Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What's in a Dream: A Scientific and Practical Exposition — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What's in a Dream: A Scientific and Practical Exposition
John Stuart Mill · en
Man is the microcosm or a miniature world. He has a soul and
mental firmament, bounded by the stellar dust and the milky way,
and filled with the mystery of suns, satellites and stars.
These he can study best by the astronomy of induction and introspection.
He has also a physical plane, diversified by oceans,
lakes, rivers, fertile valleys, waste places and mountains.
All are in cosmic interdependency as they are in the macrocosm.
Here rests the mystery of being--the grandest of subjects!
The student is no less bewildered and awed than the geologist
who gropes blindly through the seams of the earth searching
for links in the infinite chain of knowledge, or the astronomer
sweeping the heavens of the macrocosm in quest of new phenomena.
The two planes are dependent upon each other. It is the smile
or disease of the firmament that blesses or diseases the earth.
It is likewise the impure firmament of the microcosm that diseases
the body and soul. If it reflects the drought of thought or the
various states of evil, deserts will enlarge, forest of infectious,
venomous growth will form the habitation of lust and murder.
Before great moral or physical revolutions or catastrophes occur,
clouds will darken the horizon of the dream mind; storms will gather,
lurid flames of lightning will flash their volatile anger;
the explosive thunder will recklessly carry on its bombardment;
bells will ring, strange knocking will be heard--symbols of a message--
phantom forms will be seen, familiar voices will call and plead
with you, unknown visitors will threaten you, unearthly struggles
with hideous giants and agonies of mind and body will possess you;
malformations of the most hideous type will seize your vision;
shrouded in sheets of a whitish vapor, evanescent specters,
with pallid face and of warning countenance, will cling around you,
and contagion and famine will leave their desolate impress upon
the flower of health and in the field of plenty. Thus all of us
would be nightly warned in our circle or miniature world if we
would develop subjective strength to retain the impressions left
upon our dream mind. But in spite of all reason and conscience--
in spite of the inductive knowledge received through our senses--
we go on from day to day, and step by step, feeding our soul
on the luscious fruit of the outward senses, until the rank
weeds of sefishness{sic} have choked out all other forces.
Thus the soul is filled with thought images that assume the form
of vicious animals, homely visaged fowls, rabid and snarling
cats and dogs, leprous and virile serpents, cankerous lizards,
slimy intestine worms, hairy and malicious insects.
They are generated by greed, envy, jealousy, covetousness, backbiting,
amorous longings and other impure thoughts. With the soul filled
with this conglomeration of virus and filth, why doubt a hell and its
counterpart condition, or expect the day or night to bring happiness?