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apt to induce visions of a very painful character. For this purpose, mild laxatives may become useful; and if the person is subject to heartburn, he should use a little magnesia, chalk, or carbonate of soda, occasionally. Attention, also, must be paid to the diet; and as suppers, with some people, have a tendency to generate dreams of all kinds, these meals should, in such cases, be carefully avoided. At the same time, great care should be taken not to brood over any subject upon lying down, but to dispel, as soon as possible, all intrusive ideas, especially if they are of a painful nature. If there is any unpleasant circumstances, such as hardness, irregularity, &c., connected with the bed, which tends to affect sleep, and thus induce dreams, it must be removed. Late reading, the use of tea or coffee shortly before going to rest, or any thing which may stimulate the brain, ought likewise to be avoided.

If dreaming seems to arise from any fulness of the system, blooding and low diet will sometimes effect a cure. Mr Stewart, the celebrated pedestrian traveller, states that he never dreamed when he lived exclusively upon vegetable food. This, however, may not hold true with every one. When dreams arise from a diminution of customary stimuli, a light supper, a draught of porter, a glass of wine, or a dose of opium, generally prevent them. Habitual noises, when suspended should be restored.'*

In speaking of dreams representative of danger, I may mention that there are instances of persons, who, having determined to remember that the perils seen in them are fallacious, have actually succeeded in doing so, while asleep; and have thus escaped the terrors which those imaginary dangers could otherwise have produced. Haller relates a case of this kind; and Mr Dugald Stewart mentions that the plan was successfully adopted by Dr Reid to get rid of the distress of those fearful visions by which he was frequently annoyed. Whenever, in a dream, the Doctor supposed himself ou the brink of a precipice, or any other dangerous situation, it was his custom to throw himself over, and thus destroy the illusion. Dr Beattie also relates, that at one time he found himself in a dangerous situation upon the parapet of a bridge. Reflecting that he was not subject to pranks of this nature, he began to fancy that it might be a dream, and determined to pitch himself over, with the conviction that this would restore him to his senses, which accordingly took place. I could never manage to carry this system into effect in an ordinary dream of terror, but I have sometimes succeeded in doing so during an attack of nightmare; and have thus very materially mitigated the alarm produced by that distressing sensation. This intellectual operation may also be successfuly employed to dispel the lowness of spirits under which we often awake from unpleasant visions by teaching us that the depression we experience is merely the result of some unnatural excitement in the brain. Indeed, all kinds of melancholy, not based upon some obvious foundation, might be mitigated or dispelled altogether, could we only oppose our feelings with the weapons of reason, and see things as they really are, and not as they only seem to be.

CHAPTER IV.

PROPHETIC POWER OF DREAMS.

Dreams have been looked upon by some, as the occasional means of giving us an insight into futurity,

Rush's Medical Inquiries. †These facts do not controvert what is elsewhere stated of a person never being aware, during the actual process of a dream, that he was dreaming. While the above dreams were in progress, the individuals never doubted that they were dreaming: the doubt, and the actions consequent upon it, were after-operations.

This opinion is so singularly unphilosophical, that I would not have noticed it, were it not advocated even by persons of good sense and education In ancient times, it was so common as to obtain universal belief; and the greatest men placed as implicit faith in it as in any fact of which their own senses afforded them cognizance. That it is wholly erroneous, however, cannot be doubted; and any person who examines the nature of the huaron raind, and the manner in which it operates in dreams, must be convinced, that under no circumstances, except those of a miracle. in which the ordinary laws of nature are triumphed over, can such an event ever take place. The sacred writings tes tifiy that miracles were common in former times; but I believe no man of sane mind will contend that they ever occur in the present state of the world. In judg ing of things as now constituted, we must discard su pernatural influence altogether, and estimate events according to the general laws which the great ruler of nature has appointed for the guidance of the universe. If, in the present day, it were possible to conceive a suspension of these laws, it must, as in former ages, be in reference to some great event, and to serve some mighty purpose connected with the general interests of the human race; but if faith is to be placed in modern miracles, we must suppose that God suspended the above laws for the most trivial and useless of purposes -as, for instance, to intimate to a man that his grandmother will die on a particular day, that a favourite mare has broke her neck, that he has received a present of a brace of game, or that a certai friend will step in and take pot-luck with him on the

morrow.

