No. XX. ON DREAMS. Et cui quisque ferè studio úevinctus adhæret, LUCRETIUS. And when soft sleep the body lays at ease, ΑΝΟΝ. FROM the consideration of Sleep, which was the subject of my last paper, the transition is very natural to that of Dreams, the wonderful and mysterious phenomena of that state, the ideal transactions and vain illusions of the mind. According to Wolfius, an eminent Silesian philosopher, every dream takes its rise from some sensation, and is continued by the succession of phantasms in the mind. He observes, that when we dream, we imagine something, or the mind produces phantasms; but no phantasm can arise in the mind without some previous sensation. And yet, it is not easy to confirm this by experience; it being often difficult to distinguish those slight sensations, which give rise to dreams, from phantasms, or objects of imagination. -The series of phantasms, which thus constitute a dream, seem to be accounted for by the law of the imagination, or association of ideas; although it may be very difficult to assign the cause of every minute difference, not only in different subjects, but Wolf, Psychol. Empir. sect. 123. in the same, at different times, and in different circumstances. And hence Formey, who adopts the opinion of Wolfius, concludes, that those dreams are supernatural, which either do not begin by sensation, or are not continued by the law of the imagination'. This opinion is as old as Aristotle, who asserted, that a dream is only, the φανθασμα, or appearance of things, excited in the mind, and remaining after the objects are removed. The opinion of Lucretius, in my motto, was likewise that of Tully 3. Mr. Locke, also, traces the origin of dreams to previous sensations, and says, that the dreams of sleeping men, are all made up of the waking man's ideas, though, for the most part, oddly put together. And Dr. Hartley, who explains all the phenomena of the imagination by his theory of vibrations and associations, says, that dreams are nothing but the imaginations or reveries of sleeping men, and that they are deducible from three causes, namely, the impressions and ideas lately received, and particularly those of the preceding day; the state of the body, particularly of the stomach and brain; and association5. Were I to enter more deeply into the subject of this mysterious phenomenon, my present lucubration would become too abstruse; and, after all, perhaps, no philosophical or satisfactory account can be given of it. Such of my readers, therefore, who would wish for a more minute inquiry Mem. de l'Acad. de Berlin, tom. ii, p. 316. 2 De Insomn. cap. 3. 3 Quæ in vitâ usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident, quæque agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea cuique in somno accidunt. De Div. Essay on Human Understanding, book ii, chap. 1, into the opinions I have stated above, I must re fer to the respective authors whom I have quoted'. sec. 17. 5 Observations on Man, vol. i, sec. 5, p. 383. From the scenes of nocturnal imagination, the reader, who is fond to find amusement even in a serious subject, will be glad, perhaps, to be transported into the regions of poetical fiction. And here we find, that the Fancy is not more sportive in dreams, than are the poets in their descriptions of her nocturnal vagaries. I shall begin first with that admirable speech in Romeo and Juliet, on the effects of the imagination in dreams: O, then I see, Queen Mab hath been with you. See also Baxter on the Soul, vol. ii. Stewart's Ele ments of the Philos. of the Mind, p. 328, 348, and Good's Lucretius, note to Lib. iv, ver. 936. Then dreams he of another benefice: Lucretius, in the verses that immediately follow my motto, and Petronius, in his poem on the Vanity of Dreams, had preceded our immortal bard in a description of the effects of dreams on different kinds of persons. Both the passages, to which I allude, only serve to show the vast superiority of Shakspeare's boundless genius: their sense is thus admirably expressed by Stepney: At dead of night, imperial Reason sleeps, Chaucer, in his tale of the Cock and Fox, has a fine description, thus versified by Dryden: Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes: And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, And Shakspeare again: I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Nor must Milton be omitted: In the soul Are many lesser faculties, that serve } From these poetical descriptions let us proceed to take a view of the principal phenomena in dreaming. But I shall first give Mr. Locke's beautiful account of Modes of Thinking, as it will greatly illustrate the preceding observations: "When the mind (says he) turns its view inward upon itself, and contemplates its own actions thinking is the first that occurs. In it the mind |