THE STATE OF THE MIND DURING SLEEP.
We have seen that though during sleep the operations of the senses are
entirely suspended as regards the effects of ordinary impressions, the
purely animal functions of the body continue in action. The heart beats,
the lungs respire, the stomach, the intestines, and their accessory organs
digest, the skin exhales vapor, and the kidneys secrete urine. With the
central nervous system, however, the case is very different; for while
some parts retain the property of receiving impressions or developing
ideas, others have their actions diminished, exalted, perverted, or
altogether arrested.
In the first place, there is, undoubtedly, during sleep, a general torpor
of the sensorium, which prevents the appreciation of the ordinary
excitations made upon the organs of the special senses. So far as the
nerves themselves are concerned, there is no loss of their irritability or
conducting power, and the impressions made upon them are, accordingly,
perfectly well conveyed to the brain. The suspension of the operations of
the senses is not therefore due to any loss of function in the optic
nerve, the auditory nerve, the olfactory nerve, the gustatory nerve, or
the cranial or spinal nerves concerned in the sense of touch, but solely
to the inability of the brain to take cognizance of the impressions
conveyed to it. In regard to the cause of this torpor, I have given my
views in a previous chapter.
Now it must not be supposed that because mild excitations transmitted by
the nerves of the special senses are incapable of making themselves felt,
that therefore the brain is in a state of complete repose throughout all
its parts. So far from such a condition existing, there are very decided
proofs that several faculties are exercised to a degree almost equaling
that reached during wakefulness, and we know that if the irritations made
upon the senses be sufficiently strong, the brain _does_ appreciate them,
and the sleep is broken. This ability to be readily roused through the
senses constitutes one of the main differences between sleep and stupor,
upon which stress has been already laid.
Relative to the different faculties of the mind as affected by sleep,
great variations are observed. It has been thought by some authors that
several of them are really exalted above the standard attained during
wakefulness, but this is probably a wrong view. The predominance which one
or two mental qualities apparently assume is not due to any absolute
exaggeration of power, but to the suspension of the action of other
faculties, which, when we are not asleep, exercise a governing or
modifying influence. Thus, for instance, as regards the imagination,--the
faculty of all others which appears to be most increased,--we find, when
we carefully study its manifestations in our own persons, that although
there is often great brilliancy in its vagaries, that uncontrolled as it
is by the judgment, the pictures which it paints upon our minds are
usually incongruous and silly in the extreme. Even though the train of
ideas excited by this faculty when we are asleep be rational and coherent,
we are fully conscious on awaking that we are capable of doing much better
by intentionally setting the brain in action and governing it by our will
and judgment.
Owing to the fact that these two faculties of the mind are incapable of
acting normally during sleep, the imagination is left absolutely without
controlling influence. Indeed, we are often cognizant in those dreams
which take place when we are half awake, of an inability to direct it. The
impressions which it makes upon the mind are, therefore, intense, but of
very little durability. Many stories are told of its power--how problems
have been worked out, poetry and music composed, and great undertakings
planned; but if we could get at the truth, we should probably find that
the imagination of sleep had very little to do with the operations
mentioned. Indeed, it is doubtful if the mind of a sleeping person can
originate ideas. Those which are formed are, as Locke[34] remarks, almost
invariably made up of the waking man’s ideas, and are for the most part
very oddly put together; and we are all aware how commonly our dreams are
composed of ideas, or based upon events which have recently occurred to
us.
In the previous section to the one just quoted, Locke refers to the
exaggeration of ideas which form so common a feature of our mental actions
during sleep. “It is true,” he says, “we have sometimes instances of
perception while we are asleep, and retain the memory of those thoughts;
but how extravagant and incoherent for the most part they are, how little
conformable to the perfection and order of a rational being, those
acquainted with dreams need not be told.”
And yet many remarkable stories are related, which tend to show the high
degree of activity possessed by the mind during sleep. Thus it is said of
Tartini,[35] a celebrated musician of the eighteenth century, that one
night he dreamed he had made a compact with the devil, and bound him to
his service. In order to ascertain the musical abilities of his servitor,
he gave him his violin, and commanded him to play a solo. The devil did
so, and performed so admirably that Tartini awoke with the excitement
produced, and seizing his violin, endeavored to repeat the enchanting
air. Although he was unable to do this with entire success, his efforts
were so far effectual that he composed one of the most admired of his
pieces, which in recognition of its source he called the “devil’s sonata.”
Coleridge gives the following account of the composition of the fragment,
Kubla Khan:
“In the summer of 1797, the author, then in ill health, had retired to a
lonely farm-house, between Perlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of
Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an
anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in
his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or
words of the same substance, in Purchas’s Pilgrimage: ‘Here the Khan Kubla
commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus
ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.’ The author
continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the
external senses, during which time he had the most vivid confidence that
he could have composed not less than from two to three hundred lines, if
that, indeed, can be called composition, in which all the images rose up
before him as _things_ with a parallel production of the corresponding
expression without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking,
he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole; and
taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the
lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called
out by a person on business from Perlock, and detained by him above an
hour; and on his return to his room, found to his no small surprise and
mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim
recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet with the exception
of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed
away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had
been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter.”
Dr. Cromwell,[36] citing the above instance of poetic inspiration during
sleep, states that, having like Coleridge taken an anodyne during a
painful illness, he composed the following lines of poetry, which he wrote
down within half an hour after awaking. These lines, though displaying
considerable imagination, are not remarkable for any other quality.
“Lines composed in sleep on the night of January 9th, 1857.
“SCENE.--_Windsor Forest._
“At a vista’s end stood the queen one day
Relieved by a sky of the softest hue;
It happen’d that a wood-mist risen new,
Had made that white which should have been blue.
A sunbeam sought on her form to play;
It found a nook in the bowery nave,
Through which with its golden stem to lave
And kiss the leaves of the stately trees
That fluttered and rustled beneath the breeze;
But it touched not her, to whom ’twas given
To walk in a white light pure as heaven.”