At the same time, there can be no doubt that many circumstances occurring in our dreams have been actually verified; but this must be regarded as altogether the effect of chance; and for one dream which turns out to be true, at least a thousand are false. In fact, it is only when they are of the former description, that we take any notice of them; the latter are looked upon as mere idle vagaries, and speedily forgotten. If a man, for instance, dreams that he has gained a law-suit in which he is engaged, and if this circumstance actually takes place, there is nothing at all extraordinary in the coincidence: his mind was full of the subject, and, in sleep, naturally resolved itself into that train of ideas in which it was most deeply interested. Or if we have a friend engaged in war, our fears for his safety will lead us to dream of death or captivity, and we may see him pent up in a hostile prison-house, or lying dead upon the battle plain. And should these melancholy catastrophies ensue we call our vision to memory; and, in the excited state of mind into which we are thrown, are apt to consider it as a prophetic warning, indicative of disaster. The following is a very good illustration of this particular point.

Miss M, a young lady, a native of Ross-shire, was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore in the peninsular war. The constant danger to which he was exposed, had an evident effect upon her spirits. She became pale and melancholy in perpetually brooding over his fortunes; and, in spite of all that reason could do, felt a certain conviction, that when she last parted with her lover, she had parted with him for ever. In vain was every scheme tried to dispel from her mind the awful idea; in vain were all the sights which opulence could command, unfolded before her eyes. In the midst of pomp and gaiety, when music and laughter echoed around her, she walked as a mysterious influence hung. She was brought by her pensive phantom, over whose head some dreadful and affectionate parents to Edinburgh, and introduced into all the gaiety of that metropolis, but nothing could restore her, or banish from her mind the insupportable load which oppressed it. The song and the dance were tried in vain: they only aggravated her distress,

and made the bitterness of despair more poignant. In a surprisingly short period, her graceful form declined into all the appalling characteristics of a fatal illness; and she seemed rapidly hastening to the grave, when a dream confirmed the horrors she had long anticipated, and gave the finishing stroke to her sorrows. One night, after falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover, pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that he had been slain in battle, desiring her, at the same time, to comfort herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. It is needless to say what influence this vision had upon a mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the unfortunate girl died a few days thereafter, but not without desiring her parents to note down the day of the month on which it happened, and see if it would be confirmed, as she confidently declared it would. Her anticipation was correct, for accounts were shortly after received that the young man was slain at the battle of Corunna, which was fought on the very day, on the night of which his mistress had beheld the vision.

This relation, which may be confidently relied upon, is one of the most striking examples of identity between the dream and the real circunstances with which I am acquainted, but it must be looked upon as merely accidental. The lady's mind was deeply interested in the fate of her lover, and full of that event which she most deeply dreaded-his death. The time of this occurrence, as coinciding with her dream, is certainly curious; but still there is nothing in it which can justify us in referring it to any other origin than chance. The following events, which occurred to myself, in August 1821, are almost equally remarkable, and are imputable to the same fortuitous cause.

I was then in Caithness, when I dreamed that a near relation of my own, residing three hundred miles off, had suddenly died: and immediately thereafter awoke in a state of inconceivable terror, similar to that produced by a paroxysm of nightmare. The same day, happening to be writing home, I mentioned the circumstance in a half-jesting, half-earnest way. To tell the truth, I was afraid to be serious, lest I should be laughed at for putting any faith in dreams. However, in the interval between writing and receiving an answer, I remained in a state of most unpleasant suspense. I felt a presentiment that something dreadful had happened, or would happen; and although I could not help blaming myself for a childish weakness in so feeling, I was unable to get rid of the painful idea which had taken such rooted possession of my mind. Three days after sending away the letter, what was my astonishrent when I received one written the day subsequent to mine, and stating that the relative of whom I had dreamed, had been struck with a fatal shock of palsy the day before-viz. the very day on the morning of which I had beheld the appearance in my dream! My friends received my letter two days after sending their own away, and were naturally astonished at the circumstance I may state that my relation was in pcrfect health before the fatal event took place. It came upon him like a thunderbolt, at a period when no one could have the slightest anticipation of danger.

