FALLACIES OF DREAM.
Always and everywhere Superstition has dallied with Dream. The notion
that dreams are sometimes prophetic is still so widely diffused and so
often made the theme for gossip and material for fiction that there are
few, even among the educated, who can wholly divest themselves of the
influence of a startling dream.
Neither evidence nor argument has been adduced to support this claim
of the sleeping mind to prophetic power. There are no natural means by
which _new_ impressions can be conveyed to the mind in sleep, and we have
already seen that in this condition the mind is less, not more, capable
of reasoning out the probabilities of the future.
It will be said, perhaps, that prophecy is not an act of reason but
a gift of inspiration; that the prophet only speaks—his are not the
thoughts uttered. But in what manner is this gift made more easy by
sleep? It _should_ be more active in the waking state. The prophetic
dream is either a creation of the sleeping mind or it is brought into
the sleeping mind by a miracle. It is highly improbable that the mind
should have superior wisdom when in its most imperfect condition. It
is still more improbable that a miracle should be wrought for such a
purpose. Moreover, the information alleged to be imparted thus is always
of something _to come_, while there is no instance of a revelation of
things that have been done in the past and therefore capable of being
tested. A gift to tell what _has been_ would surely be more easy than a
gift to tell what is _to be_. It is strange and suspicious that none are
seers of _the past_.
The widespread notion of prophetic dream is probably based upon a belief,
almost as widely diffused, that in sleep the Soul can and does sometimes
pass out of the body and obtain information by direct impressions
received through its own vastly extended power of perception. It is not
uncommon to hear an assertion, when a place is seen for the first time,
that there is a memory of the same place having been seen before, and
there are some curious reports of cases of this kind that deserve to be
investigated. But many of these apparent marvels may be accounted for
by coincidence or by memories of which the link has been lost. When the
multiplicity of dreams that occur in a lifetime are taken into account,
occasional resemblances of external objects or events to some portions
of former dreams are by no means improbable. The same explanation
applies to many dreams that are supposed to have been prophetic because
something afterwards occurs having some resemblance to the dream. Memory
also has a large share in these recognitions. Memory may exist without
recollection. Thousands of things are stored away in the memory which we
cannot recal even if we try to do so, but which come back to us suddenly,
at unexpected times, for no cause that we can trace although certainly
suggested by something associated with the revived idea. Thus the eye may
well recognise a strange place as having been seen when, in fact, the
memory has unconsciously received some picture of it or of some place
very like it, the existence of which had been forgotten, but which is now
revived by the suggestion of the place itself.
Somnambulism, although commonly supposed to be a phase of sleep, has
really no relationship to it. Its physiological and psychical conditions
are entirely different. There is the aspect of sleep, but nothing more.
The somnambule is not sleeping, for he performs often the work of his
waking life although with certainly closed eyes and probably sealed up
senses. The somnambule has no memory of the doings of either mind or body
during his trance existence. The sleeper is conscious at the time of
dreaming and remembers his dream. As there is Somnambulism without sleep,
so there may be Somnambulism in sleep, and indeed, with a constitutional
tendency to it, the state of sleep is so favourable to the inducement of
the condition of Somnambulism that the one may well lapse into the other.
Nor is “sleep walking” the only exhibition of Somnambulism; it is but one
stage of it. Somnambulism often occurs without action of any limb, for it
is a mental and not a muscular condition. But, inasmuch as the uninformed
spectator notes only the instances of “sleep walking,” the much more
numerous cases of somnambulism occurring with the patient at rest are
unnoticed.
To this cause, then, may many of the reported phenomena of dream be
assigned. It would be beyond the scope of this monograph to treat at any
length of the manifold phenomena of Somnambulism, but some of them will
certainly explain cases of dream apparently not to be accounted for, as
all facts and phenomena may be, if rightly investigated, by reference
to natural causes, without invoking the assistance of the supernatural.
Somnambulism proves the presence of two abnormal mental conditions,
namely, supersensuous perception and mental sympathy. The former is
the name given to a faculty the mind has, under certain conditions, of
perception beyond the range of the senses (whatever the _modus operandi_
may be). The other refers to a special form of sympathy of thoughts
and emotions of one sensitive mind with other minds having a certain
relationship with it.