In the last two of these instances it is impossible to say whether the
individuals were really asleep or not, as the opium or other narcotic
taken is a very disturbing factor in both conditions, and doubtless was
the exciting cause of the activity in the imagination. No more graphic
account of the effects of opium in arousing the imagination to its highest
pitch has been written than that given by De Quincey.[37] He says:
“At night when I lay awake in bed, vast processions passed along in
mournful pomp; friezes of never-ending stories, that to my feelings were
as sad and solemn as if they were stories drawn from times before Œdipus
or Priam, before Tyre, before Memphis. And at the same time a
corresponding change took place in my dreams; a theater seemed suddenly
opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented nightly spectacles
of more than earthly splendor.” And then, after referring to the various
scenes of architectural magnificence, and of beautiful women which his
imagination conceived, and which forcibly recalls to our minds the
poetical effusions of Coleridge and Cromwell, he gives the details of
another dream, in which he heard music. “A music of preparation, of
awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and
which like _that_ gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades
filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies.”
In reference to this subject, Dr. Forbes Winslow[38] relates the following
interesting case:
“A feeble, sensitive lady, suffering from a uterine affection, writes to
us as follows concerning the influence of three or four
sixteenth-of-a-grain doses of hydrochlorate of morphia: ‘After taking a
few doses of morphia, I felt a sensation of extreme quiet and wish for
repose, and on closing my eyes, visions, if I may so call them, were
constantly before me, and as constantly changing in their aspect: scenes
from foreign lands; lovely landscapes, with tall, magnificent trees
covered with drooping foliage, which was blown gently against me as I
walked along. Then in an instant I was in a besieged city filled with
armed men. I was carrying an infant, which was snatched from me by a
soldier and killed upon the spot. A Turk was standing by with a scimitar
in his hand, which I seized, and attacking the man who had killed the
child, I fought most furiously with him and killed him. Then I was
surrounded, made prisoner, carried before a judge and accused of the
deed; but I pleaded my own cause with such a burst of eloquence (which,
by-the-by, I am quite incapable of in my right mind) that judge, jury, and
hearers acquitted me at once. Again, I was in an Eastern city visiting an
Oriental lady, who entertained me most charmingly. We sat together on rich
ottomans, and were regaled with supper and confectionery. Then came soft
sounds of music at a distance, while fountains were playing and birds
singing, and dancing girls danced before us, every movement being
accompanied with the tinkling of silver bells attached to their feet. But
all this suddenly changed, and I was entertaining the Oriental lady in my
own house, and in order to please her delicate taste, I had everything
prepared as nearly as possible after the fashion with which she had so
enchanted me. She, however, to my no small surprise, asked for wine, and
took not one, two, or three glasses, but drank freely, until at last I
became terrified that she would have to be carried away intoxicated. While
considering what course I had better adopt, several English officers came
in, and she at once asked them to drink with her, which so shocked my
sense of propriety that the scene changed and I was in darkness.
“‘Then I felt that I was formed of granite, and immovable. Suddenly a
change came again over me, and I found that I consisted of delicate and
fragile basket-work. Then I became a danseuse, delighting an audience and
myself by movements which seemed barely to touch the earth. Presently
beautiful sights came before me, treasures from the depth of the sea, gems
of the brightest hues, gorgeous shells, coral of the richest colors,
sparkling with drops of water, and hung with lovely seaweed. My eager
glances could not take in half the beautiful objects that passed before me
during the incessant changes the visions underwent. Now I was gazing upon
antique brooches and rings from buried cities; now upon a series of
Egyptian vases; now upon sculptured wood-work blackened by time; and
lastly I was buried amid forests of tall trees, such as I had read of but
never seen.
“‘The sights that pleased me most I had power to a certain extent to
prolong, and those that displeased me I could occasionally set aside, and
I awoke myself to full consciousness once or twice while under the
influence of the morphia by an angry exclamation that I would not have it.
I did not once lose my personal identity.’
“The lady almost invariably suffers more or less from hallucinations of
the foregoing character, if it becomes necessary to administer to her an
opiate: and on analyzing her visions, she can generally refer the
principal portions of them, notwithstanding their confusion and
distortion, to works that she has recently read.”
Opium, in certain doses, increases the amount of blood in the brain, and
this induces a condition very different from that of sleep. In this fact
we have an explanation of the activity of the imagination as one of its
prominent effects. That Coleridge should have composed the Kubla Khan
under its influence is in nowise remarkable. It is probable, however, that
the full influence of his mind was exerted upon it after he awoke to
consciousness, and that the wild fancies excited by the opiate, and based
upon what he had been previously reading, formed the substratum of his
conceptions. In any event, the ideas contained in this fragment are no
more fanciful than those which occurred to De Quincey and the lady whose
case has just been recorded, nor are they more impressively related.
The imagination may therefore be active during sleep, but we have no
authentic instance on record that it has, unaided by causes which exercise
a powerful influence over the intracranial circulation, led to the
production of any ideas which could not be excelled by the individual when
awake. Perhaps the most striking case in opposition to this opinion is one
detailed by Abercrombie,[39] who says:
“The following anecdote has been preserved in a family of rank in
Scotland, the descendants of a distinguished lawyer of the last age. This
eminent person had been consulted respecting a case of great importance
and much difficulty, and he had been studying it with intense anxiety and
attention. After several days had been occupied in this manner, he was
observed by his wife to rise from his bed in the night and go to a
writing-desk which stood in the bed-room. He then sat down and wrote a
long letter, which he put carefully by in the desk and returned to bed.
The following morning he told his wife that he had had a most interesting
dream; that he had dreamt of delivering a clear and luminous opinion
respecting a case which had exceedingly perplexed him, and that he would
give anything to recover the train of thought which had passed before him
in his dream. She then directed him to the writing-desk, where he found
the opinion clearly and fully written out, and which was afterwards found
to be perfectly correct.”
