390 THE SOUL NEVER SLEEPS. a landscape in the twilight, which soon vanishes because the im- pressions were so feeble. The second more resembles our common wakeful thoughts andactions of life, of which we can recollect many, at least a little after we have finished them ; and these are the dreams which we more distinctly remember in the morning. The images are such as when we see a prospect in common day-light, and which abide on thememory. The third is like the deliriums of a fever, or the strong and wild imaginations of a frenzy, when either some violent impres- sions in an endless variety of figures and traces crowd upon the brain, and are imposed upon the mind, and so far confound one another, that before such distempered persons can give an answer to any question asked them, they have twenty other images which confound the ideas of that question; and therefore the an- swer is absurd and nothing to the purpose; now in this kind of dreamsall the scenes quickly vanish by mutual destruction of each other. These are like millions of objects seen at once in a daz- zling sun-shine, all indistinct and very confused. In the first, when we awake we think we have not dreamed at all ; just as when a man falls into a swoon, the faint and irre- gular motions of the animal spirits, together with the languid state of the brain at that time, permit not any one trace to be strong enough to produce any distinct idea in the mind ; and when we awake out of a swoon, we conclude we had no thought or perception all the while. Just thus it is when we fall asleep at night, when we awake out of it, forgetful of what has past, and when we conclude we have not thought at all. In the second, when we awake we remember botti what we did dream, and what the dream was, either more or less. And these dreams look most like the thoughts and actionsof common life, for in these our reason has some little power, though not its complete government. In the third we remember, perhaps, that we did dream, but we can seldom recollect what we dreamt of. Often have I awoke from a dream, wherein a multitude of scenes has been imprest on the mind for an hour or two together, yet withutmost labour I could not recollect enough to fill up one minute, but only short broken hints of the dreaming scene, which very hints have also in a little time vanished; for the images and ideas be- ing joined without any conduct of reason, but by mechanical and more vehement motions of the brain and spirits, over -ruled the reasoning powers, and cannot be remembered by the intelligent mind ; and the images themselves or traces of the brain are shattered, confounded and lost by the sudden hurry and vast di- versity of motions of the spirits, when upon waking they fly to the limbs and organs of sense, toperform the wakeful functions of nature.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=