CHAPTER I.

THE VARIOUS EXCITEMENTS AND DEPRESSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE SLEEPING AND DREAMING STATES.

"A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer-sky."
Castle of Indolence.

In this chapter will be described the particular excitements and depressions connected with the sleeping and dreaming states; a reference being at the same time made to the general tabular view which I have given of the comparative degrees of faintness, vividness, or intensity, subsisting between sensations and ideas, during the various transitions to which they are subject.

SECTION I.

TRANSITION (marked the 1st in the Table)

From perfect Sleep to the common State of Watchfulness.

The first transition to be noticed is from perfect sleep to that cool and collected state which characterizes our common waking moments.

During intervals of deep slumber, sensations are

supposed to be more faint than ideas; none of these mental states are, however, vivid enough to be the subject of consciousness. Sensations are accordingly placed on the annexed scale at the lowest degree, marked 1, while ideas occupy the graduated line marked 3.

It is also assumed, that at each stage of excitement ideas increase less in vividness than sensations.

Keeping the foregoing proportional increase in view, the several stages of excitement which occur during this transition may, in the subjoined table, be readily traced.

TABULAR VIEW.

Sensations, from being more faint than ideas, become more vivid.

* When sensations and ideas are equally vivid there is no mental consciousness of them.

1st Stage of Excitement.

In the first stage of excitement, represented in the table, ideas are raised to degree 4, while sensations,

which are more excitable, follow them so close as to stand at the degree 3. These mental states, however, are still so faint, that no consciousness of them en

sues.

2d Stage of Excitement.

In the second stage, sensations and ideas, from their different excitabilities, each appear at the same degree of vividness. If they had proportionally differed in vividness, a mental consciousness of such states would have ensued. But, as I have remarked on a former occasion, (in part 4,)" when it is considered that the human mind can form no notion of the present and of the past, but from the comparative degree of vividness which, during our waking hours, subsists between sensations and ideas, and that the notion of present and past time enters into our definition of consciousness, it must follow, that] when sensations arrive at the same degree of vividness as ideas, a state of mental unconsciousness must necessarily be the result."

Examples of this condition of our feelings are afforded in those moments which immediately precede our recovery from sound sleep.

3d Stage of Excitement.

In a third stage of excitement, sensations attain the 7th and ideas the 6th degree of vividness, the former becoming more vivid than the latter. The consciousness of the mind is now entire.

An important law of the mind is now called forth,

which may be thus briefly explained:-When mental feelings of any description attain a certain degree of vividness, muscular motions obey the impulse of the will.* For, in the faint feelings of our common dreams, there is a decided volition, but no contractions of the muscles follow. The particular degree necessary for muscular motions is represented in the scale as the sixth. The effect induced is, however, but feeble:

"The slumb'ring god, amazed at this new din,
Thrice strove to rise, and thrice sunk down again :
Listless he stretch'd, and gaping rubb'd his eyes,
Then falter'd thus betwixt half words and sighs."

Another character may yet be mentioned, which distinguishes this stage of excitement. The vividness of ideas approaches so nearly to that of sensations, that recollected images of thought are often confounded with actual impressions. While, therefore, the various forms of fancy and of memory mingle together in confusion, a lethargic faintness increases the indistinctness, by imparting to the whole a dull and feeble gloom:

*

"The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
Close-hid his castle 'mid imbowering trees,

That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checker'd day and night."+

Regarding this curious law I could say much, but am prevented by the limited nature of the present work.

+ Thomson's Castle of Indolence.