Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1907-04-19
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The

PLANTATION. Men who have STUDIED the
brain find that the enormous guam
tity of blood that is sent to it during
the day is largely diminished during
sleep. In fact, sleep can be brought
about by COMPRISING the large ar
teries in the neck Thus less blood is
sent to the brain and circulation is
less rapid. AS result, only certain
brain tracts are active; the rest are
dormant.
The brain, when we dream, is like
a steam engine, going at half-speed,
or like some mills on Sunday, where
the fires are still kept along and
where some OF the larger wheels are
going, though all the minor machin-
cry is at rest. The effect of all this is
that we have only a small number of
ideas to work with. If in real life the
idea comes to our mind of cheating
a friend, Immediately comes the
thought: ct would be too mean and
unworthy" Il shall be arrested, F"
my friend would hate me- and
these ideas contradict the first idea
and prevent its being carried into act.
But in dream the idea of cheating
suggests no contradictory ideas, we
have only the ideas of cheating and
nothing to prevent it.
Now what suggests the idea that
we do possess? what starts the dream
at all? Dreams are not under our
control. They follow their own
whims with as little regard for the
dreamer as the facts of real life for
the toiler among them. What sug-
gests them? In many cases they are
produced by actual feelings, by SEN
sations pleasant or the reverse, that
we are then experiencing.
For instance, Dr. Reid says that
one day, having raised blister on
his head by bruising it, he dreamed
that he fell into the hands of some
Indians who had scalped him. Here
the sensation coming from the in
jured part suggested the Indians and
the scalping. Another man went to
bed with a hot bottle at his feet and
dreamed that he was making the as
cent of Mount Aetna, and that the
ground on which ne walked was hot.
A Frenchman studying up the sub
ject of dreams tried experiments on
himself to see if he could in such
ways influence his dreams. He left
his knees uncovered and dreamed
that he was riding in coach and that
his knees were growing cold, as they
are likely to when one travels in a
coach at night. Then he left off his
nightcap and dreamed that he was
attending a religious ceremony in the
open air, it being the custom of the
part of the country in which he lived
to have ones head Uncovered at such
meetings. Many people could I'M
doubtedly parallel such experiences.
Miss Cobbe, an English writer, tells
a story of certain General Sleeman,
who was pursuing the Thugs "a no.
torious band of assassins in India)
and who one night had pitched his
tent in a peculiarly lovely spot by a
beautiful stream. In the morning his
wife complained that she had been
haunted all night in her dreams by
dead men and earnestly entreated her
husband not to pass another night in
that place. In course of the day Gen.
eral Sleeman received information
that induced him to dig below the
ground, and under his wife's tent
they found fourteen bodies, the VIC
Tins of the Thugs, who had buried
them there.
Often, however, we cannot trace
our dreams to any actual sensation.
Some casual thought, some passing
idea that seemed at that time only
to flash across our minds and leave
not wrack behind" will form the
keynote of our dreams. Or some
chance acquaintance that we have
run across some days before will
dominate our nightly excursions. 1t
is only after spending a whole night
with him, travelling to the North Pole
it may be, that we awake and remem-
Der the meeting, which at the time
we hardly thought OF.
But a still more remarkable thing
happens in our dreams. Ideas which
the mind has perceived unconsciously
are brought to light in our sleeping
hours. For instance, an English
Judge, while travelling in Scotland,
dreamed one night that lizards were
crawling over him. He could not
imagine what had suggested such a
dream, till going to the room where
he had sat the evening before, he no.
ticed for the first time that the clock
on the mantelpiece had figures of
crawling lizards on it. This his mind,
unconsciously to himself, had noticed,
and once he was asleep it began to
the same way the mind will reproduce
in dream facts which the dreamer
has forgotten that he ever knew, but
which nevertheless lay dormant in
his mind. 1t is in this way that many
stories, well attested, can be ex-
planned that otherwise we should be
tempted to reject.
Macuish in his book on sleep tells
a story Of man who was sued for
debt, originally contracted in the
lifetime of his father, and, as the
man thought, settled by him, but of
such settlement he could find no trace
among his papers: After searching
long time to no purpose, he went to
bed with the determination of giving
up the fight and making the best
compromise he could. He dreamed
that his father came to him in his
sleep and told him that he had paid
the debt and that he would find the
papers in the possession of a certain
solicitor. His father added that he
could remind the lawyer of the case
by the incident that they could not
get change for a Portuguese piece of
money and had to drink it up in a
tavern.
The man awoke and went immedi-
ately to see the solicitor in question,
whom he found an old man. At first
he denied all remembrance OF the
ease, but at mention of the Portu-
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