The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1892-03-30
VISIONS OF THE SLEEPING BRAIN.

NI0lON0 OF TIE oEGEFlNA DNfAINs
Which illustrate the Working of That
Organ During Nap.
Dream vagaries are always tangling
themselves in our brains at night
Whence do they come? Sometimes
from the thoughts of the day, but not
always. I want to tell you of several
queer dreams thai had no connection
whatever with the daily thoughts,
habits, or acts of the people that had
them.
An aged lady. who had no love for
music, no knowledge of it nor any,
thing in her daily life to remind her
of it, dreamed one night that she was
girl again. that she had an absorb
ing love for music and for practicing
it. but that having no piano she had no
means of gratifying her desire.
A friend told her that there was in
the town large and handsome house.
in which stood a magnificent piano
which she was at liberty to use when
ever she desired. The house for some
reason was unoccupied, save that at a
certain hour every afternoon three
ghostly personages appeared and took
possession of it until the next morn
luSs DIG was Wal hSu VI IulS lIldL ouO
might be careful to leave before that
hour.
Urged by her passionate fondness
for music she oyercame her fears and
went frequently to the house, leaving
always before the specified time. On
one occasion, interested in what he
was playing. she forgot the hour.
Suddenly realizing taat it was past.
she looked up and saw advancing
toward her down a long corridor a
group of three persons-an elderly
lady in robes of sweeping black lean
ing upon the arm of young woman
dressed in paest blue, who led by the
hand a sunny-haired. white robed
child.
She attempted to flee. but they moved
toward her, not walking, but gliding
forward with remarkable rapidity. As
they reached her, the older lady spoke.
saying kindly:
.'Do not be afraid of us. We are
only spirits without bodies. We can
not hhrm H"u now, nor would we If we
could. Continue your music; we love
it also"
In her terror she awoke.
Why should one with neither knowl-
edge nor love of music have a dream
SO filled with it?
A farmers wife, who had never seen
body of water larger than the spring
branch in which her weekly washing
was done. dreamed that she stood upon
the shore of vast and limitless ex-
panse of water. Across it came sailing
toward her ship, shrouded in black
from bow to stern. from the waters
edge to the topmost mast. Upon the
side, in letters of glaring white, was
the one word-death.
No sign of life was about the ship,
but when it touched, without sound,
the sands at her feet, two specters ap-
peared, who leaned over and, catching
her by the arms, endeavored to draw
her on board, although she felt no
touch. In the struggle to keep back
she awOke.
That woman leading a narrow,
brooding life should have "a dream of
death is natural. But why should it
take the form of a ship upon an ocean.
when, except, perhaps, that she had
seen them in schoolgirl life pictures in
geography, she knew absolutely moth
ing of either.
A boy of II had been promised a
cadetship at West Point. His DIRE ans
by day were of nothing but army life,
Indians, tomahawks cavalry charges.
and the other warlike scenes that
charm boys fancy.
One night while preparing for his
examination, after several hours work
upon a difficult mathematical problem,
he went to sleep and dreamed that his
father had moved to Scotland and
bought flock of sheep and shepherd 8
dog that his father called him and gave
him crook, saying:
MY son, take this and the dog and
go to the woods and mind the sheep"
AS he was leaving his mother hand
ed him half-knitted stocking. telling
him that he could finish it while watch
ing the sheep. Calling the dog,h had
followed the sheep and spent the day
minding them and in knitting.
Why should boy, whose waking
thoughts held nothing but war, have
his sleeping ones revert to the most
peaceful of all occupationsP
A man, whose calling is that OF
engineer on a dangerous road filled
with lofty trestles and double trestles,
spanning deep gorges, and who works
always in a strain of anxiety, says
that his most frequent dreams are of
flowers and running water, of songs
and pictures and all beautiful things,
where the cares of the day do not
come.
An opera singer whose whole life
was spent amid scenes of glitter and
show and adulation said that often
after night of brilliant success she
would fall asleep and dream of quiet
home, with husband and children
about her, something she had never
known.
The divine law of compensation
seems 10 come in here. The tired mind
rebounds from the thoughts of the day
to find in sleep the blessings denied il
when awake.
Peter Ibbetsen says that by assum
ing a certain position in lying down he
found that he could live over in SLEEP
any event of his past life, so he learned
to practice "dreaming true" and thus
poor Gogo, for whom the present held
no joy, sought by night the happiness
of the past.
The strange things that happen il
dreams are beyond the ken of man.
Philadelphia Times.