“We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep.”
TEMPEST.
EV. In the transition _to_ and _from_ the repose of sleep, the mind is
sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, and the senses and
sensation are overshadowed in their regress to insensibility: even
instinct is well nigh a blank. This is the state of _slumber_. Then, I
believe, and only then, are we ever wandering in the ideal labyrinth of
DREAMS.
There is a curious calculation of Cabanis, that certain organs or senses
of the body fall asleep at regular progressive periods; some, therefore,
may be _active_ while others are _passive_, and in this interesting
state, I may hint to you, consists the essence of a dream. It seems that
in _dreamless_ sleep, the senses fall asleep altogether, as in the case
of Plutarch’s friends, Thrasymenes and Cleon, and others who _never
dreamed_.
ASTR. So there is some truth in the fanciful conceit of Cardanus, that
“Sleep is the rest of the spirits,—waking their vehement motion, and
dreaming their tremulous motion.”
CAST. And philosophy plumes herself on her wonderous intuition for this
_discovery_. Let her blush, and kneel before the shrine of poesy. The
poets, even of a ruder age than ours, have thought and written before
you, Evelyn, and have unfolded these _arcana_. How doth Chaucer usher in
his “Dreme?”—
“Halfe in dede sclepe, not fully revyved;”
and again:
“For on this wyse upon a night
As ye have herd withouten light,
Not all wakyng ne full on slepe,
About such hour as lovirs wepe;”
and in “La Belle Dame sans Mercy,” there is the same thought:
“Halfe in a dreme, not fully well awaked;”
and in Sir Walter’s “Antiquary:” “Eh, sirs, sic weary dreams as folk hae
between sleeping and waking, before they win to the long sleep and the
sound.” So will your philosophy dwindle somewhat in its consequence, Sir
Clerke.
EV. We are not jealous of these _glimpses_ of a poet, Castaly; they
impart a value to their rhymes: we enrol _such_ poets in the rank of
philosophers.
IDA. Solve me this question, Evelyn: is there any relative difference
between the subjects of dreams _before_ and _after_ sleep?
EV. It has been thought that there is more reference to reality in the
_first_, and more confusion and wandering of imagination in the
_second_; but as nature is often _excited_ rather than exhausted at
night, there may be equal brightness with the morning dream, occurring
after the recreation and refreshment of sleep.
CAST. We may concede, then, some wisdom to the Sybarites, who destroyed
their morning heralds, the cocks, that they might enjoy their matin
dreams undisturbed. And I remember one of Pope’s allusions to the
virtues of this _υπαρ_, or morning dream:
“What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings.”
ASTR. We have often discoursed on the psychology of Locke, Evelyn, and
we are now involved in one of its most interesting points—_innate
idea_. Is the dreamer _conscious_ of his dream? It has been asserted,
especially by two profound metaphysicians, Beattie and Reid, that they
_persuaded_ themselves in their dreams that they _were_ dreaming, and
would then attempt to throw themselves off a precipice; this awoke them,
and proved the impression a fiction. Were there not present in this,
volition and consciousness; and is it not an evidence of an innate idea
without sensation?
EV. No. A train of thought and passive memory may take place without
volition, even in a waking mind; a train of _reasoning_ cannot. So
feeling and _passive_ thought may in the mere dream, but not a
_conscious acting_ on it. The phenomena, and the expressions used to
describe these impressions, are precisely illustrative of another
condition of sleep, to which we have not yet pointed. This notion of
Beattie was but an echo of Aristotle. The Stagyrite himself was subject
to dreams of danger, and, after a while, he used to whisper to himself:
“Don’t be frightened,—this is only a dream:” the glaring proof that it
was _not_; and yet psychologists still talk of the _management_ of a
dream.
The fairest explanation is, that there has been a predetermination on
some point, and _unconscious_ ideas on the same point are elicited, or
may be the first to present themselves to the mind in the morning, _at
the moment_ we awaken, and thus it is the first which the judgment acts
on in its reverie; that is, the line between dreaming and being awake.
If there be many organs asleep, there is still some _clouding_ of this
judgment; but if that be asleep also, there is an absolute dream.
If we _know_ that we are dreaming, the faculty of judgment _cannot_ be
inert, and the dream would be _known_ to be a _fallacy_. We might, by
thinking, render our dream what we pleased, and be sure we should never
wish for devils or dangers. The essence of the dream is that it is
_uncontrolled_: other states are not dreaming. Above all, if judgment
influenced the dream of Beattie, who was not a madman, would he have
_wished_ to have toppled down headlong from a rock? Listen to Johnson on
this point. “He related that he had once, in a dream, a contest of wit
with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining
that his opponent had the better of him. Now.” said he, “one may mark
here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had
not my judgment failed me, I should have seen that the wit of this
supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was
as much furnished by me as that which I thought I had been uttering in
my own character.”