Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-03-08
MYSTERY OF DREAMS.
THEORIES AS TO THE ACTION OF
THE MIND DURING SLEEP.

THEORIES AS TO THE ACTION Or
THE MIND DURING SLEEP.
| s.,.,.;e. Men who Believe That They Az
eo-a proof Of tho Souls Independents Ac-
tivity-c.Iquhoun's Claim That dreams
Always Accompany Sleep.
..Dreams. y says Homer, "descend rom
1,ve ;, There are thousands OF 1nteiigens
,,oo,,ie Who still entertain that brllef Inc
p,,;,,;on commonly held by physicists Is
i tbat r the whole brain is locked up IN
,s1aan there is no dream. 1t portion OF
= Il emaucipated, thoughts peculiar TO
| that norton arise, and those Thoughts are
dreams According to DR.. David Hartley,
thew are nothing but the imaginatlons,
| fancies or reveries of a sleeping person,
and are due TO some peculiar state OF the
| stomach or brain, to impressions received
while awake, or to the effect OF assocla-
tion.
In the same vein Andrew Baxter de-
| clares that most of the representations Of
| fered to the soul in sleep are not only not
produced by it, but there is no conscious
ness of any action of the will to intro
duce them. They are involuntarily obtrud-
| ed upon it. He cannot conceive OF any
| thing more absurd than to suppose that
the soul, as in nightmare, would lay
plot to brighten itself. In reply to the ar
rument of those who contend that dreams
| Indicate the activity of the soul separate
| from, and independent of the body, Dr.
priestly asked: Why does not this inde-
pendent entity contemplate the state OF
| tho body and brain during sleep, winch
might well afford it matter enough lor
reason and reflection?
| So, too, DR.. Cromwell, in his work on
sThe Soul and the Future Life, I" asserts
that dreams take place only when the
sleep is unsound and arise from partial re-
turns of activity of the brain itself. These
views fairly reflect the consensus OF opin-
| ion regarding the origin and character OF
| the phenomena.
On the other hand, there is authority
as eminent for the belief that all dreams
cannot be satisfactorily explained on the
grounds above stated-that there Is
something left out which it is of the high
est consequence TO understand before a
positive Judgment can be pronounced.
The student of Xenophon will recall the
remarkable passage which the historian
puts into the mouth of the dying Cyrus
the Elder: "Nor do l feel convinced that
the soul will be devoid of sense when it is
separated from the senseless body, but it is
probab that when the mind is separated,
unmixed and pure, it is then also most
Intelligent. When the frame of man is
dissolved, every part of him is seen return
ing to that which is of the same nature as
itself, except the soul, which alone is seen
neither present nor departing. Reflect.
too, that nothing more closely resembles
the death of man than sleep, but it is in
sleep that the soul of man appears most
divine, and it is then that it foresees some
thing of the future for then, as it seems,
it is most at liberty
The letters of the great Euler to a Ger
man princess contain the following state
ment: '.Sleep furnishes something like an
example of the state of the soul after
death, as the union of the soul and body
| is then. in great measure, interrupted,
and the soul ceases not from activity, be-
ing employed in the production of dreams.
These are usually disturbed by the re-
naming influence which the senses ezer-
else, and we know by experience that the
more this influence is suspended, which is
the case in profound sleep, the more regu-
lar and connected are orr dreams"
Blackwell affirms that to be able to see
without the eye, to hear with the ear and
to feel without touching objects, as we do
in dreams, are facts which afford direct
proof that the percipient principle is indie
pendent of the organs of sense and lead
to the inference that the material organi-
cation of tlse brain, by which the impress
sions of external objects are originally
conveyed to the mind, must be distinct
from the power that receives and retains
| 9TH yrfS no
impossible to account for the activity of
the perceptive power during the time when
the brain ceases to hold any direct COM
munication with the material world. Lord
| Brougham cites tho inconceivable rapid
ty of the minds operations as proof of
it's independence of matter and capacity
to exist without it, and after adducing a
multitude of facts chiefly connected with
the phenomena of dreams says that moth
ing can DO conceived better calculated
than these facts to demonstrate the ex-
IRENE agility of the mental powers, their
total diversity from any material sub
stance or action. Nothing better adapted
to satisfy us that the nature of the mind
is consistent with its existence apart from
the body"
There is no denial by the advocates of
the latter view that dreams can ordinari-
ly be accounted for on the hypothesis gen.
orally accepted by medical men. Impaired
digestion, :. feverish condition of the body,
intense nervous strain, and other physic-
al causes, it is admitted, may be reasona-
bly, adduced to explain the phenomena.
But there are well authenticated cases of
dreams of a character so remarkable as to
render the theory of physical causes who'll
ly inapplicable to them They seem to
demonstrate the power of the soul, during
sleep, to evolve clear ideas and new de-
velopments of thought which are not the
result of automatic or unconscious reflex
action.
Colerdge tells us that 'sKubla Khan"
was composed entirely while he slept, 'tthe
images rising up before him as things with
parallel production of the corresponding
expressions, without any sensation or con-
sciousness of effort. For man of his pc
culiar temperament that does not seem SO
strange an experience, but that the famous
mathematician and philosopher, Condor
Get, saw in his dreams the final stage of a
difficnJt colonization which had ru1yIal