If it be still said, what is the use of dreaming? it may be replied that dreams and delirium have some relation to the soul's transit from the seen to the unseen worlds. As we dream of things past, and recognise them under the most incongruous and shadowy forms, without surprise, and with a kind of intuition of their meaning, so possibly, at death, we pass by a graduation from the shadowiness of dreams into the realities of purely spiritual existence without abruptness or wonder. And it is a fact that death is generally preceded by a happy preparation in the experiences of dreaming and delirium, in such a manner as to render the transition not only easy but agreeable. To be roused out of the visions of the dying state is always a distress and a matter of complaint, some joy is thus lost sight of in those who experience the disturbance. The characteristic conditions of mind, so often evinced at this period, are worthy of study, as calculated to be highly instructive to those whose business it is to deal with souls as well as bodies. They would at least learn wondrous things of the gentle Hand on which hangs life and death, if they studied more the phenomena of dying. 185 CHAPTER III. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POWER OF THE MIND IN SOMNAMBULISM. THE importance of reflecting on volition and memory will be best demonstrated by facts; and an acquaintance with these states of soul will most fully manifest the nature of our existence, as constituted to be modified and actuated by moral forces. The nerves of the senses are impressed whenever their objects are present, but the mind itself receives no impression unless excited to attend. Thus we find that, when the mind is fully intent upon one class of objects or ideas, it wholly disregards all others; as when the absent man forgets the presence of his friends, or the imaginative man revels in his ideal world to the detriment of his well-being in this lower and more palpable existence. Many curious instances of this want of attention to the senses may be related, the most remarkable of which very nearly approximate to insanity, which probably in most cases is properly described as being out of the senses, that is to say, not thinking of objects, in consequence of the state of the brain producing too intense or too rapid a flow of ideas. Those images and intimations which the senses continue correctly to exhibit, are disregarded or perverted by the mind, while it is busied about sensations or impressions produced or excited by some disordered action of the brain; which being the organ on which the thinking power immediately acts, and through which it directly receives all its intelligence concerning the external world, of course must constantly modify the manifestation of mind according to the healthiness of its structure and function. Somnambulism, or sleep-walking, affords good examples of mental activity, without attention to the impression made on the senses. Somnambulists generally walk with their eyes open, but it is evident that they do not employ them. A man has been known to fall asleep while walking at the end of a fatiguing journey, and he could not be roused from his sleep without great difficulty, although he continued to walk in company with his friends for a considerable distance. It is, indeed, a well-authenticated fact, that in the disastrous retreat of Sir John Moore, many of the soldiers fell asleep, yet continued to march along with their comrades. It is an inexplicable mystery that a man should find his way and keep step with others without any movement of his eyes, which remain fixed in sleep-walking as in ordinary sleep. In connection with this subject, we have an illustration of the genius of Shakspeare, who gives a lucid glimpse at the phenomena of somnambulism and sleeptalking, when he describes Lady Macbeth in 'the unnatural troubles of her unnatural deeds, discharging the secrets of her infected mind to her deaf pillow.' He represents the abrupt and suggestive vision in which the soul re-enacts her terrible part, precisely as those often witness who are attendant on talking dreamers and insane persons. 'I have seen her rise from her bed,' says the Gentlewoman, 'throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while fast asleep.' Doct. You see her eyes are open. How do we account for this strange state of mind? It may be true that certain portions of brain sleep while other portions remain awake; but what does that signify? Can one part of the brain subserve the purposes of the other parts, and those organs which phrenologists appropriate to thought, furnish a substitute in their own action for that of the instruments of vision and of hearing? If so, their system must be false; for then faculty is not limited according to their cranial maps, the provinces of which are boldly defined by very imaginary lines indeed. But what is the dif ference in the state of the brain during sleeping and waking? Happily, we are supplied with facts which in some measure answer this question, and prove to our satisfaction that both brain and mind act altogether, and not by bits. Sir Astley Cooper had a patient, whose skull being imperfect, allowed him to examine the movements of the brain. Sir Astley, in his 'Lectures,' says, 'I distinctly saw the pulsation of the brain was regular and slow, but the patient was agitated by some opposition to his wishes, and directly the blood was sent with increased force to the brain, the pulsation became frequent and violent.' The following case occurred in the hospital of Montpellier, in 1821. Dr. Caldwell states, that 'the subject of it was a female, who had lost a large portion of the skull and dura mater in a neglected attack of lues When she was in a dreamless sleep, her brain was motionless; when her sleep was imperfect and she was agitated by dreams, her brain protruded from the cranium; in vivid dreams, reported as such by herself, the protrusion was considerable; and when perfectly awake, especially if engaged in active thought or sprightly conversation, it was greater still.' We may observe that in dreams reported by herself to be vivid, the brain protruded. Those dreams must, then, have occurred during the transition from sleep to waking, for venerea. we shall learn from numerous other facts, that the most perfect dreams are those which are not remembered. Here, moreover, we have a demonstration that the brain is roused by the mind; for mind must first have responded to the call, whatever the medium of the sensation which caused the patient to awake. We also see that the brain, during active thought, must have been injected with additional blood in every part of it; for doubtless it would have become enlarged in all directions at once, had the skull allowed. If we understand anything of the brain's structure and circulation, this must always be the tendency, whenever the supply of blood is increased in the brain, for branches spread through it to every part from the larger blood-vessels; and as there are no valves there, the supply must flow to all, as water flows through every open pipe connected with the main. Does the mind control the supply, and cause it to pass with more or less freedom in certain parts of the brain, according to circumstances? Then the mind acts independently and as a whole, not as a loose bundle of separate faculties, each self-moved. It is, indeed, asserted that in one case, during the excitement of one set of organs, the collapse of the others was sufficient to produce a depression; and the anger of the person could always be known by 'the holes which appeared in his head' on the coronal surface where the bone was defective. ('Phrenological Journal,' Sept. 1835.) This is the solitary and incongruous evidence to a fact of too much importance to be thus received, so that we may still say we have no proof that brain responds in parcels to the impress of the mind; but even if we had, it would no more prove that mind results from the action of the brain than from the use of our limbs, through which also the mind is manifested by calling them into action. At any rate, the oneness of the mind, and therefore its independence on |