Besides the _reveries_ of the day,
already spoken of, we have, in a moral view, our _waking-dreams_, which
are not less chimerical, and impossible to be realized, than the
imaginations of the night.
Night visions may befriend----
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impossible (could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung,
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Till at deaths' toll,----
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Many of the fabulous stories of ghosts or apparitions have originated
unquestionably in dreams. There are times of slumber when we are
sensible of being asleep. "When the thoughts are much troubled," says
Hobbes, "and when a person sleeps without the circumstance of going to
bed, or pulling off his clothes, as when he nods in his chair, it is
very difficult to distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary,
he that composes himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd
fancy, easily suspects it to have been a dream.
Pages:
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217