"My dreams have strangely changed during the past twelve years.
Before and after my teacher first came to me, they were devoid of
sound, or thought or emotion of any kind, except fear, and only came
in the form of sensations. I would often dream that I ran into a
still, dark room, and that, while I stood there, I felt something
fall heavily without any noise, causing the floor to shake up and
down violently; and each time I woke up with a jump. As I learned
more and more about the objects around me, this strange dream ceased
to haunt me; but I was in a high state of excitement and received
impressions very easily. It is not strange then that I dreamed at
that time of a wolf, which seemed to rush towards me and put his
cruel teeth deep into my body! I could not speak (the fact was, I
could only spell with my fingers), and I tried to scream; but no
sound escaped from my lips. It is very likely that I had heard the
story of Red Riding Hood, and was deeply impressed by it. This dream,
however, passed away in time, and I began to dream of objects outside
of myself.
"I never spelled with my fingers in my sleep; but I have often
spoken, and one night I actually laughed. I was dreaming of a great
frolic with my schoolmates at the Perkins Institution. But, if I
do not use the manual alphabet in my dreams, my friends sometimes
spell to me. Their sentences are always brief and vague. I obtain
information in a very curious manner, which it is difficult to
describe. My mind acts as a sort of mirror, in which faces and
landscapes are reflected, and thoughts, which throng unbidden in my
brain, describe the conversation and the events going on around me.
"I remember a beautiful and striking illustration of the peculiar
mode of communication I have just mentioned. One night I dreamed
that I was in a lovely mansion, all built of leaves and flowers. My
thoughts declared the floor was of green twigs, and the ceiling of
pink and white roses. The walls were of roses, pinks, hyacinths,
and many other flowers, loosely arranged so as to make the whole
structure wavy and graceful. Here and there I saw an opening between
the leaves, which admitted the purest air. I learned that the flowers
were imperishable, and with such a wonderful discovery thrilling my
spirit I awoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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