Omaha daily bee., 1916-06-05
The Mystery of Dreaming


WHAT causes dreams, and how can they be
w prevented asks a correspondent.
Subjective phenomena dependent on
natural causes, or trains OF ideas which present
themselves to the mind during sleep" is the def
milton OF dreams given by authority on the sub
iect-if there be such authority
The natural causes" may mean disturbances
OF the nervous system produced by such things
as indigestion, latent disease oyer-fatlgue, ex-
element OF the sensorial nerves not sufficiently
intense to awake the sleeper ETC. and their reac-
ton upon the cells OF the brain is easily enough
understood. But whence come the trains OF
ideas" Do the brain cells themselves produce
IDEAS When you are awake you summon and
control your thoughts, think you do, but dur
ing sleep that sort Of control is lost the engineer
is absent yet the thoughts come thronging along
il a mysterious wind were noiselessly blowing
through the temporarily abandoned web Of the
brain and agtatng its gossamer threads in the
most capricious manner. When consciousness
comes back awakens it tightens the loose ends,
re-estabshes the central control selects, chooses
and arranges among the flying thoughts, rejecting
some, combining others and directing the current
Yet this same consciousness has seen the fit
ting dreams for often il remembers them, though
usually not clearly, and frequently not at all. if
Sir William Hamilton was right in thinking that
we dream always when we sleep, even though no
recollection follows
IF we knew the real nature Of consciousness
and OF thought we might contrive better ac-
count Of dreams. As II is, we cannot go beyond
mere mechanical explanation, Accordingly. the
only way to prevent dreaming is by avoiding the
natural causes enumerated above But for my
own sake ! would not prevent dreams il | could,
They are pars OF life, just as important to the
soul, for all that we can tell as any mentaAx-
perience Of the waking hours
I'm dream In vision Of the night when
sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the
bed then he openeth the ears Of men and sealeth
their instruction" The wonderful old Hebrew
who wrote that was not using vain and empty
words. In all times, by all peoples. dreams have
been reckoned among the important phenomena
Of life They distinguish between sleep and death,
and possibly il was that consideration which led
Hamilton, one OF the greatest philosophical think
ers that ever lived, to assert his belief that we
never sleep without dreaming
Perhaps after all, the Characteristic Of dream
ing is not, as generally assumed, incoherence but
freedom. When awake, you hamper the mind
with those obstacles and mpossibiitics OF all
sorts that tyrannze over your waking life during
which you are the slave OF physical limitations,
but IN a dream the Inauguration, the highest OF
all human faculties, shakes itself free from these
things and shows their essential futility. There
is something more and greater in the universe
than rocky earths and fiery suns, than the laws OF
grayitation, cohesion and chemical affinity
True, il may be affirmed that the experiences
which we seem TO have in dream are based upon
those Of waking life, that after all, the mag
nation does not entirely cast off the letters But,
granting that, still the mystery is not explained.
All dreams are not ineoherent, by any means.
Poets have composed wonderful verses, mathe-
maticans have solved intricate problems, lawyers
have mastered difficult cases while asleep
In some Of these instances logical reasoning
has been the conspicuous feature OF the dream;
in others, intuition or invention. Is the brain
when thrown out Of connection with the waking
will capable OF these achievements, all by itself
running on like Aywheel after the belt is off,
continuing TO actuate the machinery, and causing
il TO turn out its regular products by stored up
energyi Or is the mind something which does
not sleep when the body sleeps and which like
master musician, in idle moment, now gives
whimsical touches to the keyboard OF the slum-
bering brain, and now plays a complete tune?
In view OF considerations like these it is no
wonder that dreams have been regarded as fur
nishng proof, or at least argument, in favor
of the independence of the mind or soul If that
were accepted the authority OF so-caed
prophetic dreams would be vastly increased
The stories OF such dreams are innumerabe,
beginning in the Bible and running all through
human literature and tradition. We who pique
ourselves on our knowledge are apt to smile a
little loftiy at these and put them all aside with
the phrase mere coincidence" Perhaps we are
right and perhaps we are not. II we were omns-
Gent we should know-but then we should lack
the joys of uncertainty.