dreams is more striking, and actually makes
a deeper impression than the incidents of
other dreams. We are told by Sir Humphrey
Davy, that, on one occasion, a dream was so
strongly impressed upon his eye, that even
after he had risen and walked out, he could
not be persuaded of its unreal nature, until
his friends convinced him of its impossibility.
The effect of some dreams upon children is
very remarkable; they are, it is believed,
more liable to dreams of terror than grown
persons, which may be accounted for by their
being more subject to a variety of internal
complaints, such as teething, convulsions,
derangement of the bowels, &c.; added to
which, their reasoning faculties are not as
yet sufficiently developed to correct such
erroneous impressions. Hence, sometimes,
children appear, when they awake, bewildered
and distressed, and remain for a considerable
period in a state of agitation almost resembling
delirium. The incidents which are conceived
in dreams are indeed not unfrequently
confounded by adults with real events; hence,
we often hear people, in alluding to some
doubtful circumstance, exclaim, "Well! if it
be not true, I certainly must have dreamed
it." We confess we have ourselves been
puzzled in this way; the spell may be broken;
but the impression made by the delusion still
clings to us; its shadow is still thrown across
our path.

The question therefore recurs, what are
Dreams? Whence do they arise? We
believe that the ideas and emotions which
take place in the dreaming state may be
ascribed to a twofold origin. They may arise
from certain bodily sensations, which may
suggest particular trains of thought and feeling;
or they may be derived from the operations
or activity of the thinking principle
itself; in which case they are purely mental.
The celebrated Dr. James Gregory—whose
premature death was a great loss to science—
states, that having gone to bed with a vessel
of hot water at his feet, he dreamt of walking
up the crater of Mount Etna, and felt
the ground warm under him. He likewise,
on another occasion, dreamt of spending a
winter at Hudson's Bay, and of suffering
much distress from intense frost; and found,
when he awoke, that he had thrown off the
bedclothes in his sleep, and exposed himself
to cold. He had been reading, a few days
before, a very particular account of this colony.
The eminent metaphysician, Dr. Reid, relates
of himself that the dressing of a blister, which
he had applied to his head, becoming ruffled,
so as to produce pain, he dreamt that he
had fallen into the hands of a party of North
American Indians, who were scalping him.
These were dreams suggested by sensations
which were conveyed from the surface of the
body, through the nerves, until a corresponding
impression was produced on the mind.
Upon the same principle, very strong impressions
received during the day may modify
and very materially influence the character
of our dreams at night. Dr. Beattie states
that once, after riding thirty miles in a very
high wind, he passed a night of dreams which
were so terrible, that he found it expedient
to keep himself awake, that he might no
longer be tormented with them. "Had I
been superstitious," he observes, "I should
have thought that some disaster was
impending; but it occurred to me that the
tempestuous weather I had encountered the
preceding day might be the cause of all
these horrors." Other and less obvious causes
are in constant operation. A change in the
weather—in the electrical state of the
atmosphere—and its barometrical pressure—the
temperature of the bed-room—arrangements
of the bed-furniture—the adjustment of the
bed-clothes—nay, the position of the sleeper,
particularly if he cramp a foot or benumb an
arm, will at once affect the entire concatenation
and issue of his dreams.

Furthermore. Impressions may be made
on the mind during sleep, by speaking gently
to a person, or even whispering in the ear.
We ourselves, when in Italy, could on one
occasion trace the origin of a very remarkable
dream to our having heard, in an obscure and
half-conscious manner, during sleep, the noise
of people in the streets, on All Souls'-night,
invoking alms for the dead. Dr. Beattie knew
a man in whom any kind of dream could be
produced if his friends, gently addressing him,
afforded the subject-matter for his ideas.
Equally curious is the circumstance that
dreams may be produced by whispering in
the ear. A case of this description is
recorded by Dr. Abercrombie:—

"An officer, whose susceptibility of having
his dreams thus conjured before him, was so
remarkable, that his friends could produce
any kind of dream they pleased, by softly
whispering in his ear, especially if this were
done by one with whose voice he was familiar.
His companions were in the constant habit of
amusing themselves at his expense. On one
occasion they conducted him through the
whole progress of a quarrel, which ended in
a duel; and when the parties were supposed
to meet, a pistol was put into his hand, which
he fired off in his sleep, and was awakened
by the report. On another, they found him
asleep on the top of a locker or bunker in the
cabin, when, by whispering, they made him
believe he had fallen overboard; and they
then exhorted him to save himself by swimming.
He immediately imitated the motions
of swimming. They then suggested to him
that he was being pursued by a shark, and
entreated him to dive for his life. This he
did, or rather attempted, with so much
violence, that he threw himself off the locker,
by which he was bruised, and, of course,
awakened." Dr. Abercrombie adds, that the
most remarkable circumstance connected with
this case was, that after these and a variety
of other pranks had been played upon him,