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. 199
wards pass through the mind, according to the laws of association, without any more activity on our part, than in those trains
of thought which are the most loose and incoherent. Nor is
this mere theory. I may venture to appeal to the consciousness
of every man accustomed to dream, whether his reasonings
during sleep do not seem to be carried on without any exertion
of his will; and with a degree of facility of which he was never
conscious while awake. 3Mr, Addison, in one of his Spectators,
las made this observation; and his testimony, in the present
instance, is of the greater weight, that he had no particular
theory on the subject to support. "There is not," says he, " a
more painful action of the mind than invention; yet in dreams
it works with that ease and activity, that we are not sensible
when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every
one, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books,
or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that
the mind is imposed on, and mistakes its own suggestions for
the composition of another."
2. If the influence of the will during sleep be suspended, the
mind will remain as passive, while its thoughts change from one
subject to another, as it does during our waking hours, while different perceptible objects are presented to our senses.
Of this passive state of the mind in our dreams it is unnecessary to multiply proofs; as it has always been considered as
one of the most extraordinary circumstances with which they
are accompanied. If our dreams, as well as our waking thoughts
were subject to the will, is it not natural to conclude, that in the
one case, as well as in the other, we would endeavor to banish,
as much as we could, every idea which had a tendency to disturb us; and detain those only which we found to be agreeable?
So far, however, is this power over our thoughts from being
exercised, that we are frequently oppressed, in spite of all our
efforts to the contrary, with dreams which affect us with the
most painful emotions. And, indeed, it is matter of vulgar
remark, that our dreams are, in every case, involuntary on our
part, and that they appear to be obtruded on us by some external
cause. This fact appeared so unaccountable to the late Mr.