The following case will interest the reader, both on its own account, and from the remarkable coincidence between the dream and the succeeding calamity; but, like all other instances of the kind, this also must be referred to chance.

Being in company the other day, when the conversation turned upon dreams, I related one, which as it happened to my own father, I can answer for the perfect truth of it. About the year 1731, my father, Mr D. of K—, in the County of Cumberland, came to Edinburgh to attend the classes, having the advantage of an uncle in the regument then in the Castle, and re

mained under the protection of his uncle and aunt, Major and Mrs Griffiths, during the winter. When spring arrived, Mr D. and three or four young gentlemen from England, (his intimates,) made parties to visit all the neighboring places about Edinburgh, Roslin, Arthur's Seat, Craig-Millar, &c., &c. Coming home one evening from some of those places, Mr D. said, 'We have made a party to go a-fishing to Inch-Keith tomorrow, if the morning is fire, and have bespoke our boat; we shall be off at six ;' no objection being made, they separated for the night.

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Mrs Griffiths, had not been long asleep, till she screamed out in the most violent agitated manner, The boat is sinking; save, oh, save them!' The Major awaked her, and said, 'Were you uneasy about the fishing party? Oh no,' said she, I had not once thought of it.' She then composed herself, and soon fell asleep again; in about an hour, she cried out in a dreadful fright, I see the boat is going down.' The Major again awoke her, and she said, 'It has been owing to the other dream I had; for I feel no uneasiness about it.' After some conversation, they both fell sound asleep, but no rest could be obtained for her; in the most extreme agony, she again screamed, 'They are gone; the boat is sunk!" When the Major awakened her, she said, 'Now I cannot rest; Mr D. must not go, for I feel, should he go, I would be miserable till his return; the thoughts of it would almost kill me.'

She instantly arose, threw on her wrapping-gown, went to his bedside, for his room was next their own, and with great difficulty she got his promise to remain at home. But what am I to say to my young friends whom I was to meet at Leith at six o'clock? With great truth you may say your aunt is ill, for I am so at present; consider, you are an only son, under our protection, and should any thing happen to you, it would be my death.' Mr D. immediately wrote a note to his friends, saying he was prevented from joining them, and sent his servant with it to Leith. The morning came in most beautifully, and continued so till three o'clock, when a violent storm arose, and in an instant the boat, and all that were in it, went to the bottom, and were never heard of, nor was any part of it ever

seen.'*

Equally singular is the following case, from the Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe.'

'My mother being sick to death of a fever, three months after I was born, which was the occasion she gave me suck no longer, her friends and servants thought to all outward appearnce she was dead, and so lay almost two days and a night; but Dr Winston coming to comfort my father, went into my mother's room, and looking earnestly on her face, said, 'She was so handsome, and now looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead; and suddenly took a lancet out of his pocket, and with it cut the sole of her foot, which bled. Upon this, he immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed again, and to be rubbed, and such means, as she came to life, and opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand by her, my Lady Knollys and my Lady Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the fashion then was, and said, Did not you promise me fifteen years, and are you come again' which they not understanding, persuaded her to keep her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was; but some hours after, she desired my father and Dr Howlsworth might be left alone with her, to whom she said, I will acquaint you, that during the time of my trance I was in great quiet, but in a place I could neither distinguish nor describe; but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to me than all my children, remained a trouble upon my spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me, clothed in long white garments, and methought I fell down upon my face upon the dust; and they asked *Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,' vol. xix. p. 73.

why I was so troubled in so great happiness. I re- | plied, O let me have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years to see my daughter a woman to which they answered, It is done: and then, at that instant, I awoke out of my trance!' and Dr Howlsworth did there affirm, that that day she died made just fifteen years from that time.'

