“The dream’s here still: even when I wake, it is
Without me as within me; not imagined, felt.”
CYMBELINE.
EV. I believe, then, that waking and slumbering association is _memory_;
and I have interposed the glimpse of metaphysics to break the monotony
of my illustrations, for they are not yet exhausted.
A gentleman, as we read in Dr. Pritchard’s work, was confined, after a
severe accident, for several weeks, and the accident was not once during
this period remembered by him; but, on his convalescence, he rode again
over the same ground, and all the circumstances instantly flashed across
his mind.
In their youth, Dr. Rush escorted a lady, on a holiday, to see an
eagle’s nest. _Many years_ afterwards, he was called to attend her in
the acute stage of typhus; and, on his entrance into her chamber, she
instantly screamed out, “Eagle’s nest!” and it is said, from this
moment, the fever began to decline.
We ourselves have witnessed these flashes of memory more than once,
during the acuteness of brain fever, where journeys, and stories, and
studies, have been renewed after they had been long forgotten.
There are many romantic incidents in illustration which have been
beautifully wrought into a poem, or drama, as that play of Kotzebue,
written to illustrate the happy success of the Abbé de l’Epée in France,
in imparting knowledge and receiving sentiments from the deaf and dumb.
In this, the young Count Solar, by gestures, unfolds, step by step, his
birth-place, and at length screams with joy, as he stands before the
palace of his ancestors.
Then there is the story of little Montague, who was decoyed by the
chimney sweep. Some time after this, the child was engaged to clean the
chimney of a mansion, and, descending into a chamber, which had been
indeed his own nursery, lay down, in his sooty clothes, on the quilt,
and, by this happy memory, discovered his aristocratic birth. This is
the incident which still enlivens the pageantry of May-day.
These reminiscences will occur sometimes in the most sudden and
unexpected manner. In one of the American journals, we are told of a
clergyman, who, at the termination of some depressing malady, had
completely lost his memory. His mind was a blank, and he had, in fact,
to begin the world of literature again. Among other of his studies was
the Latin language. During his classical readings with his brother, he
one day suddenly struck his head with his hand, and stated that he had a
most _peculiar feeling_, and was convinced that he had _learned all this
before_.
Boërhave, in his “Prelectiones Academic. Institut. Med.,” relates the
case of a Spanish tragic writer, whose memory, subsequently to an acute
febrile disease, was so completely impaired, that not only the
literature of various languages he had studied was lost to him, but also
their elements, the alphabets. When even his own poetic compositions
were read to him, he denied himself to be the author. But the most
interesting feature of the case is this: that, on becoming _again_ a
votary of the Muse, his recent compositions so intimately resembled his
original productions in style and sentiment, that he no longer doubted
that both were the offspring of his own imagination.
Even Priestley’s master-mind was sometimes sleeping thus, being subject
(to quote his own words) “to humbling _failures of recollection_;” so
that he lost all ideas of things and persons, and had so forgotten his
own writings, that, on the perusal of a work, he sat himself to make
experiments on points which _he had already illustrated_, but on which
his mind was then a “_tabula rasa_.”
Above all, the superlative memory of Sir Walter lay in a deep sleep,
after a severe indisposition. It is recorded by Ballantyne, that when
“the Bride of Lammermoor, in its printed form, was submitted to his
perusal, he did not recognize, _as his own_, one single incident,
character, or conversation it contained; yet the original tradition was
perfect in his mind. When Mrs. Arkwright, too, sung some verses _of
his_, one evening, at Lord Francis Egerton’s, the same oblivion was o’er
his mind, and he whispered to Lockhart, ‘Capital words;—whose are they?
Byron’s, I suppose; but _I don’t remember them_.’”
My friend, Dr. Copland, informed me (in May, 1839) of a lady of fifteen,
Miss D——, who, in consequence of extreme exhaustion from disorder,
forgot all her accomplishments, and had to begin her education afresh.
The Countess of Laval had, in her childhood, been taught the Armorican
of Lower Brittany (which is a dialect of the Welch), but had, as she
believed, forgotten it. On attaining the adult period, this lady had an
acute fever, and, during her delirium, she ceased to speak in her native
language, and chattered fluently in the bastard Welch.
A foreign gentleman, as we were told by Mr. Abernethy, after an accident
on the head, spoke French only, and quite forgot the English, which he
had before this spoken very fluently.
A Welch patient, in St. Thomas’s Hospital, some years since, having
received an injury, began to speak in Welch, and ever after continued to
do so, although before his accident he constantly conversed in English.
On the contrary, we learn, from Dr. Pritchard, of a lady who, after a
fit of apoplexy, forgot her _original_ language (the English), and spoke
only in French, so that her nurses and servants conversed with her only
by interpreters.
There may be a _partial_ derangement of memory, _one set of impressions_
only being erased.
