Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

DREAMING. 195
scalped by a party of Indians. I believe every one who is in
the habit of dreaming, will recollect instances, in his own case,
of a similar nature.
2. Our dreams are influenced by the prevailing temper of the?mind; and vary, in their complexion, according as our habitual
disposition, at the time, inclines us to cheerfulness or to melancholy. Not that this observation holds without exception; but
it holds so generally, as must convince us, that the state of our
spirits has some effect on our dreams, as well as on our waking
thoughts. Indeed, in the latter case, no less than in the former,
this effect may be counteracted, or modified by various other
circumstances.
After having made a narrow escape from any alarming
danger, we are apt to awake, in the course of our sleep, with
sudden startings; imagining that we are drowning, or on the
brink of a precipice. A severe misfortune, which has affected
the mind deeply, influences our dreams in a similar way; and
suggests to us a variety of adventures, analogous, in some
measure, to that event from which our distress arises. Such,
according to Virgil, were the dreams of the forsaken Dido.
a --— Agit ipse furentem
In somnis ferus,Aneas; semperque relinqui
Sola sibi; semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam, et Tyrios deserth queerere terra."
3. Our dreams are influenced by our prevailing habits of association while awake.
In a former part of this work, I considered the extent of
that power which the mind may acquire over the train of its
thoughts; and I observed, that those intellectual diversities
among men, which we commonly refer to peculiarities of genius,
are, at least in a great measure, resolvable into differences in
their habits of association. One man possesses a rich and
beautiful fancy, which is at all times obedient to his will. Another possesses a quickness of recollection, which enables him,
at a moment's warning, to bring together all the results of his
past experience, and of his past reflections, which can be of