TO begin with the most simple—or rather, I should say, the most ordinary—class of phenomena, for we can scarcely call that simple, the mystery of which we have never been able to penetrate—I mean dreaming—everybody’s experience will suffice to satisfy them that their ordinary dreams take place in a state of imperfect sleep, and that this imperfect sleep may be caused by any bodily or mental derangement whatever, or even from an ill-made bed, or too much or too little covering; and it is not difficult to conceive that the strange, confused, and disjointed visions we are subject to on these occasions, may proceed from some parts of the brain being less at rest than the others; so that, assuming phrenology to be fact, one organ is not in a state to correct the impressions of another. Of such vain and insignificant visions, I need scarcely say it is not my intention to treat; but, at the same time, I must observe, that when we have admitted the above explanation, as far as it goes, we have not, even in regard to _them_, made much progress toward removing the difficulty. If dreaming resembled thinking, the explanations might be quite satisfactory; but the truth is, that dreaming is not thinking, as we think in our waking state, but is more analogous to thinking in delirium or acute mania, or in that chronic condition which gives rise to sensuous illusions. In our ordinary normal state, conceiving of places or persons does not enable us to see them or hold communion with them, nor do we fancy that we do either. It is true, that I have heard some painters say that, by closing their eyes and concentrating their thoughts on an object, they can bring it more or less vividly before them, and Blake professed actually to see his sitters when they were not present; but whatever interpretations we may put upon this curious faculty, his case was clearly abnormal, and connected with some personal peculiarity, either physical or psychical; and, after making the most of it, it must be admitted that it can enter into no sort of comparison with that we possess in sleep, when, in our most ordinary dreams, untrammelled by time or space, we visit the uttermost ends of the earth, fly in the air, swim in the sea, listen to beautiful music and eloquent orations, behold the most charming as well as the most loathsome objects; and not only see, but converse with our friends, absent or present, dead or alive. Every one, I think, will grant that there is the widest possible difference between conceiving of these things when awake, and dreaming them. When we dream, we do, we see, we say, we hear, &c., &c., that is, we believe at the time we do so; and what more can be said of us when we are awake, than that we _believe_ we are doing, seeing, saying, hearing, &c. It is by external circumstances, and the results of our actions, that we are able to decide whether we have actually done a thing or seen a place, or only