A monograph on sleep and dream: their physiology and psychology

by Edward W. Cox

This Conscious Self, which possesses the power we call the Will, is not, and cannot be, the material brain, nor the product of the brain, as the Materialists assert; for we see that in Dream the brain is in part awake and working without the assistance or control of the Will; proving that the Self, of whom the Will is the expression, is not identical with the brain.

Moreover, the Conscious Self, although taking cognizance of the action of the mind in dream, is nevertheless unable to direct its action; thus affording another proof that the Conscious Self and the material mechanism are not identical.

The phenomena of Dream, then, are the facts first presented in the scientific investigation of Psychology from which we derive physical proofs of the existence of a Soul in Man, not as a vague theory merely, but as shown by the positive evidence of his mechanism in action.

CHAPTER X.
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.