"The same idea, when it occurs again without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, is remembrance: if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavour found, and brought again in view, it is recollection: if it be held there long under consideration, it is contemplation; when ideas float in our mind without any reflexion or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call réverie;[87] our language has scarce a name for it. When the ideas that offer themselves (for as I have observed in another place, while we are awake, there will always be a train of ideas succeeding one another in our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registered in the memory, it is attention; when the mind, with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas, it is what we call intention or study. Sleep without dreaming is rest from all these: and dreaming itself, is the having of ideas (while the outward senses are stopped, so that they receive not outward objects with their usual quickness) in the mind, not suggested by any external objects, or known occasion, nor under any choice or conduct of the understanding at all, and whether that which we call ecstasy, be not dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined."
Dr. Beattie, in his "Dissertations moral and critical," has an ingenious essay on this subject, in which he attempts to ascertain, not so much the efficient as the final causes of the phenomenon, and to obviate those superstitions in regard to it, which have sometimes troubled weak minds. He labours, with great earnestness, to shew, that dreams may be of use in the way of physical admonition: that persons, who attend to them with this view, may make important discoveries with regard to their health; that they may be serviceable as the means of moral improvement; that, by attending to them, we may discern our predominant passions, and receive good hints for the regulation of them; that they may have been intended by Providence to serve as an amusement to the mental powers; and that dreaming is not universal, because, probably, all constitutions do not require such intellectual amusement. In observations of this kind, we may discover the ingenuity of fancy and the sagacity of conjecture. We may find amusement in the arguments, but we look in vain for satisfaction. Nature, certainly, does nothing in vain, yet we are far from thinking, that man is able, in every case, to discover her intentions. Final causes, perhaps, ought never to be the subject of human speculation, but when they are plain and obvious. To substitute vain conjectures, instead of the designs of Providence, on subjects where those designs are beyond our reach, serves only to furnish matter for the cavils of the sceptical, and the sneers of the licentious.
Among the many striking phenomena in our dreams, it may be observed, that, while they last, the memory seems to lie wholly torpid, and the understanding to be employed only about such objects as are then presented, without comparing the present with the past. When we sleep, we often converse with a friend who is either absent or dead, without remembering that the grave or the ocean is between us. We float, like a feather, upon the wind; for we find ourselves this moment in England, and the next in India, without reflecting that the laws of nature are suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly shifted before us. We are familiar with prodigies; we accommodate ourselves to every event, however romantic; and we not only reason, but act upon principles, which are in the highest degree absurd and extravagant. Our dreams, moreover, are so far from being the effect of a voluntary effort, that we neither know of what we shall dream, or whether we shall dream at all.
But sleep is not the only time in which strange and unconnected objects involve our ideas in confusion. Besides the réveries of the day, already spoken of, we have, in a moral view, our waking-dreams, which are not less chimerical, and impossible to be realized, than the imaginations of the night.
Night visions may befriend——
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impossible (could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung,
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Till at deaths' toll,——
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Many of the fabulous stories of ghosts or apparitions have originated unquestionably in dreams. There are times of slumber when we are sensible of being asleep. "When the thoughts are much troubled," says Hobbes, "and when a person sleeps without the circumstance of going to bed, or pulling off his clothes, as when he nods in his chair, it is very difficult to distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily suspects it to have been a dream."[88] On this principle, Hobbes has ingeniously accounted for the spectre which is said to have appeared to Brutus; and the well-known story told by Clarendon, of the apparition of the duke of Buckingham's father will admit of a similar solution. There was no man at that time in the kingdom so much the topic of conversation as the duke; and, from the corruptness of his character, he was very likely to fall a sacrifice to the corruptness of the times. Sir George Villiers is said to have appeared to the man at midnight—there is therefore the greatest probability that the man was asleep; and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was likely to be repeated.
