“I dreamed once,” said Professor Maass, of Halle, “that the pope visited me. He commanded me to open my desk, and he carefully examined all the papers it contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling diamond fell out of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however, neither of us took any notice. As soon as the pope had withdrawn, I retired to bed, but was soon obliged to rise on account of a thick smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon examination, I discovered that the diamond had set fire to the papers in my desk, and burnt them to ashes.” This dream deserves a short analysis, on account of the peculiar circumstances which occasioned it. “On the preceding evening,” continues Professor Maass, “I was visited by a friend, with whom I had a lively conversation upon Joseph II.’s suppression of monasteries and convents. With this idea, though I did not become conscious of it in the dream, was associated the visit which the pope publicly paid the emperor Joseph at Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against the clergy; and, with this again was combined, however faintly, the representation of the visit which had been paid me by my friend. These two events were by the subreasoning faculty compounded into one, according to the established rule—that things which agree in their parts, also correspond as to the whole; hence the pope’s visit was changed into a visit paid to me. The subreasoning faculty, then, in order to account for this extraordinary visit, fixed upon that which was the most important object in my room, namely, the desk, or rather the papers it contained. That a diamond fell out of the triple crown, was a collateral association, which was owing merely to the representation of the desk. Some days before, when opening the desk, I had broken the glass of my watch, which I held in my hand, and the fragments fell among the papers; hence no farther attention was paid to the diamond, being a representation of a collateral series of things. But afterwards, the representation of the sparkling stone was again excited, and became the prevailing idea; hence it determined the succeeding association. On account of its similarity, it excited the representation of fire, with which it was confounded; hence arose fire and smoke. But, in the event, the writings only were burnt, not the desk itself, to which, being of comparatively less value, the attention was not at all directed.”