A sufficiently striking instance of such coincidence occurs in the case of Dr Donne, the metaphysical poet; but I believe that, in this case, it was a spectral illusion rather than a common dream. Two days after he had arrived in Paris, he was left alone in a room where he had been dining with Sir Robert Drury and a few companions. Sir Robert returned about an hour afterwards. He found his friend in a state of ecstacy, and so altered in his countenance, that he could not look upon him without amazement. The Doctor was not able for some time to answer the question, what had befallen him ?—but a long and perplexed pause, at last said, 'I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you; I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. This I have seen since I saw you.' To which Sir Robert answered, Sure, Sir, you have slept since I went out; and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake.' Donne replied, I cannot be more sure that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and am as sure that at her second appearing she stopped, looked me in in the face and vanished." It is certainly very curious that Mrs Donne, who was then in England, was at this time sick in bed, and had been delivered of a dead child, on the same day, and about the same hour, that the vision occurred. There were distressing circumstances in the marriage of Dr Donne which account for his mind being strongly impressed with the image of his wife, to whom he was exceedingly attached; but these do not render the coincidence above related less remarkable.

I do not doubt that the apparition of Julius Cæsar, which appeared to Brutus, and declared it would meet him at Philippi, was either a dream or a spectral illusion-probably the latter. Brutus, in all likelihood, had some idea that the battle which was to decide his fate would be fought at Philippi: probably it was a good military position, which he had fixed upon as a fit place to make a final stand; and he had done enough to Cæsar to account for his own mind being painfully and constantly engrossed with the image of the assasinated Dictator. Hence the verification of this supposed warning-hence the easy explanation of a supposed supernatural event.

At Newark-upon-Trent, a curious custom, founded upon the preservation of Alderman Clay and his family by a dream, has prevailed since the days of Cromwell. On the 11th March, every year, penny loaves are given away to any one who chooses to appear at the town hall and apply for them, in commemoration of the alderman's deliverance, during the siege of Newark by the parliamentary forces. This gentleman, by will, dated 11th December, 1694, gave to the mayor and aldermen one hundred pounds, the interest of which was to be given to the vicar yearly, on condition of his preaching an annual sermon. Another hundred pounds were also appropriated for the behoof of the poor, in the way above mentioned. The origin of this bequest is singular. During the bombardment of Newark by Oliver Cromwell's forces, the alderman dreamed three nights successively that his house had taken fire, which produced such a vivid impression upon his mind, that he and his family left it; and in a few days the circumstances of his vision actually took place, by the house being burned down by the besiegers.

Dr Abercrombie relates the case of a gentlernan in * Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions, p. 354.

Edinburgh, who was affected with an aneurism of the popliteal artery, for which he was under the care of two erninent surgeons. About two days before the time appointed for the operation, his wife dreamed that a change had taken place in the disease, in consequence of which an operation would not be required. On examining the tumor in the morning, the gentleman was astonished to find that the pulsation had entirely ceased; and, in short, this turned out to be a spontane ous cure. To persons not professional, it may be right to mention that the cure of popliteal aneurisin, without an operation, is a very uncommon occurrence, not happening, perhaps, in one out of numerous instances, and never to be looked upon as probable in any individual case. It is likely, however, that the lady had heard of the possibility of such a termination, and that her anx iety had very naturally embodied this into a dream the fulfilment of it, at the very time when the event took place, is certainly a very remarkable coincidence

