Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-08-21

of icy water: and
many another has
dreamed of various embarrassing situations of un-
dress that have been due to the uncovering of
different portions of the body while asleep. The
special sensations of touch also prolific
source of dreams Thus a straw between the
toes made sleeper dream of being attacked
by robbers and pinned to the ground by stake
through his foot: and the tickling of the lips with
a feather caused Maury, the French psychologist
to dream that his face covered with mask of
pitch which, on being removed. tore the skin from
his lips.
The senses of smell and of taste are comparatively
nfrequent and unnfuential in the production of
dreams. This is due to the peculiarly subjective
and undesirable" character of these sensations
Their mental images have peculiarly vague and
fugitive character, and they tend, when occurring
IN the dream experience, to pass over into terms
of suggested sight and touch 1t is not true, how
ever. that we never dream in terms of tasting or
smelling
The sense of hearing is very powerful stimulus
to dreaming of certain kind. Many of the sounds
that suggest disturb the dream life what
known as "entolic" sounds; that is to say they
noises made by processes going within the body.
If we listen carefully when lying awake in the still
ness of midnight, we can often hear the beating of
the pulse or the whrring of the blood IN the neigh
singing noises in the head Thus Maury succeeded in
recognizing the exact timbre of the voice that
addressed him in dreams, in the resonance in the
ear due to cerebral congestion. The slightest OBJ
jective noises may cause one to dream of cannonade
of thunder storm. The suggestions of sounds
produced by frost, wind. the patter of rain.
own turning IN DeQ, III a WOrQ any Oh the almost
numberess night sounds, may occasion dream in
terms of hearing. The same sound may have
different story woven about it by different minds
by the mind on different occasions. Thus
Purkne, in consequence of the striking of a certain
clock, dreamed now of the baying of hounds now
of the ringing stroke of the woodlands AK and now
of hearing words and calls of human sort.
Why Do We See When Asleep
PUT how can sensations of sight cause one to dream
= of seeing things. since in sleep ones eyes
tightly closed and perhaps the room is also quite
dark! And yet are not most of our most vivid and
important dreams stor es that the mind weaveS
for terms of sight? The older theories OF dreams
used to answer these questions more exclu lively by
referring to the laws of association they prevail
powerfully in the visual images and in the
memory of things have formerly seen But,
strange 1t may seem, not few of our most vivid
visual dreams less directly caused by
sensations of sight In the first place, there is the
very powerful stimulus of what is called the 'own
light of the retina. the retinal dust" Let any,
close the eyes, and bandage them in the
darkest room, and sensations of light and color
will still be localized. to float just front
OF the eyes, or almost as it were within the brain
itself.
Some years ago acquired the power to let myself
fall asleep for two three minutes, and then,
waking suddenly, to trace the connection
between the rapidly fading visual images of the
dream and the forms taken by
the "own light of the retina. In
ss<.s||(. .-- this way it was proved conclusively
- %zS&HE that these forms, like the rapid
49, ~ and meager sketches made a
.Gx.ss ksSA blackboard with coored crayons
EasSNsSkS suggest to the sleeper the visual
~ 1878 forms he into the story OF
the dream. Such visual dreams are
SxSEsE&1S& particularly frequent, of course, just