Dreams usually take place in a single instant, notwithstanding the length of time they seem to occupy. They are, in fact, slight mental sensations, unregulated by consciousness; these sensations being less or more intense, painful or agreeable, according to certain physical conditions. On this subject, the following observations occur in Dr Winslow's Psychological Journal:—'We have in dreams no true perception of the lapse of time—a strange property of mind! for if such be also its property when entered into the eternal disembodied state, time will appear to us eternity. The relations of space, as well as of time, are also annihilated; so that while almost an eternity is compressed into a moment, infinite space is traversed more swiftly than by real thought. There are numerous illustrations of this principle on record. A gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. After all the usual preparations, a gun was fired; he awoke with the report, and found that a noise in the adjoining room had, at the same moment, produced the dream, and awakened him. A friend of Dr Abercrombie dreamed that he had crossed the Atlantic, and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking, on his return, he fell into the sea, and awakening in the fright, found that he had not been asleep ten minutes.' |