Dreaming / by A.W. MacFarlane.

  • MacFarlane A. W. (Alexander William), -1892.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dreaming / by A.W. MacFarlane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and unbiassed by external impressions. A man may dream that he is the Emperor of Europe, and believe it ; such a thought oc- curring, even in one inebriated, during the day would be recognised as fallacious, and be dispelled, or it would amount to a delusion. Plato makes Theastetus say,— I certainly cannot undertake to argue, that madmen or dreamers think truly when they imagine, some of them that they are gods, and others that they can fly, and are flying in their sleep. When our controlling faculties are in abeyance our thoughts run riot. Notwithstanding Sir Thomas Browne's opinion that persons of radical integrity will not easily be perverted in their dreams, nor noble minds do pitiful things in sleep, it is certain that many good and pious men possess tenden- cies that are essentially vicious—tendencies which it may have taken them years to subjugate and dominate. Such men may have dreams which shock and distress them in their waking moments. The pious and deeply religious Swedenborg experienced this. A medical man occasionally dreams of making a post-mortem ex- amination of the body of an intimate friend, and derives much satisfaction therefrom—a satisfaction that is promptly turned into abject horror when his eviscerated friend sits up to remonstrate about the cruelty of being dissected while alive. It is, of course, much more likely for a man of unbridled passions to have vicious dreams. Lucretius pointed out that the fiercer breeds of dogs display greater degrees of rage in their dreams, and that in men the passions, like other mental states, are apt to obtrude themselves in sleep. Dominating passions and proclivities assert themselves, and make dreams the reflection of a man in his uncontrolled state. They are, as Montaigne wrote, true interpreters of our inclina- tions —the thoughts of what Dr Wendell Holmes would designate the innermost chamber,^bereft of dissimulation. Pythagoras thought that a noctuary (as distinguished from a diary) was useful for the purpose of examining the nocturnal thoughts. Smellie was of opinion that such a record would more effectually unfold the real disposition of men; and Zeno thought that a man might judge of his improvement in virtue from the nature of his dreams. One of the proverbs of the Badagas is,— If you have a strange dream, rise and ponder over it. In olden days there was a prevalent belief that a man could only dream the thoughts of his waking moments. Locke, for example, wrote,— The dreams of sleeping men are all made up of the waking man's ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. Marsyas dreamed that he cut the throat of Dionysius. Dionysius, believing 1 Dr O. Wendell Holmes wrote,— Every person's feelings have a front door and a side door by which they may be entered. The front door is on the street. Some keep it always open ; some keep it latched ; some locked ; some bolted—with a chain that will let yon peep in, but not get in ; and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This front door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and this into the inner apart- ments. The side door opens at once into the secret chambers.