Insomnia; and Other Disorders of SleepLyman, Henry M. (Henry Munson)
Science
Insomnia; and Other Disorders of Sleep
Lyman, Henry M. (Henry Munson)
Dreams; Insomnia; Sleepwalking
In like manner we ordinarily see and hear and feel as a consequence of
cerebral excitement occasioned by specific impressions concentrated
through the organs of sight and hearing and touch. But it is quite
reasonable to believe in the possible existence of a brain so delicately
organized as to be capable of reacting to impressions which are too
diffuse and too feeble to arouse the ordinary apparatus of sensation. With
such a brain it might be possible to experience perception without
eye-sight. Evidence furnished by the facts of somnambulism and hypnotism
indicates that the receptivity of the brain may become temporarily exalted
to a degree which warrants the inference that clairvoyance itself may be
thus brought within the capacity of certain peculiarly sensitive
organizations. The same extraordinary receptivity occasionally seems to
attend the act of dreaming. For example, one of my acquaintances, a lady
of a highly wrought nervous temperament, the wife of a distinguished
physician in a neighboring State, dreamed one night that a favorite
cousin, a beautiful little girl, who lived at a distance of twelve or
fifteen miles, was very dangerously ill. She saw the child lying on its
mother’s lap, evidently at the point of death, when some one brought a tub
of warm water and proceeded to give the patient a bath. This revived the
little one so that she recovered. The dream made a very considerable
impression upon my friend, by reason of its peculiar character, and
because dreaming was for her a very unusual experience. Next morning she
rose as usual, but during the forenoon she was startled by the receipt of
a message requesting her to come at once to the house of her uncle, as his
little daughter had been taken suddenly ill with the croup, and had
expired during the preceding night. Hastening to the bereaved household,
she found her aunt sitting with the dead child on her lap, precisely as
she had appeared in the dream. The little girl had been suddenly attacked
during the night, and, as she lay gasping in her mother’s arms, some one
advised a warm bath, and brought a tub of water into the room for that
purpose. Unfortunately, just as they were hopefully preparing to dip the
child into the water, she had ceased to breathe.
The lack of conformity between the conclusion of this dream and the actual
fact reminds one of the blurring of the images that are transferred from
one brain to another in the acts of telepathy recently investigated by the
Society for Psychical Research. Something similar is frequently observed
in connection with the phenomena of hypnotism. The hypnotised subject does
not always perceive clearly or wholly the sensation that is suggested by
the agent who operates upon his brain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account