A monograph on sleep and dream: their physiology and psychology

by Edward W. Cox

But that is not the condition. All the forces have not ceased from their work. The vital force continues in full activity, keeping the machinery in motion and performing the work of nutrition, reparation and growth. The mind is not at rest; the phenomena of dream directly contradict such a conclusion. The whole mental mechanism is certainly not at rest. A part of it is very busy. The hemispheres of the brain are not sleeping—or sleeping but partially. They are enacting dreams. They are in truth working with infinitely greater speed and power when we are asleep than when we are awake!

If, then, the brain hemispheres are waking above and the body is sleeping below, the communication between them must be severed by sleep at some part of the mechanism below the brain hemispheres (which are the mechanism of the Intelligence) and the point where the brain branches into the nerve system—which is the mechanism by whose action the vital force forms and sustains the organic structure.

That point is obviously the point at which the Will exercises its power of control over the body. Thus does this inquiry into the Psychology of Sleep and Dream promise to throw light upon that mysterious part of the mechanism of man. Professor Ferrier has proved that the Will is exercised through the brain hemispheres, which are the organs of the Intelligence. In the waking and normal condition of the structure the Will commands and controls the body. In sleep and other abnormal conditions the Will ceases to command the body. Between the brain hemispheres and the nerves that move the body something seems to be interposed which either paralyses the Will or ceases to transmit its commands. What is that something? Anatomically we find two ganglia, one being the centre upon which the nerves of the senses converge. We know, also, that in sleep the senses cease to transmit their impressions, or do so but dimly. The conclusion is, that the seat of sleep is in this ganglion. Because that is slumbering, the commands of the Will cannot be conveyed from the brain to the body, nor can the messages sent by the senses from the body be conveyed to the brain.

It is a moot point if the entire of the mechanism of the brain, or parts of it only, and, if so, what parts, fall into the condition of sleep. But, however that may be, there can be little doubt, from the facts stated above, that the ganglion at the base of the brain hemispheres is the seat of sleep. It is certain that the entire of the two brain hemispheres does not always sleep or dream could not be. Whether the ganglion that interposes between the cerebral centre and the body, and whence streams the nerve system, succumbs to sleep we have no certain knowledge. The presumption is that it does not, for the nerves whose office is to sustain the functions of the vital organs do not sleep. Why they need not the rest that is required by other parts of the mechanism we do not know. Rest appears to be necessary for that portion of the mechanism only that is subject to voluntary action. Where the Will controls, the repose of sleep is required for all structure subjected to it. Why?

Does the nerve system that moves the mechanism of the body sleep? The bonds that link brain and body are relaxed. The Will has ceased to control either of them. The material form is at rest. But it rests only because the power of the controlling Will is paralysed. All involuntary actions continue and with the more regularity and efficiency because they are not subjected to the disturbing influences of the Will.

And what is this potent Will?

The Will is merely the expression of the Conscious Self—the power which the Conscious Self exercises over the material mechanism of the body and through the body upon the material world without.

CHAPTER V.
OF DREAM.

As already stated, at the first approach of sleep we are conscious of inability so to control our thoughts as to keep them in the orderly train they had been pursuing previously. Ideas come uncalled for. Pictures rise before the mental eye and vanish instantly. Other pictures intrude, having no apparent association with their predecessors. They enter and pass before us unbidden. The mind falls into confusion. There is entanglement of the threads of thought. Even while the eye is yet open, the objects on which it gazes fade and vanish. Sounds fall faintly upon the ear and die away. The vision of the mind grows dim or is eclipsed by other unsummoned pictures, often altogether incongruous, which blend with the picture present, then melt into it, then usurp its place, and then are in their turn displaced. We are conscious that we can no longer control the movements of the mind. Momentary resistance to the influence but provokes its more vigorous return. For an instant we wake with a start to consciousness of the external world. If we desire to resist the coming on of sleep, we exert the Will fitfully, start into waking life for a few moments, contract the relaxed muscles, open the drooped eyelids, stare with a peculiar expression of imbecile amazement, strive to look as if we had not been surprised by sleep, and for a while the mind resumes its normal action. But soon again the thoughts are dislocated and replaced by a swarm of yet more dissevered ideas. We feel again the dropping lid, the relaxing muscle, the nodding head. Strive as we may, we are unable to note the moment when unconsciousness begins. We remember falling asleep, but we do not remember, and no human being has ever yet remembered, the very act of going to sleep.