ere, in a current, albeit it has enough reason left to
also use the rudder and oars, or spread and manage a sail. The reason
for the greater fullness of unusual images and associations (_i. e._,
the action of genius) during the time when one is bent on intellectual
invention is that the more the waking conscious Reason drowses or
approaches to sleep, the more do many images in Memory awaken and
begin to shyly open the doors of their cells and peep out.
In the dream we also proceed, or rather drift, loosely on a current,
but are without oars, rudder or sail. We are hurtled against, or
hurried away from the islands of Images or Ideas, that is to say, all
kinds of memories, and our course is managed or impelled, or guided by
tricky water-sprites, whose minds are all on mischief bent or only
idle merriment. In any case they conduct us blindly and wildly from
isle to isle, sometimes obeying a far cry which comes to them through
the mist--some echoing signal of our waking hours. So in a vision ever
on we go!
That is to say that even while we dream there is an unconscious
cerebration or voluntarily exerted power loosely and irregularly
imitating by habit, something like the action of our waking hours,
especially its brown studies and fancies in drowsy reveries or play.
It seems to me as if this sleep-master or mistress--I prefer the
latter--who attends to our dreams may be regarded as Instinct on the
loose, for like instinct she acts without conscious reasoning. She
carries out, or realizes, trains of thought, or sequences with little
comparison or deduction. Yet within her limits she can do great work,
and when we consider, we shall find that by following mere Law she has
effected a great, nay, an immense, deal, which we attribute entirely
to forethought or Reason. As all this is closely allied to the action
of the mind when hypnotized, it deserves further study.
Now it is a wonderful reflection that as we go back in animated nature
from man to insects, we find self-conscious Intellect or Reason based
on Reflection disappear, and Instinct taking its place. Yet Instinct
in its marvelous results, such as ingenuity of adaptation, often far
surpasses what semi-civilized man could do. Or it does the same things
as man, only in an entirely different way which is not as yet
understood. Only from time to time some one tells a wonderful story of
a bird, a dog or a cat, and then asks, "Was not this reason?"
What it was, in a
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