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during an imperfect and dreamy sleep, is well illustrated by Lord Brougham, in "A Discourse of Natural Theology." "Let any one who is extremely overpowered with drowsiness-as after sitting up all night, and sleeping none the next day-lie down, and begin to dictate: he will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few words, and he will be awakened by the person who writes repeating the last word, to show he has written the whole; not above five or six seconds may elapse, and the sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over his work— so great apparently will be the length of the dream which he has dreamt, extending through half a lifetime. This experiment is easily tried: again and again the sleeper will find his endless dream renewed; and he will always be able to tell in how short a time he must have performed it. For suppose eight or ten seconds required to write the four or five words dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four or five seconds after the effort of pronouncing the sentence; so that, at the utmost, not more than four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep. But, indeed, the greater probability is, that not above a single second can have been so passed, for a writer will easily finish two words in a second; and suppose he was to write four, and half the time is consumed in falling asleep, one second only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems to last for years, so numerous are the images that compose it."

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Lord Brougham carries his opinions on this subject so far, as to say, "There seems every reason to conclude, from these facts, that we only dream during the instant of transition into and out of sleep. That instant is quite enough to account for the whole of what appears a night's dream." Few persons would adopt so extreme an opinion on this subject, who had watched the sleep of people frequently, whether the sleepers were adults or children, invalids or persons in health. Whatever renders the sleep sufficiently imperfect to restore the imagination and memory to a certain degree of force, would give rise to dreaming; and as such disturbing influences are more likely to operate, when some of the organs are suffering from functional derangement, so dreams are more likely to happen to the invalid than to the man in health; as they are more likely to act when the equilibrium and intensity of the vital forces have been well nigh restored by a sufficient duration of sleep, so dreams are more likely to occur in the morning than in the earlier parts of the night. The disturbing influence may be a strong impression on some one of the organs of external sense; and it is curious in this case to find the readiness with which this is mixed up with, and adapted to, the dream that has occurred : thus, a cold night, chilling the extremities of the sleeper, or a storm of wind and rain shaking and beating against the bed-room windows, or an oppressive and feverish state occasioned by an over-heated bed-room, or the loud barking of a dog, or even the lying in an uneasy or unusual position, may render

the sleep imperfect, and both occasion the dream and influence its character. A pile of clothes, or the arrangement of a window-curtain, may impersonate to the dreamer's eye some absent friend, or assume the perfect semblance of some one long deceased, or be supposed to represent an unearthly visitant, or a burglarious assassin. Sometimes, the voluntary muscles are in part or wholly restored to the command of the will; and the curious phenomena of sleep-walking are the result; with all the marvellous possibilities of a sleeper being able to write his next Sunday's sermon, or next month's magazine article; to work out some complicated problem that had perhaps been puzzled over vainly when he was awake; to perform on the familiar instrument of music, long forgotten airs, or brilliant and difficult themes; to find his way during the darkest nights, through intricacies, which, however necessarily well known, would have confused and puzzled his waking senses, if unaided by light.

Such are some of the well authenticated accounts of the doings and capabilities of sleep-walkers; and they have been adduced among the arguments in favour of a belief in the statements of Mesmer and his followers that people under certain circumstances of nervous excitement, may read with their eyes blind-folded, &c., &c.; the difference between the most surprising of the authenticated phenomena of sleep-walking and the accounts of the mesmerist, being, that the former are always consistent with the capabilities of an excited nervous system, whereas

ASSUMPTIONS OF MESMERISM.

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the latter confessedly exceed them. Thus, it is not inconsistent with our reasonable belief, to find that a sleeper, with his eyes shut, can rise from his bed, perform his customary ablutions, dress himself in his clothes, leave his bed-room, make his way through the accustomed and familiar passages of his house to his sitting-room, place himself in his wonted chair, and draw to him the habitually used writing materials, and, with his eyes still shut, take his pen in hand, dip it into the ink-bottle at almost stated intervals of time, and with one hand on the sheet of paper, the other at its wonted pen-guidance, write out the digested and arranged thoughts of the mind; even although the eyes may be shut all the time, and although such successive feats, without the aid of vision, would be impossible to the person when awake, interfered with by the conscious difficulties, and not under the stimulus of the nervous excitement. This is a very different call upon our belief, from the statement that the interior of the human body, or the thoughts and feelings of a second person's mind, or occurrences that are happening in an adjoining house, or even at a distance of miles or leagues, may be cognizant by the faculties of any one suffering from any degree of nervous excitement, whether produced artificially or otherwise. Cases of cerebral disease often equal or exceed any of the accredited cases of sleep-walking, in the surprising character of their phenomena, recalling to the mind, events, facts, and the doings of individuals, which had long been forgotten; bringing back the tasks of the

childhood, restoring a long disused familiarity with the Greek or Roman classics, or enabling the patient to sing tunes that may have been once familiar, or may have been once heard, and the occasion forgotten; or, on the other hand, taking away altogether some familiar intellectual acquirements, depriving the scholar of his languages, or the savant of his calculations. This is a very different tax upon the credulity, from the statement that any state of nervous system, however produced, could convey to an ignorant person an instantaneous and intimate acquaintance with the theory and practice of medicine; enabling the subject of the mesmeric ecstacy to diagnose and prescribe suitably for different diseases. So much for mesmerism!.

Exercise of the mind and exercise of the body, by so much as they involve a greater expenditure, or larger disturbance of the equilibrium, of the vital forces, by so much require in an equal degree the influence of sleep. It would be a mistake to suppose, that if a man should sit on his chair all the day, or move only from room to room, his mind being engaged actively during the time, he would not require the same amount of sleep that would be needed if the vital forces had been expended to the same degree by muscular exertions, whether in walking all the day in the open air, or in working at some laborious occupation. Not but that, if such mental labours were undergone, and no bodily exercise taken, no change of air enjoyed, an irritable condition of the nervous system would come on, and sleep be either

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