Among the many striking phenomena in our dreams, it may be observed,
that, while they last, the memory seems to lie wholly torpid, and the
understanding to be employed only about such objects as are then
presented, without comparing the present with the past. When we sleep,
we often converse with a friend who is either absent or dead, without
remembering that the grave or the ocean is between us. We float, like a
feather, upon the wind; for we find ourselves this moment in England,
and the next in India, without reflecting that the laws of nature are
suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly
shifted before us. We are familiar with prodigies; we accommodate
ourselves to every event, however romantic; and we not only reason, but
act upon principles, which are in the highest degree absurd and
extravagant. Our dreams, moreover, are so far from being the effect of a
voluntary effort, that we neither know of what we shall dream, or
whether we shall dream at all.
But sleep is not the only time in which strange and unconnected objects
involve our ideas in confusion.
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