being awake: fuch is the law of our na And our experience of the delufions of dreaming never affects, and is not fuppofed to affect, the certainty of human knowledge.

157. In good health we often dream of our ordinary bufinefs; which however is confiderably disguised by imaginary cir cumstances. Such dreams partake of the nature of allegory: they resemble common life, and yet they differ from it. This the poets attend to; and, when they have occafion to describe any perfon's dream, they generally make it contain fome fhadowy representation of what is fuppofed to be in his mind when awake; and this we approve of, because we know it is natural. Difagreeable dreams accompany certain bodily disorders; and when there is any tendency to fever in the human frame, they are very fatiguing and tirefome: whence a man of prudence, who is free from fuperftition, may make difcoveries concerning his health, and learn from his dreams to live more temperately than ufual, or take more or less exercise, or have recourse e

to

to other means, in order to avert the impending evil.

158. Dreams may fometimes be useful, as fables are, for conveying moral inftruction. If, for example, we dream that we are in violent anger, and strike a blow which kills a man, the horror we feel on the occafion may difpofe us, when awake, to form refolutions against violent anger, left it should at one time or other prompt us to a like perpetration. In the Tatler (Numb. 117.) there is an account of a dream that conveys a fublime and inftructive lesson of morality.-Dreams are a ftriking instance of the activity of the human foul, and of its power of creating, as it were, without the help of the fenfes, ideas that give it amufement, and command its whole attention. Sometimes, however, in fleep, our memory, and fometimes our judgement, feem to have forfaken us: we believe the wildeft abfurdities, and forget the most remarkable events of our life. It is at leaft poffible, that this temporary fufpenfion of our faculties may make the foul act more vigorously at other times, even as

our

our bodily powers derive refreshment from reft.

159. Dreams may in other refpects be friendly to our intellectual nature. To think too long, or too intenfely, on any one fubject, is hurtful to health, and fometimes even to reafon. They may therefore be useful in giving variety to our thoughts, and forcing the mind to exert itself, for a while, in a new direction. And perfons who dream moft frequently may perhaps, from their conftitution, have more need, than others have, of this fort of amusement; which is the more probable, because it is found in fact, that thofe people are most apt to dream who are moft addicted to intense thinking. In this view, even difagreeable dreams are useful: as a life of violent activity, of hardship, and even of danger, is recommended, and known to give relief, to perfons oppreffed with melancholy, and other mental disorders.

160. In antient times, the dreams of fome men were prophetical; but, as we are not prophets, we have no reason to think that ours are of that fort. It may happen

happen indeed, in the revolution of chances, that a dream fhall resemble a future event. But this is rare; and, when it happens, not more wonderful, than that an irregular clock should now and then point at the right hour. Nor can it be admitted, that dreams are fuggested by invisible beings; as they are for the most part mere trifles, and depend so much on the state of our mind and body. The foul in herself seems to poffefs vivacity fufficient to account for all the odd appearances that occur in fleep. For even when we are awake, and in health, very strange thoughts will fometimes arise. in the mind. And, in certain diseases, waking thoughts are often as extravagant as the wildest dreams.

161. Our dreams are exceedingly various; but that they should be fo, is not at all furprifing. A very flight impreffion made on our organs of fense in fleep; a found heard imperfectly; a greater or lefs degree of heat; our breathing in any respect interrupted, by the state of the stomach and bowels, by an awkward pofition of the head, or by external things af

fecting

fecting our organs of refpiration; the temperature of the air in general, or that of our bedchamber in particular ;-these, and the like cafualties, as well as the tenor of our thoughts through the day, the state of our health, and the paffions that may happen to predominate in our mind, have all confiderable influence in giving variety to our nocturnal imaginations. Uncommon dreams, therefore, fhould give us no concern. In these vifionary appearances, uniformity would be more wonderful, than the greatest variety. Some people, it is true, often find the fame dream recur upon them. Poffibly this may be in part owing to habit; they dream the fame thing a third or a fourth time, because they have talked or thought of it more than of other dreams. Hence, with respect to disagreeable dreams, we may learn a caution; which is, to banish them from our thoughts as foon as poffible, and never speak of them at all. It is indeed a vulgar obfervation, but there is truth in it, that they who feldom talk of dreams are not often troubled with them.

SECT.