In order to disdelusionize, it will be necessary to get a clear understanding of the nature of the mind and of its workings. "When the mind turns its view inward upon itself," says John Locke, "and contemplates its own actions, _thinking_ is the first that occurs. In it, the mind observes a great variety of modifications, and from them receives distinct _ideas_. Thus the perception, which actually accompanies, and is annexed to any impression on the body, made by an external object, being distinct from all other modifications of thinking, furnishes the mind with a distinct idea which we call _sensation_; which is, as it were, the actual entrance of an idea into the understanding by the senses. "The same idea, when it occurs again without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, is _remembrance_; if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavor found, and brought again in view, it is _recollection_; if it be held there long under consideration, it is _contemplation_; when ideas float in our mind without any recollection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call _reverie_; our language has scarce a word for it. When the ideas that offer themselves (for, as I have observed, while we are awake, there will always be a train of ideas succeeding one another in our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registered in the memory, it is _attention_; when the mind, with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas, it is what we call intention or study. _Sleep_ without dreaming is rest from all these; and dreaming itself, is the having of ideas (while the outward senses are stopped, so that they receive not outward objects with their usual quickness) in the mind, not suggested by any external objects, or known occasion, nor under any choice or conduct of the understanding at all, and whether that which we call _ecstasy_, be not dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined." We often converse with a dead or absent friend, in our dreams, without remembering that the grave or the ocean is between us. We float, like a feather, or fly like a bird, upon the wind, one moment in New York, and the next in Melbourne, without reflecting that the laws of nature are suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly shifted. We accommodate ourselves to every event, however romantic, impossible, unreasonable, extravagant and absurd. We also dream awake, which dreams may be called _reveries_ or _waking-dreams_, and they are sometimes as chimerical, and impossible to be realized, as our sleep dreams. Many fabulous stories of apparitions, magic, and apparent miracles, owe their origin to some form of dream. _Superstitions_ _Superstition has done more harm than war, famine and pestilence._