It is probable that this gentleman was actually awake when he arose from
the bed and wrote the paper referred to, and that in the morning he
mistook the circumstance for a dream. It is not at all uncommon for such
errors to be committed, especially under the condition of mental anxiety
and fatigue. A gentleman informed me only a short time since that going to
bed after a very exciting day he thought the next morning that he had
dreamed of a fire occurring in the vicinity of his house. To his surprise
his wife informed him that the supposed dream was a reality, and that he
had got up to the window, looked at the fire, conversed with her
concerning it, and that he was at the time fully awake.
Brierre de Boismont[40] relates the following instance, which is to the
same effect:
“In a convent in Auvergne, an apothecary was sleeping with several
persons; being attacked with nightmare, he charged his companions with
throwing themselves on him and attempting to strangle him. They all denied
the assertion, telling him that he had passed the night without sleeping,
and in a state of high excitement. In order to convince him of this fact,
they prevailed on him to sleep alone in a room carefully closed, having
previously given him a good supper, and even made him partake of food of a
flatulent nature. The paroxysm returned; but, on this occasion, he swore
that it was the work of a demon, whose face and figure he perfectly
described.”
That the imagination may in its flights during sleep strike upon fancies
which are subsequently developed by the reason into lucid and valuable
ideas, is very probable. It would be strange if from among the innumerable
absurdities and extravagancies to which it attains something fit to be
appropriated by the mind should not occasionally be evolved, and thus
there are many instances mentioned of the starting-point of important
mental operations having been taken during sleep. Some of these may be
based upon fact, but the majority are probably of the class of those just
specified, or occurred at an age of the world when a belief in the
supernatural exercised a greater power over men’s minds than it does at
the present day. Among the most striking of them are the following:
Galen declares that he owed a great part of his knowledge to the
revelations made to him in dreams. Whether this was really the case or not
we can in a measure determine by recalling the fact that he was a believer
in the prophetic nature of dreams, and states that a man having dreamt
that one of his legs was turned into stone, soon afterward became
paralytic in this limb, although there was no evidence of approaching
disease. Galen also conducted his practice by dreams, for an athlete,
having dreamt that he saw red spots, and that the blood was flowing out of
his body, was supposed by Galen to require blood-letting, which operation
was accordingly performed.
It has been said[41] that the idea of the _Divina Commedia_ occurred to
Dante during sleep. There is nothing at all improbable in this
supposition, though I have been unable to trace it to any definite source.
Cabanis[42] states that Condillac assured him that often during the course
of his studies he had to leave them unfinished in order to sleep, and that
on awaking he had more than once found the work upon which he was engaged
brought to a conclusion in his brain.
These were clearly instances of “unconscious cerebration” of that power
which the brain possesses to work out matters which have engaged its
attention, without the consciousness of the individual being aroused to a
knowledge of the labor being performed. It is not unlikely that this kind
of mental activity goes on to some extent during sleep, but as it is of
such a character that the mind does not take cognizance of its operations,
I do not see how the exact period of its performance can be ascertained.
Jerome Cardan believed that he composed books while asleep, and his case
is often adduced as an example of the height to which the imagination can
attain during sleep. But this great man was superstitious to an extreme
degree; he believed that he had a familiar spirit, from whom he received
intelligence, warnings, and ideas, and asserted that when awake he
frequently saw long processions of men, women, animals, trees, castles,
instruments of various kinds and many figures, different from anything in
this world. His evidence relative to his compositions and mathematical
labors when asleep is not therefore of a trustworthy character.
As regards the memory in sleep, it is undoubtedly exercised to a
considerable extent. In fact, whatever degree of activity the mind may
then exhibit is based upon events the recollection of which has been
retained. But there is more or less error mingled with a small amount of
truth. The unbridled imagination of the sleeper so distorts the simplest
circumstances as to render their recognition a matter of no small
difficulty, and thus it scarcely if ever happens that events are
reproduced during sleep exactly as they occurred or as they would be
recalled by the mind of the individual when awake. Frequently, also,
recent events which have made a strong impression on our minds are
forgotten, as when we dream of seeing and conversing with persons not long
dead.
And yet it has sometimes happened that incidents or knowledge which had
long been overlooked or forgotten, or which could not be remembered by any
effort during wakefulness have been strongly depicted during sleep. Thus
Lord Monboddo[43] states that the Countess de Laval, a woman of perfect
veracity and good sense, when ill, spoke during sleep in a language which
none of her attendants understood, and which even she was disposed to
regard as gibberish. A nurse detected the dialect of Brittany; her
mistress had spent her childhood in that province, but had lost all
recollection of the Breton tongue, and could not understand a word of what
she said in her dreams. Her utterances applied, however, exclusively to
the experience of childhood, and were infantile in structure.
Abercrombie[44] relates the case of a gentleman who was very fond of the
Greek language, and who, in his youth, had made considerable progress in
it. Subsequently being engaged in other pursuits, he so entirely forgot it
that he could not even read the words; often, however, in his dreams he
read Greek works, which he had been accustomed to use at college, and had
a most vivid impression of fully understanding them.
Many other instances of the action of memory during sleep might be brought
forward, but the subject will be more appropriately considered in the
chapter on dreams.
The judgment is frequently exercised when we are asleep, but almost
invariably in a perverted manner. In fact we scarcely ever estimate the
events or circumstances which appear to transpire in our dreams at their
real value, and very rarely from correct conceptions of right and wrong.
High-minded and honorable men do not scruple during sleep to sanction the
most atrocious acts, or to regard with complaisance ideas which, in their
waking moments, would fill them with horror. Delicate and refined women
will coolly enter upon a career of crime, and the minds of hardened
villains are filled with the most elevated and noble sentiments. The
deeds which we imagine we perform in our sleep are generally inadequate to
or in excess of what the apparent occasion requires, and we lose so
entirely the ideas of probability and possibility, that no preposterous
vision appears otherwise than as perfectly natural and correct. Thus, a
physician dreamed that he had been transformed into a monolith which stood
grandly and alone in the vast desert of the Sahara, and had so stood for
ages, while generation after generation wasted and melted away around him.
