Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1887 — A TALK ON DREAMS. [ARTICLE]

A TALK ON DREAMS.

The Events of a Lifetime Portrayed in a Seeond —Some Remarkable Statements. A prominent Philadelphia physician, who as a specialist in diseases of the brain has a wide reputation, is engaged in writ ng a little book about dreams and dreamers. In a discursive mood the doctor talks about the psychological phenomenon commonly spoken of as dreams in a most entertaining way. “Generally,” said he, the other evening, “we think of nothing so swift as the electric current, and yet a flash of lightning is a slow coach compared with the rapidity with which upon occasion the human brain operates. Nothing shows this in so striking a manner as the wonderful performances of the mind in dreams. The events of years, to the most minute detail, are recalled in a second, and purely imaginary events, covering years and decades, are pictured so as to be retained permanently upon the mind, and are conjured up in the hundredth part of a minute. Some years ago a friend of mine related to me the particulars of a striking proof of this fact. He had been nursing another friend whose illness was such that he required confstant watching. My friend had been at his bedside for nearly ten hours. A little French plock stood in an adjoining room which struck the half hours, and thus gave notice of the time to administer the. patient’s medicine. At twcf o’clock ar dose of morphia had to be given the sick man, and the nurse was waiting for the little clock to strike. He was very sleepy, and could with difficulty keep his eyes open. Presently the first tinkling stroke of the' hour sounded. At .that moment my friend fell asleep, in. his chair. He dreamed a most wonderful dream, the details of .which it would be tedious ,to relate just now. The events in the dream were spread over three years, during which time he had been to Paris, to London, to New Qrleans, and made innumerable trips by land, lake, and river. His vision began with a wedding and concluded with an execution, when the dreamer saw his own wife hanged. The most minute details of life and travel and adventure were distinctly portrayed, and my friend estimated that a novel of two big volumes could be written in merely outlining the events of the vision. , When he awoke with a start at the climax of the execution, he heard the French clock strike one. Supposing that he had been asleep several hours, he felt some alarm. His patient, however, was sleeping quietly, and when he went into the other room to look at the clock he was astonished and incredulous to find that the stroke of the clock he had heard upon awaking was but the second stroke for two o’clock, and that his wonderful dream had occurred between the two strokes of the hour. “But this is not at all an unprecedented occurrence. It is related of an English clergyman who fell asleep in his pulpit during the singing that he dreamed the events of a life before he awoke, to find that his slumber had lasted only during the singing of a single line.” “Can the brain act coherently during sleep ?” asked one of the doctor’s curious little audience. “Oh, yes; that is well established, and has but recently, in a striking incident, been further verified. Canon Knox Little, of Manchester, dreamed that he wrote a hymn; remembering it upon waking, he wrote it down on the fly-leaf of a handy book. He then fell asleep again. When he awoke the second time he had forgotten the words of the hymn, and supposed that all of the incident had been a dream, but when he looked at the fly-leaf in the book he found there, sure enough, the verses he had written down, and which are now incorporated in several hymnbooks in England. “It is a matter of history, as we all know, that the poet Coleridge composed his celebrated fragment ‘Kubla Khan’ while asleep. He fell into a doze while reading ‘Pincha’s Pilgrim,’ and was in slumber for several hours. When he awakened he remembered an entire poem which he had composed during his sleep. He at once seized a pen and wrote down the part of it that has been preserved, but was called away when he was but half through, and was never able afterward to remember the balance, so that the poem has remained as a fragment. Tartini, the musician, composed the ‘Devil’s Sonata’ under the inspiration of a dream, and mathematicians have solved problems in their sleep which, they were unable to master while awake. “But,” continued the Doctor, after a slight pause, “strange as these unaccountable phenomena may seem there is yet a more curious fact in relation to dreaming which has never been sufficiently noticed. If a dream be but a baseless fabric, to what unsubstantial and elusive thing shall we compare the dream of a dream ? The thing happens often, but is so frequently mingled with the fantastic medley of the dream itself as to be seldom clearly defined. A very good friend of mind who lives in West Philadelphia some months ago related to me the following dream of this kind which many years ago disturbed his slumbers, and which, because of its strangeness in bemg a dream within a dream made a great impression upon him and fixed itself indelibly upon his memory. ‘I was sleeping,’ said he, ‘and fell into a dream, in which I imagined that I was in a sick-room talking to a visiting physician about the patient’s condition. I thought that 1 was tired and sleepy, and the doctor kindly Jioq,io take a nap, offering to remain at the patient’s bedside while I obtained some rest. I dreamed that I threw myself npon a sofa and slept, and as I slept I

thought that I dreamed of a terrible thunder-storm, and that I was awakened by a blind ng flash of lightning. Opening my eyes I saw the doctor by my and spoke to him of my dream. “Oh!” said he, “that is easily explained. Your face was toward that window, there, and the wind blew open one of the slats you see there, and the sun was thrown directly in your face, and thus caused you to dream of the lightning.” “ ‘Still, in my dream, I talked some time with the doctor, and then awoke. The doctor, his patient, the sick-room and all had been a dream, during the progress of which I had actually dreamed of the lightning stroke, awoke from that dream, and continued for some time to carry on the thread of the first vision.’ “I might multiply such experiences,” said the doctor, as he prepared to bid his friends good-night, “but none of them would so clearly illustrate that strangest of all strange things in the phenomena of a sleeping brain—a dream within a dream.”