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Before he himself retired for the night, my father invariably went his rounds to the children's bed-rooms to see that all was right. Coming as usual to my room, he heard me speaking, and coming near saw that I was talking in my sleep. I was conjugating the verb TÚT, and he waited till I had gone through it all without a mistake. When I left the room next morning he summoned me to say my lesson. I was as ignorant of it as I had been the night before; and though for my encouragement he told me at the time that he had heard me say it perfectly in my sleep, I still could not repeat it. The above fact he not only told me at the period when it occurred, but more than once in after life. I make no comments, but state the bare fact."

The evident inference is, that a dream completely distinct and intelligent, may yet have been quite effaced by or before waking, from the dreamer's memory.

This may be the fit occasion to express dissent from the opinion of an ingenious author, that "the dream never occurs in sound or perfect sleep, for then all the senses are quiescent or uninfluenced, at least by slight

DREAMS IN DEEP SLEEP AND TRANCE. 13

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stimuli." Indeed some evidence tending to the opposite conclusion seems to present itself in another part of his essay, when, describing "trance or catalepsy," the author remarks that "consciousness in that state is sometimes perfect," and relates the case of a lady, who in a profound trance actually heard and felt the preparations for her own burial, and could only rouse herself at the moment when "the coffin-lid was about to be nailed on."2 Such a case also goes far to make questionable the strong assertion of the excellent Dr. John Mason Good, that in "complete apoplexy""in sleepy coma from fever"—and “in all cases of suspended animation from drowning or catalepsy," no man has been ever conscious of a single thought or idea." 3 only fact possible to be proved (and that would require an immense induction) would be that no one has ever remembered any.

The

1 W. C. Dendy on Dreams, p. 19. We shall find Lavater (p. 34, below) stating that "problems have been solved in deep sleep," ("tiefen schlaf,")—and Euler (Section V. below) affirming that "in profound sleep the more regular and connected are our dreams." See also La Mothe le Vayer, p. 36, below. 2 Dendy on Dreams, pp. 139, 140.

3 Good's Book of Nature, vol. ii. Lect. vii. p. 202.

C

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FEVER. APOPLEXY.

But Sir Humphry Davy, relating what occurred to himself in typhus fever, writes: "I remained, when the weakness consequent to exhaustion came on, in an apparently senseless or lethargic state; yet, in fact, my mind was peculiarly active. There was always before me the form of a beautiful woman, with whom I was engaged in the most interesting and intellectual conversation.-Her figure, for many days, was so distinct in my mind as to form almost a visual image: as I gained strength, the visits of my good angel (for so I called it) became less frequent, and when I was restored to health they were altogether discontinued."

Dr. Abercrombie relates: "A gentleman whom I saw lately in a state of profound apoplexy, but from which he recovered, had a perfect recollection of what took place during the attack, and mentioned many things which had been said in his hearing, when he was supposed to be in a state of perfect unconsciousness. A lady, on recovering from a similar state, said she had been asleep and dreaming, and mentioned what she had dreamt

1 Last Days of a Philosopher, pp. 64, 65.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS NOT REAL.

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about." So little are we entitled to affirm that apparent unconsciousness, apparent cessation of thought, is real. Even if no one had thus remembered the active exercise of thought, occurring in a state when it was judged to be wholly suspended, that want of remembrance (as was observed before) could never demonstrate that consciousness and thought had been in reality quite interrupted.

These preliminary facts and observations, as controverting the views of materialists, are obviously important to my principal design.

1 Intellectual Powers, p. 153.

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RAPIDITY OF THOUGHT.

SECTION II.

HAVING thus adverted to theories which materialists have raised, or of which they have availed themselves, on this subject, but which appear to be without any solid foundation of fact, I proceed to offer some illustrations of the rapidity of thought as evinced in dreams.

A signal one, drawn necessarily from his personal experience, is given by Lord Brougham in his "Discourse of Natural Theology." He adduces it to show, "the prodigiously long succession of images that pass through the mind" (in sleep) "with perfect distinctness and liveliness, in an instant of time." "Let any one," he writes, "who is extremely overpowered with drowsiness as after sitting up all night, and sleeping none the next day-lie down, and begin to dictate: he will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few words, and he will

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