Although unconscious of having organs of sense, this column of granite saw
the mountains growing bald with age, the forests drooping with decay, and
the moss and ivy creeping around its crumbling base.[45]
But, although in this instance there was some conception of time, as shown
in the association of the evidences of decay with the lapse of years,
there is in general no correct idea on this subject. Without going into
details which more appropriately belong to another division of this
treatise, I quote the following remarkable example from the essay last
cited. It appeared originally in a biographical sketch of Lavalette,
published in the _Revue de Paris_, and is related by Lavalette as
occurring to him while in prison:
“One night, while I was asleep, the clock of the Palais de Justice struck
twelve and awoke me. I heard the gate open to relieve the sentry, but I
fell asleep again immediately. In this sleep I dreamt that I was standing
in the Rue St. Honore. A melancholy darkness spread around me; all was
still; nevertheless, a slow and uncertain sound soon arose. All of a
sudden, I perceived at the bottom of the street and advancing toward me, a
troop of cavalry,--the men and horses, however, all flayed. The men held
torches in their hands, the red flames of which illuminated faces without
skin, and bloody muscles. Their hollow eyes rolled fearfully in their
sockets, their mouths opened from ear to ear, and helmets of hanging flesh
covered their hideous heads. The horses dragged along their own skins in
the kennels which overflowed with blood on all sides. Pale and disheveled
women appeared and disappeared at the windows in dismal silence; low
inarticulate groans filled the air, and I remained in the street alone
petrified with horror, and deprived of strength sufficient to seek my
safety in flight. This horrible troop continued passing along rapidly in a
gallop, and casting frightful looks upon me. Their march continued, I
thought, for five hours, and they were followed by an immense number of
artillery wagons full of bleeding corpses, whose limbs still quivered; a
disgusting smell of blood and bitumen almost choked me. At length the iron
gates of the prison, shutting with great force, awoke me again. I made my
repeater strike; it was no more than midnight, so that the horrible
phantasmagoria had lasted no more than two or three minutes--that is to
say, the time necessary for relieving the sentry and shutting the gate.
The cold was severe and the watchword short. The next day the turnkey
confirmed my calculations. I, nevertheless, do not remember one single
event in my life the duration of which I have been able more exactly to
calculate, of which the details are deeper engraven on my memory, and of
which I preserve a more perfect consciousness.”
No instance can more strikingly exemplify aberration of the faculty of
judgment than the above. There was no astonishment felt with the horror
experienced, but all the impossible events which appeared to be
transpiring were accepted as facts, which might have taken place in the
regular order of nature.
An important question connected with the exercise of judgment is: does the
dreamer know that he is dreaming? Some authors assert that this knowledge
is possible, others that it is not. The following account is interesting,
and I therefore transcribe it, especially as it has not to my knowledge
been heretofore published in this country.
In a letter to the Rev. William Gregory, Dr. Thomas Reid[46] says:
“About the age of fourteen, I was almost every night unhappy in my sleep
from frightful dreams. Sometimes hanging over a frightful precipice and
just ready to drop down; sometimes pursued for my life and stopped by a
wall or by a sudden loss of all strength; sometimes ready to be devoured
by a wild beast. How long I was plagued by such dreams I do not now
recollect. I believe it was for a year or two at least; and I think they
had quite left me before I was fifteen. In those days I was much given to
what Mr. Addison in one of his Spectators calls castle-building, and, in
my evening solitary walk, which was generally all the exercise I took, my
thoughts would hurry me into some active scene, where I generally
acquitted myself much to my own satisfaction, and in these scenes of
imagination I performed many a gallant exploit. At the same time, in my
dreams, I found myself the most arrant coward that ever was. Not only my
courage, but my strength failed me in every danger, and I often rose from
my bed in the morning in such a panic that it took some time to get the
better of it. I wished very much to get free of these uneasy dreams, which
not only made me unhappy in sleep, but often left a disagreeable
impression in my mind for some part of the following day. I thought it was
worth trying whether it was possible to recollect that it was all a dream,
and that I was in no real danger. I often went to sleep with my mind as
strongly impressed as I could with this thought that I never in my
lifetime was in any real danger, and that every fright I had was a dream.
After many fruitless endeavors to recollect this when the danger appeared,
I effected it at last, and have often, when I was sliding over a precipice
into the abyss, recollected that it was all a dream, and boldly jumped
down. The effect of this commonly was, that I immediately awoke. But I
awoke calm and intrepid, which I thought a great acquisition. After this
my dreams were never very uneasy, and, in a short time, I dreamed not at
all.”
Beattie[47] states that he once dreamed that he was walking on the parapet
of a high bridge. How he came there he did not know, but recollecting that
he was not given to such pranks, he began to think it might all be a
dream, and, finding his situation unpleasant, and being desirous to get
out of it, threw himself headlong from the height, in the belief that the
shock of the fall would restore his senses. The event turned out as he
anticipated.
Aristotle also asserts that when dreaming of danger, he used to recollect
that he was dreaming, and that he ought not to be frightened.
A still more remarkable narration is that of Gassendi,[48] which he thus
relates as occurring to himself:
“A good friend of mine, Louis Charambon, judge of the criminal court at
Digne, had died of the plague. One night, as I slept, I seemed to see him;
I stretched out my arms toward him, and said, ‘Hail thou who returnest
from the place of the dead!’ Then I stopped, reflecting in my dream as
follows: ‘One cannot return from the other world; I am doubtless dreaming;
but if I dream, where am I? Not at Paris, for I came last to Digne. I am
then at Digne, in my house, in my bedroom, in my bed.’ And then, as I was
looking for myself in the bed, some noise, I know not what, awoke me.”
In all these and like instances, it is very probable the individuals were
much more awake than asleep, for certainly the power to judge correctly is
not exercised in dreams, involving even the most incongruous
impossibilities. As Dendy[49] says, “if we _know_ that we are dreaming,
the faculty of judgment cannot be inert, and the dream would be known to
be a fallacy.” There would therefore be no occasion for any such
management of it as that made use of by Reid and Beattie, or for the
recollection of Aristotle. The dream and the correction of it by the
judgment would go together and there would be no self-deception at
all--not even for an instant. Dreams would accordingly be impossible. The
essential feature of mental activity during sleep, absolute freedom of the
imagination, would not exist.
Relative to Gassendi’s case, it is impossible to believe that he was fully
asleep, and the fact that he was awakened by some noise, the nature of
which was unrecognized, and which was therefore probably slight, tends to
support this view. Moreover, although he was, as he thought, enabled to
detect the fallacy of his dream in one respect, his judgment was
altogether at fault in others. Thus he had great difficulty in making out
where he was, and actually so far lost all idea of his identity with the
person dreaming as to look for himself in his own bed! Certainly an
individual whose judgment was thus much deranged would scarcely be able to
reason correctly as to the fact of his dreaming or not, or to question the
possibility of the dead returning to this world.
My opinion therefore is, that during sleep the power of bringing the
judgment into action is suspended. We do not actually lose the power of
arriving at a decision, but we cannot exert the faculty of judgment in
accordance with the principles of truth and of correct reasoning. An
opinion may therefore be formed during sleep, but it is more likely to be
wrong than right, and no effort that we can make will enable us to
distinguish the false from the true, or to discriminate between the
possible and the impossible.
That faculty of the mind--the judgment--which when we are awake is
pre-eminently our guide, can no longer direct us aright. The stores of
experience go for naught, and the mind accepts as truth whatever
preposterous thought the imagination presents to it. We are not entirely
rendered incapable of judging, as some authors assert, but the power to
perceive the logical force of circumstances, to take them at their true
value and to eliminate error from our mental processes, is altogether
arrested, and we arrive at absurd conclusions from impossible premises.
But there is no doubt that at times the faculty of judgment is suspended
as regards some parts of our mental operations during sleep, and this, to
such an extent, that we are like Gassendi in the case quoted, not capable
of recognizing our own individuality. Thus it is related of Dr. Johnson,
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.”
Van Goens dreamt that he could not answer questions to which his neighbor
gave correct responses.
An interesting case, in which the judgment was still more at fault, has
recently come to my knowledge.
Mrs. C. dreamed that she was Savonarola, and that she was preaching to a
vast assembly in Florence. Among the audience was a lady whom she at once
recognized to be her own self. As Savonarola, she was delighted at this
discovery, for she reflected that she was well acquainted with all Mrs.
C.’s peculiarities and faults of character, and would, therefore, be
enabled to give special emphasis to them in the sermon. She did this so
very effectively that Mrs. C. burst into a torrent of tears, and, with the
emotion thus excited, the lady awoke. It was some time before she was able
to disentangle her mixed up individualities. When she became fully awake
she perceived that the arguments she had employed to bring about the
conversion of herself were puerile in the extreme, and were directed
against characteristics which formed no part of her mental organization,
and against offenses which she had not committed.
Macario[50] makes the following apposite remarks on the point under
consideration. Referring to the preposterous nature of many dreams, he
says:
“It is astonishing that all these fantastical and impossible visions seem
to us quite natural, and excite no astonishment. This is because the
judgment and reflection having abdicated, no longer control the
imagination nor co-ordinate the thoughts which rush tumultuously through
the brain of the sleeper, combined only by the power of association.
“When I say that the judgment and reflection abdicate, it should not be
inferred that they are abolished and no longer exist, for the imagination
could not, unaided by the reason, construct the whimsical and capricious
images of dreams.”
Relative to the power to work out, during sleep, problems involving long
and intricate mental processes, I have already expressed my opinion
adversely. In this view, I am not alone. Rosenkranz,[51] whose
contributions to psychological science cannot be overestimated, and whose
clear and powerful understanding has rarely been excelled, has pointed out
how such operations of the understanding are impossible; for, as he
remarks, intellectual problems cannot be solved during sleep, for such a
thing as intense thought, accompanied by images, is unknown, whilst dreams
consist of a series of images connected by loose and imperfect reasoning.
Feuchtersleben,[52] referring with approval to this opinion of Rosenkranz,
says that he recollects perfectly having dreamt of such problems, and
being happy in their solution, endeavored to retain them in his memory; he
succeeded, but discovered, on awaking, that they were quite unmeaning, and
could only have imposed upon a sleeping imagination.
Müller[53] says:
“Sometimes we reason more or less correctly in dreams. We reflect on
problems and rejoice in their solution. But on awaking from such dreams,
the seeming reasoning is frequently found to have been no reasoning at
all, and the solution of the problem over which we had rejoiced, to be
mere nonsense. Sometimes we dream that another person proposes an enigma;
that we cannot solve it and that others are equally incapable of doing so;
but that the person who proposed it, himself gives the explanation. We are
astonished at the solution we had so long labored in vain to find. If we
do not immediately awaken and afterwards reflect on this proposition of an
enigma in our dream, and on its apparent solution, we think it wonderful;
but if we awake immediately after the dream, and are able to compare the
answer with the question, we find that it was mere nonsense.”
And in regard to the knowledge that we are dreaming, the same author[54]
observes that:
“The indistinctness of the conception in dreams is generally so great that
we are not aware that we dream. The phantasms which are perceived really
exist in our organs of sense. They afford, therefore, in themselves as
strong proof of the actual existence of the objects they represent, as
our own perceptions of real external objects in the waking state; for we
know the latter only by the affections of our senses which they produce.
When, therefore, the mind has lost the faculty of analyzing the
impressions on our senses, there is no reason why the things which they
seem to represent should be supposed unreal. Even in the waking state
phantasms are regarded as real objects when they occur to persons of
feeble intellect. On the other hand, when the dreaming approaches more
nearly to the waking state, we sometimes are conscious that we merely
dream, and still allow the dream to proceed, while we retain this
consciousness of its true nature.”