History furnishes us with numerous instances of a forecast having been communicated through the medium of dreams, some of which are so extraordinary as almost to shake our belief that the hand of Providence is not sometimes evident through their instrumentality. Cicero, in his first book on Divination, tells us, that Heraclides, a clever man, and who had been a disciple of Plato, writes that the mother of Phalaris saw in a dream the statues of the gods which she had consecrated in the house of her son; and among other things, it appeared to her, that from a cup which Mercury held in his hand, he had spilled some blood from it, and that the blood had scarcely touched the ground, than rising up in large bubbles it filled the whole house. This dream of the mother was afterwards but too truly verified in the cruelty of the son. Cyrus dreamt that seeing the sun at his feet, he made three different unsuccessful attempts to lay his hand upon it, at each of which it evaded him. The Persian Magi who interpreted this dream told him that these three attempts to seize the sun signified that he would reign thirty years. This prediction was verified: he died at the age of seventy, having begun to reign when he was forty years old.
"There is doubtless," says Cicero, "something even among barbarians which marks that they possess the gift of presentiment and divination." The Indian Calanus mounting the flaming faggot on which he was about to be burnt, exclaimed "O what a fine exit from life, when my body, like that of Hercules, shall be consumed by the fire, my spirit will freely enjoy the light." And Alexander having asked if he had anything to say, he replied, "Yes, I shall soon see you," which happened as he foretold, Alexander having died a few days afterwards at Babylon. Xenophon, an ardent disciple of Socrates, relates that in the war which he made in favour of young Cyrus, he had some dreams which were followed by the most miraculous events. Shall we say that Xenophon does not speak truth, or is too extravagant? What! so great a personage, and so divine a spirit as Aristotle, can he be deceived? Or does he wish to deceive others, when he tells us of Eudemus of Cyprus, one of his friends, wishing to go into Macedonia, passed by Pheres, a celebrated town in Thessaly, which at that time was under the dominion of the tyrant Alexander; and that having fallen very sick, he saw in a dream a very handsome young man, who told him that he would cure him, and that the tyrant Alexander would shortly die, but as to himself, he would return home at the end of five years. Aristotle remarks that the two first predictions were, indeed, soon accomplished; that Eudemus recovered, and that the tyrant was killed by his wife's brothers; but that at the expiration of five years, the time at which it was hoped Eudemus, according to the dream, was to return to Sicily, his native country, news were received that he had been killed in a combat near Syracuse; which gave rise to another interpretation of the dream, namely, that, when the spirit or soul of Eudemus left his body, it went thence straight to his own house.—A cup of massy gold having been stolen from the temple of Hercules, this god appeared in a dream to Sophocles three consecutive times, and pointed out the thief to him; who was put to the torture, confessed the delinquency, and gave up the cup. The temple afterwards received the name of Hercules Indicator.
An endless variety of similar instances, both from ancient and modern history, might be adduced of the singularity of dreams, as well as their instrumentality in revealing secrets which, without such agency, had lain for ever in oblivion; these, however, are sufficient for our purpose here; and the occurrence of one of a very recent date, connected with the discovery of the body of the murdered Maria Martin, in the red barn, is still fresh in the recollection of our readers. That there is a ridiculous infatuation attached by some people to dreams, which have no meaning, and which are the offsprings of the day's thoughts, even among persons whose education should inform them better, particularly among the fair sex, cannot be denied; indeed, a conversation seldom passes among them, but some inconsistent dream or other, form a leading feature of their gossip; and doubtless is with them an hysterical symptom.
Sometimes in our sleeping dreams, we imagine ourselves involved in inextricable woe, and enjoy at waking, the ecstasy of a deliverance from it. "And such a deliverance," says Dr. Beattie, "will every good man meet with at last, when he is taken away from the evils of life, and awakes in the regions of everlasting light and peace; looking back upon the world and its troubles, with a surprise and satisfaction similar in kind (though far higher in degree) to that which we now feel, when we escape from a terrifying dream, and open our eyes to the sweet serenity of a summer morning." Sometimes, in our dreams, we imagine scenes of pure and unutterable joy; and how much do we regret at waking, that the heavenly vision is no more! But what must the raptures of the good man be, when he enters the regions of immortality, and beholds the radiant fields of permanent delight! The idea of such a happy death, such a sweet transition, from the dreams of earth to the realities of heaven, is thus beautifully described by Dryden, in his poem entitled Eleonora: