CHAPTER III.
[1.] Imagination defined. [2.] Sleep and dreams defined. [3.] Causes of dreams. [4.] Fiction defined. [5.] Phantasms defined. [6.] Remembrance defined. [7.] Wherein remembrance consisteth. [8.] Why in a dream a man never thinks he dreams. [9.] Why few things seem strange in dreams. [10.] That a dream may be taken for reality and vision.
Imagination defined.
1. As standing water put into motion by the stroke of a stone, or blast of wind, doth not presently give over moving as soon as the wind ceaseth, or the stone settleth: so neither doth the effect cease which the object hath wrought upon the brain, so soon as ever by turning aside of the organs the object ceaseth to work; that is to say, though the sense be past, the image or conception remaineth; but more obscure while we are awake, because some object or other continually plieth and soliciteth our eyes, and ears, keeping the mind in a stronger motion, whereby the weaker doth not easily appear. And this obscure conception is that we call phantasy, or imagination: imagination being, to define it, conception remaining, and by little and little decaying from and after the act of sense.
Sleep and dreams defined.
2. But when present sense is not, as in sleep, there the images remaining after sense, when there be many, as in dreams, are not obscure, but strong and clear, as in sense itself. The reason is, that which obscured and made the conceptions weak, namely sense, and present operation of the object, is removed: for sleep is the privation of the act of sense, (the power remaining) and dreams are the imagination of them that sleep.
Causes of dreams.
3. The causes of dreams, if they be natural, are the actions or violence of the inward parts of a man upon his brain, by which the passages of sense by sleep benumbed, are restored to their motion. The signs by which this appeareth to be so, are the differences of dreams (old men commonly dream oftener, and have their dreams more painful than young) proceeding from the different accidents of man’s body, as dreams of lust, as dreams of anger, according as the heart, or other parts within, work more or less upon the brain, by more or less heat; so also the descents of different sorts of phlegm maketh us a dream of different tastes of meats and drinks; and I believe there is a reciprocation of motion from the brain to the vital parts, and back from the vital parts to the brain; whereby not only imagination begetteth motion in those parts; but also motion in those parts begetteth imagination like to that by which it was begotten. If this be true, and that sad imaginations nourish the spleen, then we see also a cause, why a strong spleen reciprocally causeth fearful dreams, and why the effects of lasciviousness may in a dream produce the image of some person that had caused them. Another sign that dreams are caused by the action of the inward parts, is the disorder and casual consequence of one conception or image to another: for when we are waking, the antecedent thought or conception introduceth, and is cause of the consequent, as the water followeth a man’s finger upon a dry and level table; but in dreams there is commonly no coherence, and when there is, it is by chance, which must needs proceed from this, that the brain in dreams is not restored to its motion in every part alike; whereby it cometh to pass, that our thoughts appear like the stars between the flying clouds, not in the order which a man would choose to observe them, but as the uncertain flight of broken clouds permits.
Fiction defined.