Sir Benjamin Brodie,[55] in discussing the subject of wonderful
discoveries made in dreams, and abstruse problems worked out, remarks that
it would indeed be strange if among the vast number of combinations which
constitute our dreams, there were not every now and then some having the
semblance of reality; and further, that in many of the stories of great
discoveries made in dreams, there is much of either mistake or
exaggeration, and that if they could have been written down at the time,
they would have been found to be worth little or nothing.
Another faculty exercised during sleep has been ascribed to the judgment.
It is well known that many persons having made up their minds to awake at
a certain hour invariably do so. I possess this power in a high degree,
and scarcely ever vary a minute from the fixed time. Just as I go to bed I
look at my watch and impress upon my mind the figures on the dial which
represent the hour and minute at which I wish to awake. I give myself no
further anxiety on the subject, and never dream of it, but I always wake
at the desired moment.
Now I cannot conceive what connection the judgment has with this power. In
the case of alarm clocks set to go off at a certain time, the judgment, as
Jouffroy[56] asserts, may take cognizance of the impression made upon the
ear, and establish the relation between it and the wish to awake at a
certain time. But in cases where the awaking is the result of an idea
conceived before going to sleep, and which is not subsequently recalled,
the judgment cannot act, for this faculty is only exercised upon ideas
which are submitted to it. The brain is, as it were, wound up like the
alarm clock and set to a certain hour. When that hour arrives, an
explosion of nervous force takes place, and the individual awakes.
Fosgate[57] asserts that the power of judging during sleep is probably as
good as when we are awake, for decisions are made only on the premises
presented in either case, and if those in the former condition are absurd
or unreasonable, the conclusion will likewise be faulty. But this is not
very accurate reasoning; for it is as much the province of the judgment to
determine the validity of the premises as it is to draw a conclusion from
them, and if it cannot recognize the falsity or truth of propositions the
irrational character of which would be readily perceived during
wakefulness, there is not much to be said in favor of its power.
In fact, however, the conclusions formed in dreams are often without any
logical relation with the premises. Thus, when an individual dreams, as in
the instance previously quoted, that he is a column of stone, it is
contrary to all experience to deduce therefrom the conclusion that he can
see rocks crumbling around him, and can reflect upon the mutability of all
things. The premise of his being a stone pillar being submitted to the
judgment, the proper conclusion would be that he is composed of inorganic
material, is devoid of life, and consequently not possessed of either
sensation or understanding.
Why the judgment is not properly exercised during sleep we do not know.
Dr. Philip[58] believes that in this condition ideas flow so rapidly that
they are not submitted to the full power of the judgment, and that hence
the absurdity which characterizes them is not perceived. But this
explanation is by no means satisfactory; for a merely swift succession of
ideas is no very serious bar to correct judgment, and when the thoughts
are as preposterous as those which so often occur in dreams, they present
no obstacle at all to a proper estimation of them by the healthy mind. The
cause probably resides in some alteration in the circulation of the blood
in that part of the brain which presides over the judgment, whereby its
power is suspended and the imagination left free to fill the mind with its
incongruous and fantastic images.
As regards the will, we find very opposite opinions entertained relative
to its activity; but no one, so far as I am aware, appears to have had
correct views upon the subject. Without going into a full discussion of
the views enunciated, it will be sufficient to refer to the ideas on the
point in question which have been expressed by some of the most eminent
philosophers and physiologists.
In the course of his remarks on sleep, Darwin[59] repeatedly alleges that
during this condition the action of the will is entirely suspended; but he
falls into the singular error of confounding volition with the power of
motion. Thus he says:
“When by one continued posture in sleep some uneasy sensations are
produced, we either gradually awake by the exertion of volition, or the
muscles connected by habit with such sensations alter the position of the
body; but where the sleep is uncommonly profound, and these uneasy
sensations great, the disease called the incubus or nightmare is produced.
Here the desire of moving the body is painfully exerted; but the power of
moving it, or volition, is incapable of action till we are awake.”
In consequence of this misapprehension of the nature of the will, it is
not easy to arrive at Darwin’s ideas on the subject; and the attempt is
rendered still more difficult from the fact that though he repeatedly
states that volition is entirely suspended during sleep, he yet in the
first part of the foregoing quotation makes an individual awake by the
gradual exercise of the power of the will; and then in the last part of
the same paragraph asserts that volition is incapable of action till sleep
is over.
Mr. Dugald Stewart[60] contends that during sleep the power of volition is
not suspended, but that those operations of the mind and body which depend
on volition cease to be exercised. In his opinion the will loses its
influence over all our powers both of mind and body in consequence of some
physical alteration in the system which we shall never probably be able
to explain. To show in full the views of so distinguished a philosopher as
Mr. Stewart, I quote the following extracts from his remarks on the
subject:
“In order to illustrate this conclusion [the one above stated] a little
further, it may be proper to remark that if the suspension of our
voluntary operations in sleep be admitted as a fact, there are only two
suppositions which can be formed regarding its cause. The one is that the
power of volition is suspended; the other that the will loses its
influence over those faculties of the mind and those members of the body
which during our waking hours are subjected to its authority. If it can be
shown then that the former supposition is not agreeable to fact, the truth
of the latter seems to follow as a necessary consequence.
“1. That the power of volition is not suspended during sleep, appears from
the efforts which we are conscious of making while in that situation. We
dream, for instance, that we are in danger, and we attempt to call out for
assistance. The attempt induced is in general unsuccessful, and the sounds
that we emit are feeble and indistinct; but this only confirms, or rather
is a necessary consequence of, the supposition that in sleep the
connection between the will and our voluntary operations is disturbed or
interrupted. The continuance of the power of volition is demonstrated by
the effort, however ineffectual.
