The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1908-01-28
DREAMS AND GHOSTS.
Meeting and Talking With Spirits
of Living and Dead.
Prof. Baer, of Berlin University,
Says During Sleep Our Spirits

Says During Sleep Our Spirits
Wander About Heaven and Earth.
The mind has a back door.
The brain has often been called
| the house of the mind. Oneshould not
be surprised to learn that it has a
back door, like other houses.
1t is through this exit that the
soul escapes in the silent hours-in
the hour when we are in the strange
death-like condition which we call
sleep. At such times it roams abroad
in search of adventures, and fre-
quently it finds very curious and even
astonishing ones.
In sleep we pass out of the body
into a wonderful region, with which
in our waking moments We are not at
all acquainted. What and where is
this, region, and who are the people
who inhabit it, Such questions are
most interesting, and now for the
first time comes forward wise man
who ventures to answer them.
The wise mans name is Professor
Moritz Baer, who occupies the chair
CT phycho-physics in the University
of Berlin. He says that the mys-
terious country which we visit in our
dreams is the Hereafter, and that the
people we meet there are in reality
ghosts. Some day, after we are dead,
we may come to know them better
Each day of your existence on
earth, says Professor Baer, may be
regarded as life in miniature.
Night comes, and you die-tempor-
arily. The whole term of your sur
vival in the world is series Of little
life-times, interrupted by brief per-
iods of seeming death, which we call
sleep.
The likeness of sleep to death has
been the subject of a vast deal of
philosophical comment. BUTT is much
closer and more striking than is gen.
orally imagined. When you fall into
slumber. your eyes turn upward,
your heartbeat slackens, your pulse
becomes feebler, and your breathing
slows down. Your condition, in a
word, counterfeits death most re-
markably.
If the death were real, your soul
would take it's departure for good
and all, never to return. But in this
temporary state (according to the
theory of Professor Baer) it merely
steps forth for a while, coming back
when summoned by the waking con-
sciousness. In the meantime it may
traverse enormous distances; for the
soul, or ghost, seems to be uncon-
trolled by mere physical limitations
such as retard and impede the move
ments of the body.
We often meet in our dreams peo-
ple who, as we we'll know, have long
been dead. Yet, somehow, we are
not in the least surprised. We talk
to them, and hear them speak, as If
it were quite matter Of course. Why
should this be so. Professor Baer
says it is simply because ghosts are
the most natural kind of persons to
encounter in the country of non-liv-
ing.
1t is in the realm of the Hereafter
these people dwell; realm which
ESQ Professor Baer believes) we must
some day take up our own residence.
| It SENS to be country Of shadows.
But, unfortunately, the glimpses We
get of it are too fleeting to enable us
properly to judge. Or rather, it
might be said that, for some reason
not easy to explain, our waking men,
cries Of our experiences in that mys-
terious region are so feeble and in
distinct, save in rare instances, that
they serve only to puzzle and confuse
our minds.
The dream folk, who dwell in the
land beyond the threshold of waking
consciousness, appear to be cheerful
enough. If we can judge Of the con-
dition of the dead from what we see
Of them when we visit the strange
country they inhabit, it would not
seem that they are otherwise than
happy. On the contrary, they are
often merry; they talk pleasantly and
sometimes most amusingly.
1t may be said that most Of the
people we meet in dreams are living
individuals. Yes, undoubtedly, but
not the living persons themselves.
These likewise (says Professor Baer)
are phantoms. For the living have
ghosts as we'll as the dead. What we
mean by a ghost is the soul of hu-
man being dead or alive. made visi-
BILE to the eye. Such phenomena are
rarely, if ever, obsberved, in waking
moments, but in the silent watches,
when the spiritual self escapes
through the back door Of the mind
and wanders abroad, they are so
common as to be not even note
worthy.
And, where the ghosts of the liv-
! ing are concerned, what more nat
ural than that your phantom, or
mine, when it slips out of the body
/ and visits the region Of the Beyond,
should meet the spectres of other
sleeping persons, likewise on the
ramble? Most of the souls (if such
we shall call them) that we encoun-
ter on these occasions are, as might
be expected those of total strangers,
G., r,E l, n O