A friend of Dr. Beattie, in consequence of a blow on the head, lost only
his attainments in _Greek_; and Professor Scarpa (whose _corpus
striatum_ was disorganised) lost only the memory of proper names.
You may now comprehend how instantaneously material impressions derange
and destroy memory, and its converse, the production of memory _by_
material impressions, will be far less mysterious to you.
But creatures to which the gift of intellect is not granted, in which
_innate ideas_ cannot arise, still evince the faculty of memory. It is,
therefore, possible that fish and insects, _possessing memory_, dream.
Of course the doctrines of Pythagoras, and Simonides, and the story of
the interpretation of the language of birds by the vizier of Sultan
Mahmoud, are mere fables, and the cackling of the Roman geese was
_accidental_; yet the bird does possess the memory of language, and the
power of imparting ideas.
Nightingales’ notes (as Bechstein has beautifully recorded them) seem to
me like the Mexican language, and to express variety of sentiments of
adoration and love. The parrot, magpie, jackdaw, jay, starling, and
bullfinch, are prattlers; and the exquisite little canary, the pupil of
my friend, Mrs. H——, the pet, indeed, not only of its mistress, but of
statesmen and learned physiologists, warbled its words in purest melody.
From Sir William Temple we learn the faculty of the wonderful parrot of
Prince Maurice, of Nassau, at the Hague, that responsed almost
_rationally_ to promiscuous questions. Granting, then, this faculty of
memory, it is clear the bird may _dream_, and I may add one other
quotation from the “Domestic Habits of Birds,” in proof of this.
“We have, however, heard some of these night-songs which were manifestly
uttered while the bird was asleep, in the same way as we sometimes talk
during sleep—a circumstance remarked by Dryden, who says,
“‘The little birds in dreams their songs repeat.’
“We have even observed this in a wild bird. On the night of the 6th
April, 1811, about ten o’clock, a dunncock (_accentor modularis_) was
heard in a garden to go through its usual song more than a dozen times
very faintly, but distinctly enough for the species to be recognised.”
The night was cold and frosty, but might it not be that the little
musician was dreaming of summer and sunshine? Aristotle, indeed,
proposes the question whether animals hatched from eggs ever dream.
Marcgrave, in reply, expressly says, that his “parrot, Laura, often rose
in the night, and prattled while half asleep.”
Among quadrupeds, it is probable that those which, by their
half-reasoning instinct, approach nearest to the power of comparison,
and those which, in contrast to the _callous-hoofed_, possess an
acuteness of feeling, and therefore the nearest approximate
intelligence, are the most prone to dream.
Although we know nothing of the dreams of that very learned dog, which
Leibnitz assures us he saw, and which uttered an _articulate_ language,
and often enjoyed a chat with his master; yet, of the _slumbering
visions_ of the canines I have many illustrations. _Vic_, a fat terrier,
was a somniloquist. She would bark, and _laugh_, and run round the room,
or _against tables_; the surest proof of somnambulism. Indeed dogs are
celebrated by many poets for their dreaming propensities. Ennius
writes—
“Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.”
And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive poetical account of the
dreams of brutes.
Even Chaucer refers to these dreams; and in the Hall of Branksome,
“The stag-hound, weary with the chace,
Urged in dreams the forest race.”
It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very _short_.
From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the dream of the
_infant_; pure and innocent as the thought of a cherub. For delight is
the common feeling of a dreaming child; and when its lips are touched in
sleep, the memory of its mother’s bosom will excite its lips and tongue
to the congenial action of suction, though a fright of the previous day
will change its slumbers into moments of terror, and it will murmur and
cry in its dream.
I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on the adoption of
_plans of education_ for a child, grounded on the discovery of its
secret thoughts during its simple somniloquent dream.
CAST. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our dream those scenes
of our early life, which our waking efforts could not recollect.
This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dryden’s version of a
fable:
“Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse’s legends are for truths receiv’d,
And the man dreams but what the boy believ’d.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day.”
EV. Yet do not associate this brilliancy of infantine reminiscence with
_vigour_ of the thought. The brain in children is, as it were, like wax,
_easily impressible_. And remember, the _ideas_ of children are more
resembling the _imperfect_ associations of our dreams; the tutorage of
our advancing mind fills it with more serious and rational images
characterized by judgment.
The first impressions of childhood are bright as fancy; so that we think
in waking more of things present. But, in dreams of things long agone
there is, in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any one
of our infantile impressions _may_ chance to be brought to us in our
dream.
But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of childhood, and
become as permanent. My friend, Dr. Uwins, told me of a patient who, in
a joke, once amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted pirates
on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic tendency succeeded; and ever
after this, his dreams were of gibbets and chains, and to that degree,
that his judgment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his
fears.
And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of J. C. V., a youth,
who, in his eighth year, had been attacked by a dog. His future, and,
indeed, nightly dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as
to reduce his health to a very low degree.
