University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

The analysis of the dreaming faculty has never yet been
made. The nearest approach to it is in our own time, and by
the doctors of Phrenology. The suggestion of a plurality of
mental attributes, and of their independence, one of the other,
affords a key to some of the difficulties of the subject, without
altogether enabling us to penetrate the mystery. Many difficulties
remain to be overcome, if we rely upon the ordinary
modes of thinking. My own notion is, simply, that the condition
of sleep is one which by no means affects the mental nature. I
think it probable that the mind, accustomed to exercise, thinks
on, however deep may be the sleep of the physical man; that
the highest exercise of the thinking faculty — that which involves
the imagination — is, perhaps, never more acutely free to work
out its problems than when unembarrassed by the cares and
anxieties of the temperament and form; and that dreaming is
neither more nor less than habitual thought, apart from the ordinary
restraints of humanity, of which the memory, at waking,
retains a more or less distinct consciousness. This thought may
or may not have been engendered by the topics which have impressed
or interested us during the day; but this is not necessary
nor is it inevitable. We dream precisely as we think, with suggestions
arising to the mind in sleep, spontaneously, as they do
continually when awake, without any special provocation; and
our dreams, in all probability, did not our memory fail us at
awaking, would possess that coherence, proportion and mutual
relation of parts, which the ordinary use of the ratiocinative

faculties requires. I have no sort of doubt that the sleep of the
physical man may be perfect, even while the mind is at work, in
a high state of activity, and even excitement, in its mighty storehouse.
The eye may be shut, the ear closed, the tongue sealed,
the taste inappreciative, and the nerves of touch locked up in
the fast embrace of unconsciousness, while thought, fancy, imagination,
comparison and causality, are all busy in the most keen
inquiries, and in the most wonderful creations. But my purpose
is not now to insist upon these phenomena, and my speculations
are only meant properly to introduce a vision of my own; one
of those wild, strange, foreign fancies which sometimes so unexpectedly
people and employ our slumbers — coherent, seemingly,
in all its parts, yet as utterly remote as can well be imagined
from the topics of daily experience and customary reflection.

I had probably been asleep a couple of hours, when I was
awakened with some oppressive mental sensation. I was conscious
that I had been dreaming, and that I had seen a crowd
of persons, either in long procession, or engaged in some great
state ceremonial. But of the particulars — the place, the parties
the purpose, or the period, — I had not the most distant recollection.
I was conscious, however, of an excited pulse, and of a
feeling so restless, as made me, for a moment, fancy that I had
fever. Such, however, was not the case. I rose, threw on my
robe de chambre, and went to the window. The moon was in
her meridian; the whole landscape was flickering with the light
silvery haze with which she carpeted her pathway. From the
glossy surface of the orange leaves immediately beneath the
window, glinted a thousand diamond-like points of inexpressible
brightness; while over all the fields was spread a fleecy softness,
that was doubly pure and delicate in contact with the sombre
foliage of the great forest, to the very foot of which it stretched.
There was nothing in the scene before me that was not at once
gentle and beautiful; nothing which, by the most remote connection,
could possibly suggest an idea of darkness or of terror.
I gazed upon the scene only for a few moments. The night was
cold, and a sudden shivering chillness which it sent through all
my frame, counselled me to get back to bed with all possible expedition.
I did so, but was not successful in wooing the return

of those slumbers which had been so unusually banished from
mine eyes. For more than an hour I lay tossing and dissatisfied,
with my thoughts flitting from subject to subject with all the
caprice of an April butterfly. When I again slept, however, I
was again conscious of a crowd. A multitude of objects passed
in prolonged bodies before my sight. Troops of glittering forms
then occupied the canvass, one succeeding to the other regularly,
but without any individuality of object or distinct feature. But
I could catch at intervals a bright flash, as of a plume or jewel,
of particular size and splendor, leading me to the conviction that
what I beheld was the progress of some great state ceremonial,
or the triumphal march of some well-appointed army. But
whether the procession moved under the eagles of the Roman,
the horse-tails of the Ottoman, or the lion banner of England, it
was impossible to ascertain. I could distinguish none of the ensigns
of battle. The movements were all slow and regular.
There was nothing of strife or hurry — none of the clamor of
invasion or exultation of victory. The spectacle passed on with
a measured pomp, as if it belonged to some sad and gloomy rite,
where the splendor rather increased the solemnity to which it
was simply tributary.