“In like manner, in the course of an alarming dream we are sometimes
conscious of making an exertion to save ourselves by flight from an
apprehended danger; but in spite of all our efforts we continue in bed. In
such cases we commonly dream that we are attempting to escape and are
prevented by some external obstacle; but the fact seems to be that the
body is at that time not subject to the will. During the disturbed rest
which we sometimes have when the body is indisposed, the mind appears to
retain some power over it; but as even in these cases the motions which
are made consist rather of a general agitation of the whole system than of
the regular exertion of a particular member of it with a view to produce a
certain effect, it is reasonable to conclude that in perfectly sound sleep
the mind, although it retains the power of volition, retains no influence
whatever over the bodily organs.
“In that particular condition of the system which is known by the name of
_incubus_, we are conscious of a total want of power over the body; and I
believe the common opinion is that it is this want of power which
distinguishes the _incubus_ from all the other modifications of sleep. But
the more probable supposition seems to be that every species of sleep is
accompanied with a suspension of the faculty of voluntary motion; and that
the incubus has nothing peculiar in it but this--that the uneasy
sensations which are produced by the accidental posture of the body, and
which we find it impossible to remove by our own efforts, render us
distinctly conscious of our incapacity to move. One thing is certain, that
the instant of our awaking and of our recovering the command of our bodily
organs is one and the same.
“2. The same conclusion is confirmed by a different view of the subject.
It is probable, as was already observed, that when we are anxious to
procure sleep the state into which we naturally bring the mind approaches
to its state after sleep commences. Now it is manifest that the means
which nature directs us to employ on such occasions is not to suspend the
powers of volition, but to suspend the exertion of those powers whose
exercise depends on volition. If it were necessary that volition should be
suspended before we fall asleep, it would be impossible for us by our own
efforts to hasten the moment of rest. The very supposition of such efforts
is absurd, for it implies a continued will to suspend the acts of the
will.
“According to the foregoing doctrine with respect to the state of the mind
in sleep, the effort which is produced on our mental operations is
strikingly analogous to that which is produced on our bodily powers. From
the observations which have been already made, it is manifest that in
sleep the body is in a very inconsiderable degree, if at all, subject to
our command. The vital and involuntary motions, however, suffer no
interruption, but go on as when we are awake, in consequence of the
operation of some cause unknown to us. In like manner it would appear
that those operations of the mind which depend on our volition are
suspended, while certain other operations are at least occasionally
carried on. This analogy naturally suggests the idea that all our mental
operations which are independent of our will may continue during sleep;
and that the phenomena of dreaming may, perhaps, be produced by these,
diversified in their apparent effects in consequence of the suspension of
our voluntary powers.”
A very little reflection will suffice to convince the reader that Mr.
Stewart has altogether mistaken the nature of sleep. There is no evidence
to support his view that the body is not subject to the action of the will
during sleep. No change whatever is induced by this condition in the
nerves or muscles of the organism. The first are just as capable as ever
of conducting the nervous fluid, and the muscles do not lose any of their
contractile power. The reason why voluntary movements are not performed in
sleep is simply because the will does not act; and Mr. Stewart is again
wrong in asserting that volition is not then suspended. We do not will any
actions when we are asleep. We _imagine_ we do, and that is all. The
difficulties which encompass us in sleep are, it must be recollected,
purely imaginary, and the efforts we make to escape from them are likewise
the products of our fancy. Herein lies the main error which Mr. Stewart
has committed. He appears to accept the dream for a reality, and to
regard the seeming volitions which occur in it as actual facts; whereas
they are all entirely fictitious.
An example will serve to make this point still clearer.
Not long since I dreamed that I stood upon a very high perpendicular
table-land, at the foot of which flowed a river. I thought I experienced
an irresistible desire to approach the brink and to look down. Had I been
awake, such a wish would have been the very last to enter my mind, for I
have an instinctive dread of standing on a height. I dreamed that I threw
myself on my face and crawled to the edge of the cliff. I looked down at
the stream, which scarcely appeared to be as wide as my hand, so great was
the altitude upon which I was placed. As I looked I felt an overpowering
impulse to crawl still farther and to throw myself into the water below. I
imagined that I endeavored with all my will to resist this force, which
appeared to be acting by means altogether external to my organism. My
efforts, however, were all in vain. I could not control my movements, and
gradually I was urged farther and farther over the brink, till at last I
went down into the abyss below. As I struck the water I awoke with a
start. During my imaginary struggle I thought I experienced all the
emotions which such an event if real would have excited, and I was
painfully conscious of my utter inability to escape from the peril of my
situation. Here were circumstances such as, according to Mr. Stewart,
demonstrate the activity of volition, but at the same time show its
inability to act upon the body. But clearly they show no such thing, for
the imaginary volition was to refrain from crawling over a precipice which
did not exist, and over which, therefore, I was not hanging. Such an act
of the will if real, could not in the very nature of the real conditions
of the situation have been carried out--the volition was just as imaginary
as all the other circumstances of the dream.
Again, it is not always the case that the imaginary acts of the will are
not executed during sleep; and hence it would follow from Mr. Stewart’s
argument that the power of the will over the body is not then suspended.
Assuming for the moment that the volitions of sleep are real, as Mr.
Stewart supposes; if it can be shown that they are satisfactorily
performed, it results from his line of reasoning that the will has power
over the body during sleep. Every one who has ever dreamed has at times
had his will carried out to his entire satisfaction. He has ridden horses
when pursued, and has urged them forward with whip and spur so as to
escape from his enemies. Or he has executed the most surprising feats both
with his mind and body, and has performed voluntary deeds which have
excited the admiration of all beholders. Such acts are of course entirely
the product of the imagination, and all the volitions which accompany
them have no firmer basis than the unbridled fancy; but, according to Mr.
Stewart, they would be evidence of the power of the will over the body,--a
power which in reality does not exist; not, however, as Mr. Stewart
supposes from any impediments in the nerves or muscles, but because it is
never exerted.