Persons are said to have had the period of their own death pointed out to them in dreams. I have often heard the case of the late Mr M. of D-related in support of this statement. It is certainly worth telling, not on account of any supernatural character belonging to it, but simply from the extraordinary coincidence between the dream and the subsequent event. This gentleman dreamed one night that he was out riding, when he stopped at an inn on the road side for refreshment, where he saw several people whom he had known some years before, but who were all dead. He was received kindly by them, and desired to sit down and drink, which he accordingly did. On quitting this strange company, they exacted a promise from him that he would visit them that day six weeks. This he promised faithfully to do; and, bidding them farewell, he rode homewards. Such was the substance of his dream, which he related in a jocular way to his friends, but thought no more about it, for he was a person above all kind of superstition. The event, however, was certainly curious enough, as well as melancholy; for on that very day six weeks on which he had engaged to meet his friends at the inn, he was killed in attempting to spring his horse over a five-barred gate. The famous case of Lord Lyttletont is also cited as an example of a similar kind, but with less show of reason, for this case is now very generally supposed to be an imposttion; and so will almost every other of the same kind, if narrowly investigated. At the same time, I do not mean to doubt that such an event, foretold in a dream, may occasionally come to pass; but I would refer the whole to fortuitous coincidence. Men dream, every now and then, that they will die on a certain day, yea how seldom do we see those predictions fulfiled by the result! In very delicate people, indeed, such a visionary communication, by acting fatally upon the mind, might be the means of occasioning its own fulfilment. In such cases, it has been customary for the friends of the individual to put back the clock an hour or two, so as to let the fatal period pass by without his being sware of it; and as soon as it was fairly passed, to inform him of the circumstance, and laugh him out of his apprehension.

There is another way in which the apparent fulfilment of a dream may be brought about. A good illustration in point is given by Mr Combe. The subject of it was one Scott, executed in 1823, at Jedburg, for murder. It is stated in his life, that some years be* Abercrombie's Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers, p. 282, 1st edit. Of late it has been said and published, that the unfortu nate nobleman had previously determined to take poison, and of course had it in his own power to ascertain the execution of the prediction. It was, no doubt, singular that a man, who mesia tated his exit from the world, should have chosen to play such a trick upon his friends. But it is still more credible that a whis cal man should do so wild a thing, than that a messenger shozKİ be sent from the dead, to tell a libertine at what precise hour be should expire.'-Scott's Letters on Demonology, p. 361.

fore the fatal event, he had dreamed that he had committed a murder, and was greatly impressed, with the idea. He frequently spoke of it, and recurred to it as something ominous, till at last it was realized. The organ of Destructiveness was large in the head, and so active that he was an enthusiast in poaching, and prone to outrage and violence in his habitual conduct. This activity of the organ might take place during sleep, and then it would inspire his mind with destructive feelings, and the dream of murder would be the consequence. From the great natural strength of the propensity, he probably may have felt, when awake, an inward tendeney to this crime; and, joining this and the dream together, we can easily account for the strong impression left by the latter on the mind.'

One method in which death may appear to be foretold is, by the accession of frightful visions immediately before the fatal illnesses. This, however, goes for nothing in the way of argument, for it was the state of the system shortly before the attack of disease which induced such dreams. According to Silamachus, the epidemic fever which prevailed at Rome was ushered in by attacks of nightmare; and Sylvius Deleboe, who describes the epidemic which raged at Leyden in 1669, states, that previous to each paroxysm of the fever, the patient fell asleep, and suffered a severe attack of nightmare. The vulgar belief, therefore, that unpleasant dreams are ominous of death, is not destitute of foundation; but the cause why they should be so is perfectly natural. It is the incipitent disease which produces the dreams, and the fatal event which often follows, is a natural consequence of that disease.

