CHAPTER III.
WAKING AND SLEEPING; AND HOW THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE
SOMETIMES LOOKS ABROAD.
To begin with the most simple—or rather, I should say, the most ordinary—class of phenomena, for we can scarcely call that simple, the mystery of which we have never been able to penetrate—I mean dreaming—everybody’s experience will suffice to satisfy them that their ordinary dreams take place in a state of imperfect sleep, and that this imperfect sleep may be caused by any bodily or mental derangement whatever, or even from an ill-made bed, or too much or too little covering; and it is not difficult to conceive that the strange, confused, and disjointed visions we are subject to on these occasions, may proceed from some parts of the brain being less at rest than the others; so that, assuming phrenology to be fact, one organ is not in a state to correct the impressions of another. Of such vain and insignificant visions, I need scarcely say it is not my intention to treat; but, at the same time, I must observe, that when we have admitted the above explanation, as far as it goes, we have not, even in regard to them, made much progress toward removing the difficulty. If dreaming resembled thinking, the explanations might be quite satisfactory; but the truth is, that dreaming is not thinking, as we think in our waking state, but is more analogous to thinking in delirium or acute mania, or in that chronic condition which gives rise to sensuous illusions. In our ordinary normal state, conceiving of places or persons does not enable us to see them or hold communion with them, nor do we fancy that we do either. It is true, that I have heard some painters say that, by closing their eyes and concentrating their thoughts on an object, they can bring it more or less vividly before them, and Blake professed actually to see his sitters when they were not present; but whatever interpretations we may put upon this curious faculty, his case was clearly abnormal, and connected with some personal peculiarity, either physical or psychical; and, after making the most of it, it must be admitted that it can enter into no sort of comparison with that we possess in sleep, when, in our most ordinary dreams, untrammelled by time or space, we visit the uttermost ends of the earth, fly in the air, swim in the sea, listen to beautiful music and eloquent orations, behold the most charming as well as the most loathsome objects; and not only see, but converse with our friends, absent or present, dead or alive. Every one, I think, will grant that there is the widest possible difference between conceiving of these things when awake, and dreaming them. When we dream, we do, we see, we say, we hear, &c., &c., that is, we believe at the time we do so; and what more can be said of us when we are awake, than that we believe we are doing, seeing, saying, hearing, &c. It is by external circumstances, and the results of our actions, that we are able to decide whether we have actually done a thing or seen a place, or only dreamt that we have done so; and as I have said above, after some lapse of time we are not always able to distinguish between the two. While dreaming, we frequently ask ourselves whether we are awake or asleep; and nothing is more common than to hear people say, “Well, I think I did, or heard, so and so; but I am not sure whether it was so, or whether I dreamt it.” Thus, therefore, the very lowest order of dreaming, the most disjointed and perplexed, is far removed from the most vivid presentations of our waking thoughts; and it is in this respect, I think, that the explanations of the phenomena hitherto offered by phrenologists, and the metaphysicians of this country, are inadequate and unsatisfactory; while, as regards the analogy between the visions of sleep and delirium, whatever similarity there may be in the effects, we can not suppose the cause to be identical: since, in delirium the images and delusions are the result of excessive action of the brain, which we must conclude to be the very reverse of its condition in sleep. Pinel certainly has hazarded an opinion that sleep is occasioned by an efflux of blood to the head, and consequent compression of the brain—a theory which would have greater weight were sleep more strictly periodical than it is; but which, at present, it seems impossible to reconcile with many established facts.
Some of the German physiologists and psychologists have taken a deeper view of this question of dreaming, from considering it in connection with the phenomena of animal magnetism; and although their theories differ in some respects, they all unite in looking toward that department of nature for instruction. While one section of these inquirers, the Exegetical Society of Stockholm included, calls in the aid of supernatural agency, another, among whom Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, appears to be one of the most eminent, maintains that the explanation of the mystery is to be chiefly sought in the great and universal law of polarity, which extends not only beyond the limits of this earth, but beyond the limits of this system, which must necessarily be in connection with all others; so that there is thus an eternal and never-ceasing inter-action, of which, from the multiplicity and contrariety of the influences, we are insensible, just as we are insensible to the pressure of the atmosphere, from its impinging on us equally on all sides.
Waking and sleeping are the day and night sides of organic life, during which alternations an animal is placed in different relations to the external world, and to these alternations all organisms are subject. The completeness and independence of each individual organism, are in exact ratio to the number and completeness of the organs it develops; and thus the locomotive animal has the advantage of the plant or the zoophyte, while, of the animal kingdom, man is the most complete and independent; and, although still a member of the universal whole, and therefore incapable of isolating himself, yet better able than any other organism to ward off external influences, and comprise his world within himself. But, according to Dr. Ennemoser, one of the consequences of this very completeness is a weak and insignificant development of instinct; and thus the healthy, waking, conscious man, is, of all organisms, the least sensible to the impressions of this universal inter-communication and polarity; although, at the same time, partaking of the nature of the plant and the animal, he is subject, like the first, to all manner of atmospheric, telluric, and periodic influences; and frequently exhibits, like the second, peculiar instinctive appetites and desires, and, in some individual organizations, very marked antipathies and susceptibilities with regard to certain objects and influences, even when not placed in any evident relation with them.
According to this theory, sleep is a retrograde step—a retreating into a lower sphere; in which condition, the sensuous functions being in abeyance, the instincts somewhat resume their sway. “In sleep and in sickness,” he says, “the higher animals and man fall in a physico-organical point of view, from their individual independence, or power of self-sustainment; and their polar relation, that is, their relation to the healthy and waking man, becomes changed from a positive to a negative one; all men, in regard to each other, as well as all nature, being the subjects of this polarity.” It is to be remembered, that this theory of Dr. Ennemoser’s was promulgated before the discoveries of Baron von Reichenback in magnetism were made public, and the susceptibility to magnetic influences in the animal organism, which the experiments of the latter go to establish, is certainly in its favor; but while it pretends to explain the condition of the sleepers, and may possibly be of some service in our investigations into the mystery of dreaming, it leaves us as much in the dark as ever, with respect to the cause of our falling into this negative state; an inquiry in which little progress seems to have been hitherto made.
With respect to dreaming, Dr. Ennemoser rejects the physiological theory, which maintains, that in sleep, magnetic or otherwise, the activity of the brain is transferred to the ganglionic system, and that the former falls into a subordinate relation. “Dreaming,” he says, “is the gradual awakening of activity in the organs of imagination, whereby the presentation of sensuous objects to the spirit, which had been discontinued in profound sleep, is resumed. Dreaming,” he adds, “also arises from the secret activity of the spirit in the innermost sensuous organs of the brain, busying the fancy with subjective sensuous images, the objective conscious day-life giving place to the creative dominion of the poetical genius, to which night