Many of the authentic cases of cognizance of the distant in dream may
be thus accounted for. The sleeper has lapsed into somnambulism, is
then, in fact, a somnambulist and not a dreamer. Possessing the abnormal
development of the perceptive sense which is so familiar a fact in
natural somnambulism, the mind has perceptions beyond the range of the
senses and is susceptible of sympathies with other minds which the bodily
senses cannot convey.
That such mental conditions exist is proved conclusively by the
numberless cases of natural somnambulism recorded in the medical journals
of all countries and which are indeed familiar to every reader because of
their frequent occurrence in common life.
Dream is not merely a reproduction in new combinations of impressions
made upon the mind unconsciously as well as consciously, forgotten
as well as remembered. The fact must also be taken into account that
in dream mental action is vastly increased and the flow of ideas so
accelerated that if life be measured, as it should be, by the number
of ideas that are presented by the mind, the life of dream is vastly
longer than waking life. If the ideas that would occupy many waking
hours are compressed into a sleep of one hour, the whole dream-life must
have presented to the mind infinitely more ideas than the whole waking
life. The wonder would be if, of this vast multitude, many were not
found to be coincident with events of actual occurrence afterwards. A
further explanation of dreams that appear to convey information from some
external intelligence, or to be prophetic, will be found in this—that
many things impress themselves upon the mind when we are not giving
attention to them and, therefore, unconsciously to ourselves. We thus
lose some of the links of association which, if they had been perceived,
would have shown us the connection between the dream and the incidents to
which the dream related and which, if we had known, would have stripped
the coincidence of its marvellousness. Yet a further explanation will
be found in the exaltation of the mental faculties in dream, which
enables us often to perceive, more clearly than in our waking state,
ideas and chains of ideas and to think about them more correctly than
is practicable in waking life, when the influx of external impressions
represses to some extent the independent action of the mental faculties.
There is a popular belief that in sleep the Soul sometimes quits the
body and personally visits the scenes and persons of the dream which, in
truth, is not all a dream. This is nothing more than a poetical fancy.
There is no evidence of such journeying. The proof of it would be if
the dreamer could tell us of actual occurrences passing elsewhere at
the moment of his dream. There is, indeed, abundant evidence of mental
communion in sleep, suggesting a dream that has relation to that distant
person; but there is no satisfactory evidence of a positive perception
of an event then passing far off. It is remarkable, indeed, that dreams
to which this solution has been applied usually refer to something that
is _to be_, or that _has been_, and not to events actually happening at
the moment and which alone could be positively conclusively proved by
reference to the persons whose sayings and doings are seen, heard and
reported. The same remark applies to this as to prophecies generally.
Why do they not tell us of something that _is doing_ far away, or
something that _has been done_ in the distant past and therefore capable
of verification? Surely the power that could prophesy the future, the
dreaming that foreshadows what _is to be_, could, with vastly more ease,
tell us what has been done or what is being done elsewhere at the moment
of its exercise! Why is so simple a test invariably avoided?
_Sympathetic_ dreams admit of another explanation. Two persons dream
the same dream at the same time. They may be in the same room, in the
same house, or far apart. The two dreams are not always identical in
their details, but the main incident is substantially the same in both.
The instances of this are too many to be accidental coincidences. The
explanation is to be found in that _mental sympathy_ the existence of
which cannot be doubted by any person who investigates psychological
phenomena. The limit to which that sympathy extends is not yet measured.
We know only that it is not bounded by the narrow range of the senses.
Perhaps it is a purely _psychic_ faculty. If it be, we know as yet so
little of the nature and powers of the Soul that it would be vain to
speculate in what manner the operation is performed. But of this we may
be assured, that, whatever the capacity of the Soul when we are waking
and the external world is, as it were, pressing in upon us at all sides
and occupying the whole mind, those powers are vastly extended when the
material mechanism is at rest and the sleepless Soul alone is busy. If
there be, under any conditions, communication between minds without
the intervention of the senses, we may reasonably conclude that these
would be greatly facilitated in the time of sleep, when the Soul is
less subjected to the restraints of that mechanism by means of which it
communicates with the _material_—that is to say, the _molecular_—world in
which the present stage of its evolution is to be passed.