It is undoubtedly owing to the faculty possessed by sleep, of renewing long-forgotten ideas, that persons have had importaut facts communicated to them in dreams. There have been instances, for example, where valuable documents, sums of money, &c, have been concealed, and where either the person who secreted them or he who had the place of their concealnent communicated to him, may have forgotten every thing therewith connected. He may then torture his mind in vain, during the walking state, to recollect the event; and it may be brought to his remembrance, at once, in a dream. in such cases, an apparition is generally the medium through which the seemingly mysterious knowledge is communicated. The imagination conjures up some phantom that discloses the secret; which circumstance, proceeding, in reality, from a simple operation of the mind, is straightway converted into soinething supernatural, and invested with all the attributes of wonder and awe. When such spectral forms appear, and communicate some fact which turns out to be founded on truth, the person is not always aware that the whole occurred in a dream, but often fancies that he was broad awake when the apparition appeared to him and communicated the particular intelligence. When we hear, therefore, of hidden treasures, wills, &c, being disclosed in such a manner, we are not always to scout the report as false. The spectre divulging the intelligence was certainly the mere chimera of the dreamer's brain, but the facts revealed, apparently by this phantom, may, from the above circumstance, be substantially true. The following curious case is strikingly in point, and is given by Sir Walter Scott in his notes to the new edition of The Antiquary

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Mr Rd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of tiend, (or tithe,) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes.) Mr Rd was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. Combe's System of Phrenology, p. 511, 3d edit.

But after an industrious search among his father's pa pers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed the determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams, men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr Rd thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding, that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. You are right, my son,' replied the paternal shade; I did acquire right to these tiends, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are now in the hands of Mr a writer, (or attorney,) who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very possible,' pursued the vision, that Mr may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.'

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'Mr Rd awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man. Without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his diseased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them so that Mr Rd carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.

The author has often heard this story told by persous who had the best access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot, therefore, refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind, which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. Rd a certain number of hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr Rd had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during their waking hours. It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr R-d; whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired, by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the

night.' This result is a melancholy proof of the effect sometimes produced by ignorance of the natural laws. Had Mr R- -d been acquainted with the nature of the brain, and of the manner in which it is affected in sleep, the circumstance above related would have given him no annoyance. He would have traced the whole chain of events to their true source; but, being ignorant of this, he became the victim of superstition, and his life was rendered miserable.

CHAPTER V.

NIGHTMARE.

Nightmare may be defined a painful dream, accompanied with difficult respiratory action, and a torpor in the powers of volition. The reflecting organs are generally more or less awake; and, in this respect, nightmare differs from simple dreaming, where they are mostly quiescent.

This affection, the EPHIALTES of the Greeks, and INCUBUS of the Romans, is one of the most distressing to which human nature is subject. Imagination cannot conceive the horrors it frequently gives rise to, or language describe them in adequate terms. They are a thousand times more frightful than the visions conjured up by necromancy or diablere; and far transcend every thing in history or romance, from the fable of the writhing and asp-encircled Laocoon to Dante's appalling picture of Ugolino and his famished offspring, or the hidden tortures of the Spanish inquisition. The whole mind, during the paroxysm, is wrought up to a pitch of unutterable despair: a spell is laid upon the faculties, which freezes them into inaction; and the wretched victim feels as if pent alive in his coffin, or overpowered by resistless and immitigable pressure.

The modifications which nightmare assumes are infinite; but one passion is almost never absent-that of utter and incomprehensible dread. Sometimes the sufferer is buried beneath overwhelming rocks, which crush him on all sides, but still leave him with a miserable consciousness of his situation. Sometimes he is involved in the coils of a horrid, slimy monster, whose eyes have the phosphorescent glare of the sepulchre, and whose breath is poisonous as the marsh of Lerna. Every thing horrible, disgusting, or terriffic in the physical or moral world, is brought before him in fearful array; he is hissed at by serpents, tortured by demons, stunned by the hollow voices and cold touch of apparitions. A mighty stone is laid upon his breast, and crushes him to the ground in helpless agony; mad bulls and tigers pursue his palsied footsteps: the unearthly shrieks and gibberish of hags, witches, and fiends float around him. In whatever situation he may be placed, he feels superlatively wretched; he is Ixion working for ages at his wheel: he is Sisyphus rolling his eternal stone he is stretched upon the iron bed of Procrustes: he is prostrated by inevitable destiny beneath the approaching wheels of the car of Juggernaut. At one moment, he may have the consciousness of a malignant demon being at his side: then to shun the sight of so appalling an object, he will close his eyes, but still the fearful being makes its presence known; for its icy breath is felt diffusing itself over his visage, and he knows that he is face to face with a fiend. Then, if he look up, he beholds horrid eyes glaring upon him, and an aspect of hell grinning at him with even more than hellish malice. Or, he may have the idea of a monstrous hag squatted upon his breast-mute, motionless, and malignant; an incarnation of the evil spiritwhose intolerable weight crushes the breath out of his body, and whose fixed, deadly, incessant stare petrifies him with horror and makes his very existence insuffer

