“The indistinctness of the conception in dreams is generally so great that we are not aware that we dream. The phantasms which are perceived really exist in our organs of sense. They afford, therefore, in themselves as strong proof of the actual existence of the objects they represent, as our own perceptions of real external objects in the waking state; for we know the latter only by the affections of our senses which they produce. When, therefore, the mind has lost the faculty of analyzing the impressions on our senses, there is no reason why the things which they seem to represent should be supposed unreal. Even in the waking state phantasms are regarded as real objects when they occur to persons of feeble intellect. On the other hand, when the dreaming approaches more nearly to the waking state, we sometimes are conscious that we merely dream, and still allow the dream to proceed, while we retain this consciousness of its true nature.” Sir Benjamin Brodie,[55] in discussing the subject of wonderful discoveries made in dreams, and abstruse problems worked out, remarks that it would indeed be strange if among the vast number of combinations which constitute our dreams, there were not every now and then some having the semblance of reality; and further, that in many of the stories of great discoveries made in dreams, there is much of either mistake or exaggeration, and that if they could have been written down at the time, they would have been found to be worth little or nothing. Another faculty exercised during sleep has been ascribed to the judgment. It is well known that many persons having made up their minds to awake at a certain hour invariably do so. I possess this power in a high degree, and scarcely ever vary a minute from the fixed time. Just as I go to bed I look at my watch and impress upon my mind the figures on the dial which represent the hour and minute at which I wish to awake. I give myself no further anxiety on the subject, and never dream of it, but I always wake at the desired moment. Now I cannot conceive what connection the judgment has with this power. In the case of alarm clocks set to go off at a certain time, the judgment, as Jouffroy[56] asserts, may take cognizance of the impression made upon the ear, and establish the relation between it and the wish to awake at a certain time. But in cases where the awaking is the result of an idea conceived before going to sleep, and which is not subsequently recalled, the judgment cannot act, for this faculty is only exercised upon ideas which are submitted to it. The brain is, as it were, wound up like the alarm clock and set to a certain hour. When that hour arrives, an explosion of nervous force takes place, and the individual awakes.