accompany similar events in the waking state are not made; or, if at all, so slightly as not to produce their customary effects. Identity being often lost, no surprise is produced by a change of sex, age, name, country, or occupation. A young lady dreamed of seeing herself in her coffin, of listening to the observations of the mourners, and was not astonished to find herself dead, nor that, being dead, she could hear. She was not even surprised when the funeral services closed without the coffin-lid being shut down; nor when, in a very short time, she dreamed of being alive and engaged in her usual pursuits.
But the moment we pass beyond general statements of this character, opinions most incongruous and even contradictory are held, and strenuously advocated, by representative writers in every profession.[1]
Nightmare is something so terrible that its very name attributes its origin to the devil. The meaning
- ↑ Those who desire to see the opinions of leading writers, ancient and modern, down to the year 1865, and have not time to consult them in their own works, may find in Seafield's "Literature and Curiosities of Dreams" a very extensive collection. This work has been criticized as containing a large amount of valuable but undigested information. The criticism is not just, for it does not profess to have digested, but to present all for the digestion of others. The author expressly declares that he has "foregone such chances of greater credit and importance as would have been open to him if he had seemed to claim the whole as original, by incorporating the several theories and anecdotes with textual commentary of his own." More recent investigations of great presumptive importance have introduced an immense amount of new matter into the literature, and considerable into the "curiosities," of dreams, or at least of dream investigations. Also I have found that some of the passages quoted by Seafield, read in their original setting, or compared with all the authors have said, require important modifications, if taken as expressions of mature opinion.
