“There is, certainly, some truth in this remark. I must, however, observe, that we do not possess that capacity when dreaming, but when we are fast asleep. It is commonly thought that we have only obscure notions in the latter state, and this opinion arises from our not recollecting them when we awake; however, on what ground can we conclude therefrom that they have not been clear while we were sleeping? Such ideas, perhaps, may be clearer and more extensive, than even the most perspicuous when we are awake, because the activity of our soul is neither modified nor confined by any thing whatever, the sensitive organs being intirely at rest. However this very rest of our sensitive organs, is the cause which prevents the re-production of these ideas when we are awake, our sleeping body having no share in them, and, consequently, being destitute of its concomitant notion of them; they, of course, remain insulated in our soul, having no connection at all with those ideas which arise within ourselves before and after we are fast asleep, and in which our body takes a greater or a smaller share. This is not the case with our dreams; for when we are dreaming, the faculties of the soul do not act so pure and uncontrouled as when we are fast asleep. Dreaming is an intermediate state between waking and sleeping. We have then already, in some measure, clear ideas, and interweave the actions of our soul with the impressions of our exterior senses, whereby a strange, and sometimes ridiculous mixture is engendered, which we partly recollect when we awake.” “You have, as yet, proved only the probability of clear notions during our being fast asleep; could you not also prove their reality?” “Certainly! however these arguments do not belong to the theoretical part of our philosophy. Yet I must beg of you to recollect, en passant, the actions of some noctambulos, who sometimes, during the profoundest sleep, shew more understanding than at any other time, but cannot recollect those actions when awake?” “This is true!” I exclaimed, “this throws an astonishing light upon this matter.” “Yet not only while asleep,” the Irishman continued, “but also when awake, many people can be capable of having a clear notion of their connection with the spiritual world, and the influence of spirits upon them. Yet the essential difference which exists between the notions of _spirits_ and those of _men_ is a great impediment, which, however, is not at all insurmountable. It is true than man cannot have an _immediate_ notion of those spiritual ideas, because of the co-operation of his corporeal organs; however they can, in virtue of the law of the association of ideas, produce in the human mind those images which are related to them and consequently procreate analogical representations of our senses, which, although they be not the spiritual actions themselves, yet are their symbols.” “I perceive what you are aiming at.”