A very interesting paper on dreaming, by Dr. Thomas More Madden,[94] has been recently published, and from it I make the following extract:
“Intermittent fever is often announced, several days before any of the recognized symptoms set in, by persistent dreams of terrifying character. I have experienced this in my own person, and heard it confirmed by other sufferers on the African Coast. The following case of morbid dreaming ushering in yellow fever, I subjoin in the words of the gentleman to whom it occurred, himself a medical man holding a high official position on the Gold Coast where it occurred.
“‘In the early part of 1840, I was an inmate of Cape Coast Castle, and as some repairs were then being made in the castle, the room assigned to me was that in which the ill-fated L. E. L. (Mrs. Maclean), the wife of the governor of Cape Coast, had been found dead, poisoned by prussic acid, not very long previously. I had known her in London, and had been intimately acquainted with her history and much interested in it. Her body had been found on the floor near the door and in front of a window. After a fatiguing excursion to some of the adjoining British settlements on the Coast, having retired to rest, I awoke disturbed by a dream of a very vivid character, in which I imagined that I saw the dead body of the lady who had died in that chamber lying on the floor before me. On awaking the image of the corpse kept possession of my imagination. The moon was shining brightly into the part of the room where the body had been found, and there, as it seemed to me on awaking, it lay pale and lifeless as it appeared to me in my dream.
“‘After some minutes I started up, determined to approach the spot where the body seemed to be. I did so, not without terror, and walking over the very spot on which the moon was shining, the fact all at once became evident and obvious that no body was there—that I must have been dreaming of one. I returned to bed, and had not long fallen asleep when the same vivid dream recurred; the same waking disturbance occurring while awake. As long as I lay gazing on the floor I could not dispossess my mind of that appalling vision; but when I started up and stood erect it vanished at the first glance.
“‘Again I returned to bed, dozed, dreamt again of poor L. E. L.’s lamentable end, and of her remains in the same spot; again awoke, and arose with the same strange results.
“‘There was no more disturbance that night of which, at least, I was conscious, but when morning came fever was on me in unmistakable force in its worst form, and partial delirium set in the same night. I was reduced to the last extremity about the third or fourth night of my illness, when a conviction seized on my mind that it was absolutely essential to my life that I should not pass another night in Cape Coast Castle. I caused the negro servant I had fortunately brought out with me from England to have a litter prepared for me at dawn, and stretched on this litter, hardly able to lift hand or foot, I was carried out of my bed by four native soldiers, and was conveyed to the house of a merchant, and countryman of mine, to whose care and kindness I owe my life. So much for a visionary precursor of fever on the west coast of Africa.’
“In neuralgia, disturbed dreaming is occasionally a prominent symptom. In an obscure case I was led to make what I believe to be a true diagnosis from the indications furnished by the patient’s dreams. The individual in question is a man, aged about 45, of an anemic habit, confined by a sedentary occupation, who, for many years, had suffered from hemicrania, which lately had become more intense, and the intervals shorter. A couple of days before the attack his sleep becomes broken by unpleasant dreams, and when the paroxysm has attained its height, he invariably dreams that he is the helpless victim of a persecutor, who finishes a series of torments by driving a stake through his skull. During his recovery from each attack, he states that his dreams are of a most agreeable character, though so vague that he cannot give any account of them. The frequent repetition of his dreams leads me to conclude that there is some osseous growth within the cranium, and that the vascular distention accompanying the neuralgic attack occasions pressure upon this, giving rise to the sensation I have referred to, while the subsequent feeling of comfort results from that pressure being removed.”
A case has been recently published[95] in which the dream immediately preceded, or perhaps even accompanied, the morbid action. A German, aged 45, of a nervo-sanguineous temperament, went to bed at 11 P. M., feeling as well as usual. Between 12 and 1 o’clock he dreamed that he saw his child lying at his side, dead. He was very much frightened, and at once awoke, to find that his tongue was paralyzed, and that he could not talk. The faculty of speech and the ability to move the tongue remained impaired for four months.
For several years past I have made inquiries of patients and others relative to their dreams, and have thus collected a large amount of material bearing upon the subject. With reference to the point under consideration, the data in my possession are exceedingly important and interesting. Among the cases which have come under my observation of diseases being preceded by morbid dreams, are the following:
A gentleman, two days before an attack of hemiplegia, dreamed that he was cut in two exactly down the mesial line, from the chin to the perineum. By some means union of the divided surfaces was obtained, but he could only move one side. On awaking, a little numbness existed in the side which he had dreamed was paralyzed. This soon passed off, and ceased to engage his attention. The following night he had a somewhat similar dream, and the next day, toward evening, was seized with the attack which rendered him hemiplegic.