The proofs are many that dreams may be suggested by the influence of
other minds in unconscious communication with the sleeper. If the finger
be placed upon the head where, according to the phrenologists, is the
seat of the mental faculty of mirth, a smile will be seen soon to
steal upon the sleeping face. Touch in like manner the asserted seats
of combativeness or destructiveness, the features assume an aspect
of excitement which will be removed by touching the asserted seat of
benevolence. The explanation of this phenomenon is that the brain thus
excited to action suggests or moulds a dream in accordance with the
emotion thus denoted. This fact has been advanced by the phrenologists as
proof that they have rightly mapped out the brain. But such is not the
necessary conclusion from the fact. It may well be that it is the _mind_,
and not the finger, of the waking operator that directs the mental action
of the unconscious sleeper. The waking _Will_ possibly controls the
sleeping Will. We know that it does so in Somnambulism and it is probable
that it does the like in ordinary sleep.
But, explain it as we may, the fact remains.
Direct suggestion of dream by external causes is less disputable.
So sensitive is the mind in sleep, when relieved from the thronging
impressions of the senses, that impressions so slight as to be wholly
unnoticed in our waking state are doubtless perceptible and operate as
suggestions when we are asleep. A slight touch or sound often serves to
change the entire character and direction of a dream, the mere sound
giving rise to the train of new ideas thus suggested, because it is
uncontrolled by the Will. The surest method of banishing an unpleasant
dream is to turn in the bed. Continuance in the same posture and with
the same pressure of blood within and of the pillow without upon the
same part of the brain seems to preserve the action of the dream, which
is disturbed at once by directing the flow of blood and the pressure to
another part of the brain. If a sleeper is seen to be agitated in his
sleep by painful dream, exhibited in moaning, restlessness and expression
of distress upon the countenance, remedy may be found in gently moving
the head into another position, if the body cannot be moved and it is not
desired to waken.
It is said that musicians are very prone to the composition of music
in dream. It was thus that Tartini wrote the Devil’s Sonata. The most
unmusical are often haunted by scraps of tune that no effort will banish.
Airs are composed in dream which are remembered upon waking. Perhaps
it is not that music is more the subject of dream than other mental
creations, but it is the most capable of being retained by the mind
and expressed after the dream has vanished. My own experience of this
capacity of the dreaming mind has been to myself very surprising; but
perhaps the like may have occurred to others, although not recorded. Some
time ago I dreamed that I was present and heard as well as witnessed the
performance of an entire opera of my own composing. The strange part
of it was that I am not a musician and never composed a bar of music
in my life. I have a bad musical ear and no musical memory. Yet did my
utterly unmusical mind in the dream compose the whole of an opera in two
acts, overture and all, with a full band and half a dozen characters,
each acting his own part, and the stage, the scenery, machinery and
decorations, as perfect as any I have ever beheld and enjoyed at Covent
Garden. Certainly it was not a mere dream of a dream. What other solution
is there than this—and it is sufficiently marvellous—that my mind,
free to act without the incumbering trammels of the sleeping body and
exercising its unfettered faculties far beyond their capacity in waking
life, had made me a musician, a dramatist, an actor, a painter—for all
these that mind was in the invention and performance of that dream?
If that mind or Soul be nothing more than the material form, or a
function of that form, how comes it that it is more active and that its
faculties are more exalted when the body, of which it is said to be a
part, is asleep? If the mind or soul be a part of the body, or, as the
Materialists contend, a mere function of the body, it ought, according to
all known laws of science, to be sleeping with the body, or at least its
activity and capacity ought not to increase in proportion as the activity
and capacity of the body decrease.
I have here used the term “Mind,” because it is familiar to the reader,
and any other name would mislead by the prejudices that attach to
it. But I must be understood as intending by that term the thing,
whatever it be, which, in the Mechanism of Man, directs and controls it
intelligently, whether it be called Soul or Mind, and if it be a distinct
entity, as Psychology contends, or only the product of the material
structure, as the Materialists assert. This, indeed, is the great problem
of this age, to be solved, not by dogmatic assertions, but by scientific
proof.
There are many other Phenomena of Dream of less interest or importance,
the description of which would occupy many pages; but those above will
suffice for the purposes of this monograph.