Now it is easy to believe the period of slumber so limited, that the
subject of reflection shall not have disappeared, that the thought had
scarcely time to cool:
“Lateat scintillula forsan.”
Thus Moses Mendelssohn had all the sounds, heard during the day,
reverberating in his slumbering mind.
Or we may suppose, that the idea last imprinted on the mind, or by which
it had been exclusively occupied, and the thoughts which are so much
modified by our temperament, study, and contemplation, would be the
_first to influence as the mind awakened_, ere the image of fresh
objects had been again perceived.
Sir Walter, in his diary, thus writes: “When I had in former times to
fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes
that the desired ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying
upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, ‘Never mind, we shall
have it all at seven o’clock to-morrow morning.’”
Warton, the professor of poetry at Oxford, after partaking of a Sunday
dinner with a friend, repaired to his service at his Church. On his way,
he was powerfully saluted with a cry of “Live mackarel.” He slumbered in
his pulpit during the singing of the psalm, and, on the organ ceasing,
he arose, half awake, and instead of his solemn prayer, cried with a
loud voice, “All alive, all alive oh!”
I remember the storytellers in the coffee-houses at Aleppo, as if aware
of this _last impression_, used to run out when they perceived they had
_excited a deep interest_.
IDA. It is curious to hear, even by your own quotations, Evelyn, that
poets have so revelled in the luxury of dreams, from Homer to Pope,
chiefly employing them, however, as the _materiel_ of their poesy. Have
they condescended to glance at their causes?
EV. Lucretius, Claudian, George Stepney, Dryden, and a few others.
_Apropos_ as to causes.
In the “Anatomy of Melancholy” we have the following quaint summary: “As
Tully notes, for the most part our speeches in the daytime cause our
phantasy to work upon the like in our sleep, so do men dream on such
subjects they thought on last:
“‘Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,
Nec delubra deûm nec ab æthere numina mittunt,
Sed sibi quisque facit,’” &c.
For that cause, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy
interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one
sleep quietly in the night, he told him “the best way was to have divine
and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in the daytime.”
Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could sleep quietly and were not
terrified in the night, they had such monstrous questions and thought of
such terrible matters all day long. They had need amongst the rest to
sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus paints in a white and black
coat, with a horn, and ivory box full of dreams of the same colours, to
signify good and bad.
_Cast._ These are the manufacture, I presume, of two of those sons of
sleep, born to him by a beautiful but erring grace, “Phantasus,” or
Fancy, and “Phobetor,” or Terror. With the relations and illustrations
of these good and bad dreams, the pages of both fiction and authentic
history abound: another poetical batch of causes, Ida. Lucia exclaims:
“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man,
Oh Marcia! I have seen thy godlike father—
A kind refreshing sleep is fallen upon him.
I saw him stretch’d at ease, his fancy lost
In pleasing dreams. As I drew near his couch,
He smil’d, and cried: ‘Cæsar, thou cans’t not hurt me.’”
Another poet writes thus:
“But most we mark the wonders of her reign,
When sleep has lock’d the senses in her chain:
When sober judgment has his throne resign’d,
She smiles away the chaos of the mind;
And, as warm fancy’s bright elysium glows,
From her each image springs, each colour flows.
She is the sacred guest, th’ immortal friend;
Oft seen o’er sleeping innocence to bend,
In that dead hour of night, to silence giv’n,
Whispering seraphic visions of her heav’n.”
Then Richmond exclaims: “My heart is very jocund in the remembrance of
so fair a dream.” While the coward conscience of Richard thus speaks:
“By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers.”
Aufidius thus recounts his slumbering memory of the prowess of
Coriolanus:
“This happy Roman, this proud Marcius, haunts me.
Each troubled night, when slaves and captives sleep,
Forgetful of their chains, I in my dreams
Anew am vanquish’d; and beneath his sword
With horror sinking, feel a tenfold death—
The death of honour.”
And yet another:
“Tho’ thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep.
There are shades that will not vanish;
There are thoughts thou canst not banish.”
And, lastly, Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams:”
“That female fiend, why is she there?
Alas! I know her. Oh, begone!
Why is that tainted bosom bare?
Why fixed on me that eye of stone?
Why have they left us thus alone?
I saw the deed——”
ASTR. You will drown us in a flood of Helicon, fair lady, if you thus
dole out the thoughts of these maudlin poets. The records of national
and domestic history, the dreams of the conqueror of thousands, and of
the midnight assassin, are replete with incidents, if we will search for
them, more impressive, ay, and more romantic, than all this rhyming; and
from the legends of history alone I could select a legion of dreaming
mysteries, which would dissolve all these fine-spun theories of Evelyn,
regarding the _essence_, as he terms it, of the dream. He must adopt a
clearer course, in showing us his _causes_, than by harping on this
favourite theme of _memory_; and we must listen through another
moonlight, ere we be made wiser, by the unfolding of this grand secret
of visions.