window, the wind
playing its chromatic scale in the chimney, such are the sounds which
come to the ear of the sleeper and which the dream converts, according
to circumstances, into conversation, singing, cries, music, etc.
Scissors were struck against the tongs in the ears of Alfred Maury while
he slept. Immediately he dreamt that he heard the tocsin and took part
in the events of June, 1848. Such observations and experiences are
numerous. But let us hasten to say that sounds do not play in our dreams
so important a role as colors. Our dreams are, above all, visual, and
even more visual than we think. To whom has it not happened--as M. Max
Simon has remarked--to talk in a dream with a certain person, to dream a
whole conversation, and then, all of a sudden, a singular phenomenon
strikes the attention of the dreamer. He perceives that he does not
speak, that he has not spoken, that his interlocutor has not uttered a
single word, that it was a simple exchange of thought between them, a
very clear conversation, in which, nevertheless, nothing has been heard.
The phenomenon is easily enough explained. It is in general necessary
for us to hear sounds in a dream. From nothing we can make nothing. And
when we are not provided with sonorous material, a dream would find it
hard to manufacture sonority.

There is much more to say about the sensations of touch than about those
of hearing, but I must hasten. We could talk for hours about the
singular phenomena which result from the confused sensations of touch
during sleep. These sensations, mingling with the images which occupy
our visual field, modify them or arrange them in their own way. Often in
the midst of the night the contact of our body with its light clothing
makes itself felt all at once and reminds us that we are lightly
clothed. Then, if our dream is at the moment taking us through the
street, it is in this simple attire that we present ourselves to the
gaze of the passers-by, without their appearing to be astonished by it.
We are ourselves astonished in the dream, but that never appears to
astonish other people. I cite this dream because it is frequent. There
is another which many of us must have experienced. It consists of
feeling oneself flying through the air or floating in space. Once having
had this dream, one may be quite sure that it will reappear; and every
time that it recurs the dreamer reasons in this way: "I have had before
now in a dream the illusion of