Sleep and Its Derangements

by William A. Hammond

Macario[50] makes the following apposite remarks on the point under consideration. Referring to the preposterous nature of many dreams, he says:

“It is astonishing that all these fantastical and impossible visions seem to us quite natural, and excite no astonishment. This is because the judgment and reflection having abdicated, no longer control the imagination nor co-ordinate the thoughts which rush tumultuously through the brain of the sleeper, combined only by the power of association.

“When I say that the judgment and reflection abdicate, it should not be inferred that they are abolished and no longer exist, for the imagination could not, unaided by the reason, construct the whimsical and capricious images of dreams.”

Relative to the power to work out, during sleep, problems involving long and intricate mental processes, I have already expressed my opinion adversely. In this view, I am not alone. Rosenkranz,[51] whose contributions to psychological science cannot be overestimated, and whose clear and powerful understanding has rarely been excelled, has pointed out how such operations of the understanding are impossible; for, as he remarks, intellectual problems cannot be solved during sleep, for such a thing as intense thought, accompanied by images, is unknown, whilst dreams consist of a series of images connected by loose and imperfect reasoning. Feuchtersleben,[52] referring with approval to this opinion of Rosenkranz, says that he recollects perfectly having dreamt of such problems, and being happy in their solution, endeavored to retain them in his memory; he succeeded, but discovered, on awaking, that they were quite unmeaning, and could only have imposed upon a sleeping imagination.

Müller[53] says:

“Sometimes we reason more or less correctly in dreams. We reflect on problems and rejoice in their solution. But on awaking from such dreams, the seeming reasoning is frequently found to have been no reasoning at all, and the solution of the problem over which we had rejoiced, to be mere nonsense. Sometimes we dream that another person proposes an enigma; that we cannot solve it and that others are equally incapable of doing so; but that the person who proposed it, himself gives the explanation. We are astonished at the solution we had so long labored in vain to find. If we do not immediately awaken and afterwards reflect on this proposition of an enigma in our dream, and on its apparent solution, we think it wonderful; but if we awake immediately after the dream, and are able to compare the answer with the question, we find that it was mere nonsense.”

And in regard to the knowledge that we are dreaming, the same author[54] observes that:

“The indistinctness of the conception in dreams is generally so great that we are not aware that we dream. The phantasms which are perceived really exist in our organs of sense. They afford, therefore, in themselves as strong proof of the actual existence of the objects they represent, as our own perceptions of real external objects in the waking state; for we know the latter only by the affections of our senses which they produce. When, therefore, the mind has lost the faculty of analyzing the impressions on our senses, there is no reason why the things which they seem to represent should be supposed unreal. Even in the waking state phantasms are regarded as real objects when they occur to persons of feeble intellect. On the other hand, when the dreaming approaches more nearly to the waking state, we sometimes are conscious that we merely dream, and still allow the dream to proceed, while we retain this consciousness of its true nature.”

Sir Benjamin Brodie,[55] in discussing the subject of wonderful discoveries made in dreams, and abstruse problems worked out, remarks that it would indeed be strange if among the vast number of combinations which constitute our dreams, there were not every now and then some having the semblance of reality; and further, that in many of the stories of great discoveries made in dreams, there is much of either mistake or exaggeration, and that if they could have been written down at the time, they would have been found to be worth little or nothing.

Another faculty exercised during sleep has been ascribed to the judgment. It is well known that many persons having made up their minds to awake at a certain hour invariably do so. I possess this power in a high degree, and scarcely ever vary a minute from the fixed time. Just as I go to bed I look at my watch and impress upon my mind the figures on the dial which represent the hour and minute at which I wish to awake. I give myself no further anxiety on the subject, and never dream of it, but I always wake at the desired moment.