14. That men dream without remembering it, in vain urged.
It will perhaps be said,--That the soul thinks even in
the soundest sleep, but the memory retains it not. That the soul in a sleeping man should be this moment busy a
thinking, and the next moment in a waking man not remember nor be able to recollect one jot of all those
thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some better proof than bare assertion to make it be
believed. For who can without any more ado, but being barely told so, imagine that the greatest part of men do,
during all their lives, for several hours every day, think of something, which if they were asked, even in the
middle of these thoughts, they could remember nothing at all of? Most men, I think, pass a great part of their sleep
without dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory, who told me he had never
dreamed in his life, till he had that fever he was then newly recovered of, which was about the five or six and
twentieth year of his age. I suppose the world affords more such instances: at least every one's acquaintance will
furnish him with examples enough of such as pass most of their nights without dreaming.
