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"Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array,
"So fleece with clouds the pure etherial space;
"Nor could it e'er such melting forms display,
"As loose on flowery beds all anguishingly lay.

"No, fair illusions! artful phantoms, no!
"My muse will not attempt your fairy land:
"She has no colours, that like your's can glow;
"To catch your vivid scenes, too gross her hand."*

As a farther proof that the fucceffion of our thoughts in dreaming, is influenced by our prevail ing habits of affociation; it may be remarked, that the scenes and occurrences which moft frequently present themselves to the mind while we are afleep, are the scenes and occurrences of childhood and early youth. The facility of affociation is then much greater than in more advanced years; and although, during the day, the memory of the events thus affociated, may be banished by the objects and pursuits which prefs upon our fenfes, it retains a more permanent hold of the mind than any of our fubfequent acquifitions; and, like the knowledge which we poffefs of our mother tongue, is, as it were, interwoven and incorporated with all its moft effential habits. Accordingly, in old men, whofe thoughts are, in a great measure, difengaged from the world, the tranfactions of their middle age, which once feemed fo important, are often obliterated; while the mind dwells, as in a dream, on the fports and the companions of their infancy.

I fhall only obferve farther, on this head, that in our dreams, as well as when awake, we occafionally make use of words as an inftrument of thought. Such dreams, however, do not affect the mind with fuch emotions of pleasure and of pain, as those in which the imagination is occupied with particular objects of fenfe. The effect of philofophical ftudies,

*Castle of Indolence.

in habituating the mind to the almost constant employment of this inftrument, and of confequence, its effect in weakening the imagination, was formerly remarked. If I am not mistaken, the influence of thefe circumstances may alfo be traced in the hiftory of our dreams; which, in youth, commonly involve, in a much greater degree, the exercise of imagination; and affect the mind with much more powerful emotions, than when we begin to employ our maturer faculties in more general and abftract fpeculations.

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- From thefe different obfervations, we are authorifed to conclude, that the fame laws of affociation which relgulate the train of our thoughts while we are awake, continue to operate during fleep. I now proceed to confider, how far the circumftances which difcriminate dreaming from our waking thoughts, correfpond with thofe which might be expected to result from the suspension of the influence of the will.

1. If the influence of the will be fufpended during fleep, all our voluntary operations, fuch as recollection, reafoning, &c. must also be suspended.

That this really is the cafe, the extravagance and, inconfiftency of our dreams are fufficient proofs. We frequently confound together times and places the most remote from each other; and, in the course of the fame dream, conceive the fame perfon as exifting in different parts of the world. Sometimes we imagine ourselves converfing with a dead friend, without remembering the circumftances of his death, although, perhaps, it happened but a few days before, and affected us deeply All this proves clearly, that the fubjects which then occupy our thoughts, are fuch as prefent themselves to the mind fpontaneoufly; and that we have no power of employing our reafon in comparing together the different parts of our dreams; or even of exerting an act of recollection, in order to afcertain how far they are confiftent and poffible.

The proceffes of reafoning, in which we fometimes fancy ourselves to be engaged during fleep, furnish no exception to the foregoing obfervation; for although every fuch procefs, the first time we form it, implies volition; and, in particular, implies a recollection of the premises, till we arrive at the conclufion ; yet when a number of truths have been often prefented to us as neceffarily connected with each other, this feries may afterwards pafs through the mind, according to the laws of affociation, without any more activity on our part, than in thofe trains of thought which are the most loose and incoherent. Nor is this mere theory. I may venture to appeal to the consciousness of every man accustomed to dream, whether his reafonings during fleep do not feem to be carried on without any exertion of his will; and with a degree of facility, of which he was never conscious while awake. Mr. Addifon, in one of his Spectators, has made this obfervation; and his teftimony, in the prefent inftance, is of the greater weight, that he had no particular theory on the subject to fupport. "There is not," (fays he,)" a more painful action of the mind than invention, yet in "dreams, it works with that ease and activity, that "we are not fenfible when the faculty is employed. "For inftance, I believe every one, fome time or "other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or "letters; in which cafe the invention prompts fo "readily, that the mind is impofed on, and mif"takes its own fuggeftions for the compofition of "another."*

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2. If the influence of the will during fleep be fufpended, the mind will remain as paffive, while its thoughts change from one fubject to another, as it does during our waking hours while different pereeptible objects are prefented to our fenfes.

* No. 487.

Of this paffive state of the mind in our dreams, it is unneceffary to multiply proofs; as it has always been confidered as one of the moft extraordinary circumftances with which they are accompanied. If our dreams, as well as our waking thoughts, were fubject to the will, is it not natural to conclude, that, in the one cafe, as well as in the other, we would en-. deavor to banish, as much as we could, every idea which had a tendency to disturb us; and detain those only which we found agreeable? So far, however, is this power over our thoughts from being exercised, that we are frequently oppreffed, in fpite of all our efforts to the contrary, with dreams which affect us with the most painful emotions. And, indeed, it is matter of vulgar remark, that our dreams are, in every cafe, involuntary on our part; and that they appear to be obtruded on us by fome external cause. This fact appeared fo unaccountable to the late Mr. Baxter, that it gave rife to his very whimsical theory, in which he afcribes dreams to the immediate influence of separate spirits on the mind.

3. If the influence of the will be fufpended during fleep, the conceptions which we then form of fenfible objects will be attended with a belief of their real existence, as much as the perception of the fame objects is while we are awake.

In treating of the power of Conception, I formerly observed, that our belief of the feparate and independent existence of the objects of our perceptions, is the refult of experience; which teaches us that these perceptions do not depend on our will. If I open my eyes, I cannot prevent myself from seeing the profpect before me. The cafe is different with refpect to our conceptions. While they occupy the mind, to the exclufion of every thing elfe, I endeavored to fhew, that they are always accompanied with belief; but as we can banish them from the

mind, during our waking hours, at pleasure; and as the momentary belief which they produce, is continually checked by the furrounding objects of our perceptions, we learn to confider them as fictions of our own creation; and, excepting in fome accidental cafes, pay no regard to them in the conduct of life. If the doctrine, however, formerly stated with refpect to conception be juft, and if, at the fame time, it be allowed, that fleep fufpends the influence of the will over the train of our thoughts, we should naturally be led to expect, that the fame belief which accompanies perceptions while we are awake, fhould accompany the conceptions which occur to us in our dreams. It is fcarcely neceffary for me to remark, how ftrikingly this conclufion coincides with acknowledged facts.

May it not be confidered as fome confirmation of the foregoing doctrine, that when opium fails in producing complete fleep, it commonly produces one of the effects of fleep, by fufpending the activity of the mind, and throwing it into a reverie; and that while we are in this ftate, our conceptions frequently affect us nearly in the fame manner, as if the objects conceived were present to our fenfes ?*

Another circumftance with respect to our conceptions during fleep, deferves our notice. As the fubjects which we then think upon occupy the mind exclufively; and as the attention is not diverted by the objects of our external fenfes, our conceptions must be proportionably lively and fteady. Every perfon knows how faint the conception is which we form of any thing, with our eyes open, in comparifon of what we can form with our eyes fhut and that, in proportion as we can fufpend the exercise of all our other fenfes, the livelinefs of our conception

* See the Baron de Torr's Account of the Opium-takers at Constantinople.

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