XVIII.

ON SLEEP.

THOUGH there are a few men so organized that it might almost be said that they do not sleep, yet as a general rule, the want of sleep is as imperious as hunger or thirst. The outposts of an army often fall asleep, even though they throw snuff into their eyes. Pichegru, when tracked by Bonaparte's police, gave 30,000 francs for a night's sleep, during which he was betrayed and given up.

Like other pleasures, sleep may be indulged in to excess, as in the case of those whom we sce sleep away three-fourths of their life. Its effects in such instances are always bad; such as sloth, indolence, weakness, stupidity, and death.

The school of Salerno allowed only seven hours sleep, without distinction of age or sex, a rule which is too severe; for more must be granted to infants, from their actual necessity, and to women from kindness. One thing, however, is certain: that he who spends more than ten hours in bed, errs in

excess.

During the first moments of dawning sleep the will still acts; one can arouse himself; a few ideas

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still arise in the mind, though mostly incoherent. Soon all sensation or thought vanishes, and we fall into absolute sleep.

How is the mind occupied during that time? It lives within itself: it is like the pilot during a calm, like a mirror during the darkness, like a harp whose strings are untouched; it awaits the renewal of active life.

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Some psychologists, however, including Count de Redern, maintain that the mind is constantly in a state of activity; the latter advancing, as a proof, the fact that those who are forcibly aroused from their first sleep experience the sensation of a man who is disturbed in some occupation in which he has been earnestly engaged.

In any case, the state of absolute annihilation is but short, never exceeding five or six hours. A vague consciousness of existence begins to revive, and the sleeper passes into the realm of dreams.

Sir William Hamilton has advanced a similar theory in some of his philosophical writings. To prove that consciousness is continuous, he experimented upon himself by getting his servant to awake him during sleep at different times, and invariably found that the mind was occupied that there had been no break in the consciousness, no solution of its continuity, even though no recollection of dreams remained.

XIX.

ON DREAMS.

DREAMS are imperfect impressions which reach the mind without the assistance of external objects. As soon as the phenomena of dreams are better understood, the duality of the human constitution will be better known.

When a man who is awake receives impressions from an external object, the sensation is precise, direct and inevitable, the whole of the communicating nerve being called into play. When, on the other hand, the same impression reaches the mind. during sleep, it is only the nearer or hinder part of the nerve which vibrates, and the sensation must necessarily be less lively and less precise. In one case the percussion traverses the whole organ, and in the other the vibration is confined to the parts in the neighbourhood of the brain.

A singular thing is that it is excessively rare that the sensations we dream of have to do A fact

which

with taste or smell; in dreaming of a should garden or a field we see the flowers with- be investiout smelling their odours, or if seated at

gated.

a banquet, we see the dishes without learning anything of their taste or flavour.

It were a task worthy of our scientific men to investigate why two of our senses produce no mental impression during sleep, while all the others act in full force.

It is to be observed, also, that the more intimate or reflective the affections of our dreams are, they are the more intense. Thus, merely sensible ideas. are nothing compared to the anguish felt when one dreams of having lost a dear child, or of going to be hanged. In such a case one will frequently awake covered with perspiration or bathed in

tears.

dreams.

However incongruous the ideas are which agitate Nature of us in dreaming, when closely examined they will be found to be only recollections, or combinations of recollections. I had almost said that dreams are but the memory of the senses.

Their peculiarity is that the association of those ideas is different from the ordinary mode, because freed from the laws of natural sequence, from all conventional notions, and from time itself. Thus a final analysis shows that no one has dreamed of anything which was previously entirely unknown to him. One will not be astonished at the singularity of our dreams if he considers that, for the waking man, there are four faculties which direct and mutually correct each other-namely, sight, hearing, touch,

and memory; whereas, in the case of the sleeping man, each sense is abandoned to its own resources.

I have thought of comparing those two conditions of the brain to a piano, before which is seated a musician who passes his fingers over the notes in an absent-minded manner, and by mere memory shapes out a melody; whereas, if he used all his faculties, he could combine with it a complete harmony. This comparison might be carried out much farther, when we consider that reflection is to our ideas what harmony is to sounds, and that certain ideas contain others, just as a principal note in a chord contains others which are subordinate to it, and so on.

anecdote.

About 1790, there lived in the village Gevrin, in my native parish, a merchant of an ex- Illustratremely shrewd character, called Landot, tive who had scraped together a considerable fortune. All at once he was struck with such a paralytic shock that he was believed to be dead. The faculty came to his assistance and saved him; but not without loss, for he left behind him nearly all his intellectual faculties, and especially memory. There being, however, still life in him, of whatever sort, and having recovered his appetite, he continued to take charge of his property.

Seeing him in this state, those who formerly had business dealings with him believed that now was