The Philosophy of Mystery

by Walter Cooper Dendy

1. A susceptibility of influence;

2. The influence itself;

3. The effect of this influence:

And these I call the predisposing, the exciting, and the proximate causes.

1. The brain is brought to this susceptibility by excited temperament, study, intense and undivided thought; in short, by any intense impression.

2. The influence or excitement is applied; congestion of blood producing impression on extremities, or origin of a nerve, at the period of departing or returning consciousness. At these periods, the blood changes, and I believe, as it changes, the phenomena of mind, as in the waking state, obey these changes:—rational and light dreams being the effect of circulation of scarlet blood; dull and reasonless visions and “night-mare,” that of crimson, or black blood.

3. The effect of this influence is recurrence of idea, memory,—more or less erroneously associated, as the blood approximates to the black or scarlet state, or as the brain itself is constituted.

Now it is essential to the perfect function of the brain, not only that it shall have a due supply of blood, but that this blood shall be of that quality we term oxygenated. If there be a simple deficiency of this scarlet blood, a state of sound undisturbed sleep will ensue (slightly analogous to the condition of syncope, or fainting). This may be the consequence of any indirect impression, or the natural indication of that direct debility, which we witness in early infancy, and in the “second childishness and mere oblivion” of old age. But this deficiency of arterial blood may be depending on a more positive cause, venous congestion, impeding its flow; for in sleep, the breathing being slower, the blood becomes essentially darker. Even arterial blood itself will become to a certain degree carbonized, by lentor, or stagnation. Venous congestion and diminution of arterial circulation are not incompatible; indeed, Dr. Abercrombie reasons very ably on their relative nature, implying the necessity of some remora of venous circulation to supply that want or vacuum which the brain would otherwise experience from the deficiency of the current in the arterial system. Thus will the languid arterial circulation of the brain, which causes sleep in the first instance, produce, secondarily, that congestion of blood in the veins and sinuses, which shall reduce it to disturbed slumber, and excite the dream. May we not account, on this principle, for the difficulty which many persons experience in falling into a second slumber, when they have been disturbed in the first?

Ida. Combe, I believe, observed, through a hole in a fractured skull, that the brain was elevated during an apparent dream.

Ev. This is a matter of frequent observation with us. There was, in 1821, at Montpelier, a woman who had lost part of the skull, and the brain and its membranes lay bare. When she was in deep sleep, the brain lay in the skull almost motionless; when she was dreaming, it became elevated; and when her dreams (proved by her relating them when awake) were on vivid or animating subjects, but especially when she was awake, the brain was protruded through the cranial aperture.

Blumenbach states that he, himself, witnessed in one person a sinking of the brain, whenever he was asleep, and a swelling with blood when he awoke. David Hartley, therefore, may be half right and half wrong when he imputes dreams to an impediment to the flow of blood, a collapse of the ventricles, and a diminished quantity of their contained serum.

We thus have not only a deficiency of proper stimulus, but a deleterious condition of the blood, which acts as a poison to the brain. In fatal cases of coma and delirium, we observe deep red points, chiefly in the cineritious part of the brain, from this congestion of its vessels. Sound sleep is thus prevented, but the congestion of carbonized blood acting as a sort of narcotic, depresses the energy of the brain so far as to prevent waking, inducing that middle state, drowsiness or slumber; so that sleep may thus depend on congestion from exhaustion; and “spectral illusion” from congestion in that state short of slumber; and insanity itself from congestion still more copious and permanent.