which prevented my speaking to him, (a circumstance which has often happened to me in the morning, when my servant has come to announce to me that it was time to rise;) but that the arrival of the attendants, and the noise and confusion created by the transaction, had dispelled the Night-Mare, and I was then able to get up and render the necessary assistance. The whole of this was probable enough, but no part of it true; for the whole was a dream: the first part of which occurred during the state of Night-Mare, which is a species of _somnium_; a state neither of sleeping or waking, but essentially different from both; a state in which I possessed a degree of consciousness which never accompanies sleep; so much, indeed, that I was aware I was in bed, and was labouring under a paroxysm of Night-Mare. This paroxysm continued but a short time, and went off again before I awoke thoroughly. In short, having now no disturbance I continued to sleep for some time, till a second paroxysm of _Incubus_ awoke me. Had I awoke in the first paroxysm, I should have instantly perceived the fallacy of the vision; but not having had that conviction, and the dream being continued after the paroxysm of _Incubus_ had ceased, without any great deviation from probability, I had no means of conviction left but the evidence of the persons themselves, the former part of the transaction having made precisely the same impression on the mind, as if such a thing had really occurred; and although the recollection of the latter part of it was not so very distinct, but on the contrary, rather confused, yet the degree of certainty which attached itself to the principal part of the transaction, was such as would have prevented all suspicion. In fact, the extreme probability of the whole, would have left in my mind a thorough conviction that such a transaction had really occurred, and the idea would have been so associated with the rest of the train of ideas which related to the person in question, that in all probability I should never have thought of his illness without calling to mind, at the same time, his appearance at my bed-side in the middle of the night, in a state of violent delirium, and the scene of confusion to which it gave rise. One more instance I will mention, merely to shew how complete the conviction of the mind frequently is, where the bounds of probability or even of possibility have not been exceeded by the vision or hallucination, which takes place in Night-Mare.