Thus the ideas of a dream may be considered as a species of delirium; for the figures and situations of both are often of the most heterogeneous description, and both are ever illusive, being believed to be realities, and not being subject to the control of our intellect. Yet, if the most absurd dream be analyzed, its constituent parts may consist either of ideas, in themselves not irrational, or of sensations or incidents which have been individually felt or witnessed.
So the remembered faces and forms of our absent friends, faithful though a part of the likeness may be, are associated with the grossest absurdity.
“Velut ægri somnia, vanæ
Fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni
Reddatur formæ.”
Or, as Dryden has written,—
“Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes:
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings.