recollect our dreams proves that we
have paid attention to them, or, in other
words, have exercised our will. Others say
that in our dreams the reasoning faculty is
absent, but we know of many dream that
would refute this assertion. Condillac, the
eminent metaphysician, was more than once
enabled to untangle, while asleep, problems
that had posed him on the previous day.
So Condorcet often solved his problems.
Tartini composed his "Sonata del Diavilo"
in q dream wherein the devil challenged him
to play.
But in spite of the variety of conditions
attendant upon our dream life, many gener-
al facts have been coliated. The nerves, so
far as we know, varying infinitely in the de-
grees of sensibility (the finest in the brain),
are the most direct means of communication
between the mind and body through which
they run. The brain nerves, being much
more susceptible to loss of energy through
their extreme sensibility, must at times sus-
pend their operations and become repaired
by sleep. Now our dreams go to prove that
this suspension is not always complete; that
while the grosser nerves, susceptible of ex-
terror influences, may be imperative, the
fine branches are sometimes active, which
seems to show that impressions too light to
disturb the coarser nerves can still be car
ried through them to the finer mechanism
of the brain. Examples of this are COM
mon. Persons talking in their sleep are
often led from one subject to another by
questions being put to them-sometimes dis
closing very dear secrets.
1000 YEARS IN A NIGHT.
Just as in this case of transmission through
the sense of hearing, so all the senses may
act upon the brain in the sleeping as well as
in the waking state, the difference being in
the comparative viyidness of the sensations
We do not hear loud noises in our dreams,
nor are we conscious of brilliant lights; our
impressions are more subdued and quiet
How noiselessly we run! With what slip
perry glides do we float down staircases and
through doorsi
Another curious fact is that while the
combinations of time or place, situation or
incident, in dreams are generally incongru-
Gus and confusing, the individual forms are
never so. but are clothed in the same char
acteristics that we recognize in our waking
state. This confusion is accounted for by
the depression of the discriminating or COM
pairing power which serves in our conscious
state to sift the probable from the improb-
able. Yet the depression or cessation of
this power is not by any means constant, as
witness the anecdote of Condillac above
Cabanis tells us that DR.. Franklin was
wont to form remarkably correct estimates
on personal character through his dreams,
and so much so that he used to regard them
almost with reverence
The rapidity of thought in dreams is sur
prising. De Quincy declared that he had
lived thousand years in one night. Lord
Brougham tells how, debating to an amanu-
ensis, he often fell asleep between the pauses
of the dietation to be awakened by the
writer's repeating the last word. The in
tervals could not have been more than a few
seconds-that is. sufficient time to write
eight or ten words-yet Brougham declared
that his short-lived dreams covered immense
stretches Of time.
PROPHETIC VISIONS.
One of the most difficult things to dispose
of in dreams is the so-called prophetic or
portentous clement; where events have
either been foretold, or communicated at the
time of or after occurrence through the sole
medium of the dream. Records of such
portentous dreams are at hand from the Old
Testament times to our own days The
greatest men alwaysha astounding dreams
Socrates, while in prison,'i said to have
dreamt that fair woman, clad in pure
white, appeared to him and announced the
day on which he should die. The dream
was fulfilled exactly. Oliver Cromwell de-
clared that when very young, tall power
full woman appeared to him at his bedside,
and, after regarding him thoughtfully for
awhile assured him that he would grow to
be the greatest man in England We COM
monty put aside such stories as being of too
uncertain coinage-or, if on some founda-
ton, as being too plainly adulterated with
coloring matter. Chance is an ample waste
basket, and items of this kind even, when
authenticated, generally find a resting
place there.
Very lately, however, some considerable
serious interest has been aroused in collect
ing strange cases of dreams and apparitions
So FREQUENT is the occurrence of remarkable
dreams. well authenticated by responsible
witnesses. that societies of scientific men
have been formed DEVOTED to their examina-
tion. Their scientific researches have awak-
ened an enormous interest outside, as is
eVinced by the cases that are continually
coming in.