space with visions, seemingly palpable as those
that distressed Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller.
Then, since animals dream, one might ask,
"What sort of spirits are employed in suggesting
dreams to dogs?" and so knock down the
argument by an appeal to absurdity.

As to the external nature of the phantasmagoria
of dreams, we may, from the mere constitution
of man, show that the soul needs no one
but herself to prepare and paint the slides, or to
set up in dream-land the magic-lantern of her
puppet theatre. The mind is a great conjuror.
Some have said that she is like a double-actioned
harp, and can play many chords at one and the
same moment. Certainly the duality of the
nerves and organs of sense seem to indicate a
power in the mind of (at least) a duplex action.
The thought has been carried out in an ingenious
volume called The Duality of the Brain. But
the scenery of the soul is too varied to
be accounted for by a mere double-action.
To trace her phenomena we need that multiplicity
of operation which her varied faculties do
really imply. Within her consciousness is
comprised creation — nay, God himself, or all that
we can conceive of God. What wonder, then,
that the mind can people her own territory,
haunt herself, alarm herself, but, above all,
amuse herself?

Not incompatible with repose are pleasing,
dreams, when life is just kept from
stagnation by some small outlay of invention,
some small exercise of the imaginative faculty.
Thus, a vast proportion of the phenomena
of dreams are explicable by a simple
reference to the natural uses of sleep.
"Laziness" is a great, word to explain dreams. The
soul is too wise to exert herself in sleep; for
exertion would contradict the very reason why
she sleeps. This consideration explains why
dreams are mostly imperfect, unconnected, and
void of volition. They are lazily constructed.
Most dreamers, I doubt not, have observed that
if they dream they are going to a play, or to
hear a favourite singer, they seldom get to the
play or succeed in hearing the singer. If they
do enter what they suppose to be a theatre, the
theatre is very dimly seen, and partaking more of
the character of a room than of a theatre. If they
do see the prima donna before them, something
mostly prevents her singing. If they hear her
sing— I never heard a man sing in a dream— the
notes are few, and soon break off for some
unimaginable reason. I imagine that a dream of
sound is caused by an actual sound, which, at a
moment of imperfect sleep, impresses the ear.
I have, after hearing music in a dream, heard,
on waking, the sound which manifestly prompted
the dream: perhaps nothing more musical than
a London cry. Occasionally, the sound in the
dream, has been actually the sound out of
the dream. I remember dreaming that I
was sitting by a lady, and conversing with
her (I think that conversations are not audibly
carried on in dreams), when suddenly she
began, to my infinite consternation, to crow like
a cock. I woke with a start, and became aware
that a small bantam, in a yard over which I at
that time slept, was really crowing in a shrill
and female tone.

Another sort of abortive dream that I may
mention, is a dream of vengeance. I have often
seemed to be fighting with an imaginary adversary,
always having the advantage, always
pommelling him well. But never did it happen that
I seemed to hurt my antagonist. After having
rained blows upon him enough to kill him ten
times over, he has invariably smiled at me, as if
he said, "Thank you!" In the same way, I
have sometimes dreamt I was arguing in anger
with some obstinate person, whom I never
succeeded in throwing into a rage.

The explanation of these abortive cases of
dreaming is (as I take it), that our own
sensations are clear to us in sleep, but very little
beyond them. Some stray memory, some throb
in the blood, makes us wish to hear a singer or
to punish a foe; but the mind is too idle
elaborately to create the theatre, or to put force
into the adversary. In a state of imperfect
sleep, that state in which a man says to himself,
"I know that this is all a dream," I have
sometimes known that I could see nothing of persons
or objects, which yet I fancied were around me.
Then, by an effort of momentary volition, I have
torn open, as it were, my mental eyes, and had
a strange burst of light, and a brief revelation
of objects, sometimes very beautiful. I
remember once dreaming I was climbing up the
Acropolis of Athens— which I had never seen
— in this sort of mind-blindness. Suddenly I
reached the top, which I had approached from
landward, and suddenly the wondrous dream-
illumination, so strong when it does come,
revealed to me the Archipelago, and all its islands,
with a distinctness which is even now vivid in
my memory.

On the whole, it may be averred that imperfect
sensation is the great cause of dreams. Motions
of the brain, motions of the blood, craving, or
derangements of the stomach, various states of
the fluids of the mouth, all bring with them, and
reproduce in sleep, the sensations and ideas with
which, in a waking state, they are associated.

It is a great and an interesting truth, which
throws prodigious light on the mysteries of
sensation, that sensation has her invariable
language; that even in sleep she is consistent
with herself; that, even when she reads in a
disordered book, she herself is immutable. The
last change in sensation, let it be originated
how it may, engenders the idea. This is
the great law of conscious being; and singular
it is, that, through the falsity of some sensuous
impressions, we become most aware of the truth
of the law that regulates them.

From irregular motions of the brain, or too
rapid passage of the blood (all the vital
movements are quickened in sleep), we get
many of those strange phenomena of dreams
which are well-known to most people, but
especially to the young, whose blood

                    —— glows lively and returns
  Brisk as the April buds in primrose season.