CHAPTER II.

THE STATE OF THE WILL IN DREAMING.

WHEN We possess light and insight enough to explain the marvels of sleep and dreams, we shall be close upon the discovery of all the mysteries of memory and imagination; indeed then, and not till then, will mystery itself be ended, for then will the world of mind be revealed to us. There is manifest relation between sleeping and forgetting, as well as between awakening and remembering. So also may there be a true relation between dying and a full awaking to all the capacities of our spiritual being. Carmichael* well taught that there are seven stages of sleeping and waking. 1. When the entire brain and nervous system are buried in sleep, then there is total exemption from dreaming. 2. When some of the mental organs are awake, and all the senses are asleep, then dreams occur, and seem to be realities. 3. When the above condition exists, and the centres of voluntary motion are also awake, then may occur the rare phenomenon of somnambulism. 4. When one of the senses is awake with some of the mental organs, then during our dream we may be conscious of its illusory nature. 5. When some of the mental organs are asleep, and two or more senses awake, then we can attend to external impressions, and notice the gradual departure of our

* Quoted by Dr. B. W. Richardson, in Physics of the Brain.' -Popular Science Review, p. 426, Oct. 1867.

slumbers. 6. When we are totally awake, and in full possession of our faculties and powers. 7. When, under these circumstances, we are so occupied with mental operations as not to attend to the impressions of external objects, then our reverie deludes us like a dream.

Now, in these varied degrees of sleeping and waking, the different states of the nerve-centres and their functions stand in direct relation to the soul that dreams, uses the senses, remembers, reasons, &c., according to circumstances. We attend, we awake, we are occupied, we are deluded, we become fully possessed of our powers. All the changes of condition to which we are thus subjected only go to prove that we are distinct from our bodies, and are never out of the reach of impressions through our senses as long as the body is adapted to convey those impressions, since we awake, or in other words rouse our own senses and powers into activity, when called upon to do so. Many nerves, mental organs, and voluntary parts of the body are brought into action. by the one being, as long as those parts remain in a state adapted to the soul's demands on the bodily media-a sufficient evidence that man exists as an individual being, though operating through many divisible and harmonious organs.

In the phenomena of sleep we obtain a glimpse at the nature of mind-action, and see how the condition of the organisation may disorder that action, as respects the manifestations both of thought and of will. The recurrence of our waking consciousness is also the recurrence of memory in the recognition of objects; but supposing any part of the brain rendered during sleep unfit to receive certain impressions from the senses, or incapable of working harmoniously in relation to ideas, thought, memory, or will, then we see that the mind must of necessity be manifested in more or less of a dreamy or insane state. Nevertheless, we have made no

advance towards a knowledge of the mode in which the imagery of dreams or insanity is produced, nor in any degree understand the better how memory recalls the past, nor how imagination conceives the possible future. There is no process available by which we may learn how ideas and sensations are related to particular states of brain. All we know of the matter is this-our consciousness of the physical world is a coincidence of action between our souls and our bodies, in which the immaterial, recipient, active being is engaged with the material brain, as a medium, and a means of outward impression and bodily action. As mind is the property of a thinking being, the existence of which must have preceded the act of thinking, it does not follow that the cessation of its connection with the brain necessarily involves the destruction of that which thinks, or its incapacity of receiving impressions, and of being called into action through other media than those of the present bodily senses. If the brain influence the soul, the soul no less influences the brain, and as our experience of a physical world warrants our belief in a spiritual world, we may well believe that theory of another life which teaches the probability that appropriate organisation will be hereafter provided for the thinking being, simply because it is created to think, in whatever sphere it may dwell, in keeping with that sphere.

Since we know that the power of self-control is dependent on the state of the blood, and the consequent condition of the nerve-centres, all of which may be influenced by physical agents of immense variety and inscrutable operation, altogether incapacitating a man from exercising his will in the regulation of either his thoughts or his actions, it would be folly to talk of the human will as absolutely free. We can at best be only relatively free. We are able to desire according to our knowledge, and to choose the good we believe in when

the evil tempts us. But, amidst our frailties and mistakes, we have but one mode of preserving ourselves in a straight path when most conscious of our duties, and that is by looking to the end. We must have faith in God's perfect love and care of us, to cast out fear in respect to ourselves individually. That faith it is which throws light along the path, and in that light we walk, not as having strength of our own in which to walk alone, for faith is nothing but a sense of dependence on Him who enables us to will and do, because He wills us to be saved from our own weakness and waywardness by reliance on His love and might. Thus, having faith in God, our strength is but to feel weak as mere children, to be borne or led along by the loving Hand to which we yield for guidance and support. That yielding and depending is all that is meant by prayer-the spirit's utterance of felt need and entire trust. Thus we live consciously while our minds are clear to will, and thus willing while we can desire, the bodily disorder that confounds our faculties, from whatever cause, has no power to harm our souls by their confusion. We are morally right for life here, whether sleeping or waking, and for life hereafter, wherever and however we may emerge from death, if our souls trust in God. In our earnestness to maintain the truth that a man possesses dominance over his own body in proportion to its health, the enlightenment of his moral knowledge, and the strength of his Christian faith, we must by no means overlook the grand fact that the working power of the soul is altogether conditioned by its connection with the body. This is especially illustrated in relation to the exercise of memory, on which all our mental faculties depend. The impulses that act upon the will are also often of a purely bodily and uncontrollable nature, and our impotence to resist them is shown by our subjection to hunger and thirst. It is true indeed, that a man,

for a perverse purpose, may willingly starve himself to death, and thus assert the might of his will. But, in fact, he can no more prevail against the pressure of bodily impulses by his resolves than he can prevent himself from dreaming. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' The spirit is subject to the flesh because the flesh is the medium of the spirit's operations in this physical world. And as the soul is thus limited by inhabiting the body to manifest its powers in keeping with the vital functions, it of course follows, that whatever interferes with the working of bodily life, sensation, and motion, in the same ratio also interferes with the modus operandi of the soul itself.

This will perhaps be better understood by reference to the balance of forces resident in the more immediate organ and instrument of mind-action, the brain. Experiment has proved, that whatever either diminishes or increases the activity of vital action in any part of the cerebral substance so far disturbs the power to regulate our minds, both in relation to motives and to movements. Suppose the part called by anatomists the superior cerebral ganglion to be rendered inactive by disease, such as congestion or pressure, what follows? An uncontrollable and impetuous tendency to keep moving, as if in pursuit of something defined or undefined, in consequence of the greater proportionate activity of the posterior brain. If the posterior lower ganglion or cerebellum be rendered less active by any cause, the tendency is backwards, supposing the front brain to be active and healthy. And so also, whatever interferes with either side of the brain produces a tendency to lateral movement. So far, a well-balanced mind is truly pretty much the same as a well-balanced brain. How far the disturbance of the brain-balance by the many influences of a physical kind constantly operating upon our nervous systems may tend to modify the controlling