So far as relates to movements performed during sleep, such as turning in
bed and assuming more comfortable positions, they have nothing whatever to
do with the will. They are dependent upon the action of the spinal cord,
an organ that is never at rest, and the functions of which were not known
as well when Dr. Darwin and Mr. Stewart wrote as they are now. The same is
true of more complex and longer-continued actions, such as those already
mentioned of individuals riding on horseback, or even walking, during
sleep.
Cabanis[61] contends that the will is not entirely suspended during sleep;
but, as will be perceived from the following quotation, he bases his
argument upon the fact that movements are produced which he attributes
erroneously to the action of the will, but which, like those previously
referred to, are accomplished by the agency of the spinal cord. He says,
speaking of the instances of persons walking while asleep:
“These rare cases are not the only ones in which during sleep movements
are produced by what remains of the will; for it is by virtue of certain
direct sensations that a sleeping man moves his arm to brush away the
flies that may be on his face, that he draws up the bedclothes so as to
cover himself carefully; or, as we have already remarked, that he turns
over and endeavors to find a more comfortable position. It is the will
which during sleep maintains the contraction of the sphincter of the
bladder, notwithstanding the effort of the urine to escape; it is the same
power which directs the action of the arm in seeking for the _vase de
nuit_, which knows where to find it, and enables the individual to use it
for several minutes and to return it to its place without being awakened.
Finally, it is not without reason that some physiologists have made the
will concur in the contraction of several muscles, the movements of which
are necessary to the maintenance of respiration during sleep.”
All these movements, and many others of a similar character, are entirely
spinal, and are altogether independent of cerebral influence. Even when we
are awake, we constantly execute muscular actions through the power of the
spinal cord, when the mind is intently occupied with other things. Take
for instance the example of a person playing on the piano, and at the same
time carrying on a conversation. Here the brain is engaged in the one act
and the spinal cord in the other. So long as the player is not expert in
the fingering of the instrument, he cannot divert his attention from his
performance; for the whole power of the mind is required for the proper
appreciation and execution of the music. But after the spinal cord has
become educated to the habit, and he has attained proficiency in the
necessary manipulations, the mind is no longer required to control the
actions and may be directed to other subjects. The arguments of Cabanis,
therefore, in favor of the partial exercise of the will during sleep, are
of no force.
But the power of the will over the muscles of the body is only one of the
ways in which this faculty is shown. It regulates the thoughts and the
manifestations of emotion when we are awake. How utterly incapable it is
of any such action during sleep we all know. A gentleman, remarkable for
the ability he possesses for controlling his feelings, tells me that when
he is asleep he frequently weeps or laughs at imaginary events, which, if
they really had occurred to him during wakefulness, would give rise to no
such disturbance. He often desires to stop these emotional manifestations,
but is entirely powerless to do so. Most individuals have had similar
experiences.
The theory that the will is in action during sleep is, therefore, to my
mind untenable. It has probably had its origin in the idea that confounds
it with desire, from which it differs so markedly that it seems strange
the distinction should ever fail of being made. Locke[62] points out very
clearly the differences between the two faculties. In fact they may be
exerted in directly opposite ways. Desire often precedes volition; but we
all, at times, will acts which are contrary to our desire, and desire to
perform others which we are unable to will.
Reid[63] writes with great perspicuity on this distinction between desire
and will. He says:
“Desire and will agree in this, that both must have an object of which we
must have some conception; and, therefore, both must be accompanied with
some degree of understanding. But they differ in several things.
“The object of desire may be anything which appetite, passion, or
affection leads us to pursue; it may be any event which we think good for
us, or for those to whom we are well affected. I may desire meat or drink,
or ease from pain. But to say that I will meat, or will drink, or will
ease from pain, is not English. There is, therefore, a distinction in
common language between desire and will. And the distinction is, that what
we will must be an action and our own action; what we desire may not be
our own action, it may be no action at all.
“A man desires that his children may be happy, and that they may behave
well. Their being happy is no action at all; their behaving well is not
his action but theirs.
“With regard to our own actions, we may desire what we do not will, and
will what we do not desire; nay, what we have a great aversion to.
“A man athirst has a strong desire to drink; but for some particular
reason he determines not to gratify his desire. A judge from a regard to
justice and to the duty of his office dooms a criminal to die; while, from
humanity or particular affection, he desires that he should live. A man
for health may take a nauseous draught, for which he has no desire, but a
great aversion. Desire, therefore, even when its object is some action of
our own, is only an incitement to will; but it is not volition. The
determination of the mind may be not to do what we desire to do. But as
desire is often accompanied by will, we are apt to overlook the
distinction between them.”
That desire is manifested during sleep there can be no doubt; and Mr.
Stewart, although insisting as he does on the distinction between this
faculty and volition, confounds them in his remarks already quoted. A
person suffering from nightmare has a most intense desire to escape from
his imaginary troubles. In my own dream, to which reference has been made,
my desire to restrain myself from crawling over the precipice was exerted
to the utmost; but the will could not be brought into action. Darwin,[64]
when he says that in nightmare “the _desire_ of moving the body is
painfully exerted, but the _power of moving it, or volition_, is incapable
of action till we awake,” makes the proper distinction between desire and
will; but, as I have already shown, confounds the latter with another very
different faculty.
From the foregoing observations it will be seen that during sleep the
three great divisions of the mind are differently affected.
1. Feeling, embracing sensation and emotion, is suspended, so far as the
first is concerned; but is in full action as regards the second. We do not
see, hear, smell, taste or enjoy the sense of touch in sleep, although the
brain may be aroused into activity and we may awake through the
excitations conveyed to it by the special senses. The emotions have full
play, unrestrained by the will and governed only by the imagination.
2. The Will or Volition is entirely suspended.
3. The Thought or Intellect is variously affected in its different powers.
The imagination is active, and the memory may be exercised to a great
extent; but the judgment, perception, conception, abstraction, and reason
are weakened, and sometimes altogether lost.