"To arrive at any reasonable conclusion respecting the phenomena of dreams, we require data most difficult to be obtained; we should compare authentic dreams, faithfully related, with their equally well-attested attendant and _precedent_ circumstances. But who can feel certain that he correctly relates even his own dream? I have many times made the attempt, but cannot be perfectly sure that in the act of recording a dream, I have not given more of order to the succession of the events than the dream itself presented. In the case of the first dream, the mere delivery of a letter, there is no succession of events, and therefore no ground to suppose that any invention could have been added to give it form and consistency. The young lady knew that her friend was in the West Indies; she knew, too, the danger of that climate, and had often seen the Admiral, her uncle, receive official letters. Some transient thoughts on these subjects, although too transient to be remembered, unquestionably formed her dream. That the letter really arrived and confirmed the event predicted, can only be referable to those coincidences which are not of very uncommon occurrence in daily life. To similar causes I attribute the second dream; and even its external fulfilment in so many particulars can hardly be deemed more extraordinary than the coincidence of the sudden and wholly unexpected arrival of Major F----, just at the very moment after General D---- had related to me his dream. The third narrative admits of an easy solution. Mrs B---- was not in good health. Thinking of her husband, in a state of reverie, a morbid spectrum might be the result--distinct enough to cause her sudden alarm and exclamation which, if the children heard, (and children distinguish their mother's voice at a considerable distance--the cabin door, too, might have been open, and the children much nearer than they were supposed to have been,) would account at once for their calling out 'Papa! papa!' During our waking hours, we are never conscious of any complete suspension of thought, even for a moment; if fatigued by any long and laborious mental exertion, such as the solution of a complicated mathematical problem, how is the weariness relieved? Not by listless rest like the tired body, but by a change of subject--a change of action--a new train of thoughts and expressions. Are we, then, always dreaming when asleep? We certainly are not conscious that we are; but it may be that in our sleep we do not remember our dreams, and that it is only in imperfect sleep, or in the act of waking, that the memory records them. That dreams occupy an exceedingly short period of time, I know from my own experience; for I once had, when a boy, a very long dream about a bird, which