able.

In every instance, there is a sense of oppression and

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helplessness; and the extent to which these are carred, varies according to the violence of the paroxysm. The individual never feels himself a free agent; on the contrary he is spell-bound by some enchantment, and remains an unresisting victim for malice to work its will upon. He can neither breathe, nor walk, nor run, with his wonted facility. If pursued by an imminent danger, he can hardly drag one limb after another; if engaged in combat, his blows are utterly ineffective; if involved in the fangs of any animal, or in the grasp of an enemy, extrication is impossible. He struggles, he pants, he toils, but it is all in vain: his muscles are rebels to the will, and refuse to obey its calls. In no case is there a sense of complete freedom: the benumbing stupor never departs from him; and his whole being is locked up in one mighty spasm. Sometimes he is forcing himself through an aperture too small for the reception of his body, and is there arrested and tortured by the pangs of suffocation produced by the pres sure to which he is exposed; or he loses his way in a narrow labyrinth, and gets involved in its contracted and inextricable mazes; or he is entombed alive in a se pulchre, beside the mouldering dead. There is, i most cases, an intense reality in all that he sees, or hears, or feels. The aspects of the hideous phanton which harass his imagination are bold and defined; the sounds which greet his ear appalling distinct; and when any dimness or confusion of imagery does pre vail, it is of the most fearful kind, leaving nothing but dreary and miserable impressions behind it.

Much of the horror experienced in nightmare will depend upon the natural activity of the imagination, upon the condition of the body, and upon the state of mental exertion before going to sleep. If, for instance, we have been engaged in the perusal of such works as The Monk,'The Mysteries of Udolpho,' or 'Satan's Invisible World Discovered;' and if an attack of nightmare should supervene, it will be aggravated inte sevenfold horror by the spectral phantoms with which our minds have been thereby filled. We will enter into all the fearful mysteries of these writings, which, instead of being mitigated by slumber, acquire an intensity which they never could have possessed in the waking state. The apparitions of murdered victims. like the form of Banquo, which wrung the guilty conscience of Macbeth, will stalk before us; we are sur rounded by sheeted ghosts, which glare upon us with their cold sepulchral eyes; our habitation is among the vaults of ancient cathedrals, or among the dungeous of ruined monasteries, and our companions are the dead.

At other times, an association of ludicrous images passes through the mind: every thing becomes incon gruous, ridiculous, and absurd. But even in the midst of such preposterous fancies, the passion of mirth is never for one moment excited: the same blank despair, the same freezing inertia, the same stifling tortures, still harass us; and so far from being amused by the laughable drama enacted before us, we behold it with sensations of undefined horror and disgust

In general, during an attack, the person has the consciousness of an utter inability to express his horror by cries. He feels that his voice is half choked by tmpending suffocation, and that any exertion of it, farther than a deep sigh or groan, is impossible. Sometres, however, he conceives that he is bellowing with prodigious energy, and wonders that the household are not alarmed by his noise. But this is an illusion: those outeries which he fancies himself uttering, are merely obscure moans, forced with difficulty and pain from the stifled penetralia of his bosom.

Nightmare takes place under various circumstances. Sometimes, from a state of perfect sleep, we glide into it, and feel ourselves unconsciously overtaken by s attendant horrors: at other times, we experience it stealing upon us like a thief, at a period when we are

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