Dreams | Page 4

color, constantly displacing one
another. Sometimes the change is slow and gradual, sometimes again it
is a whirlwind of vertiginous rapidity. Whence comes all this
phantasmagoria? The physiologists and the psychologists have studied
this play of colors. "Ocular spectra," "colored spots," "phosphenes,"
such are the names that they have given to the phenomenon. They
explain it either by the slight modifications which occur ceaselessly in
the retinal circulation, or by the pressure that the closed lid exerts upon

the eyeball, causing a mechanical excitation of the optic nerve. But the
explanation of the phenomenon and the name that is given to it matters
little. It occurs universally and it constitutes--I may say at once--the
principal material of which we shape our dreams, "such stuff as dreams
are made on."
Thirty or forty years ago, M. Alfred Maury and, about the same time,
M. d'Hervey, of St. Denis, had observed that at the moment of falling
asleep these colored spots and moving forms consolidate, fix
themselves, take on definite outlines, the outlines of the objects and of
the persons which people our dreams. But this is an observation to be
accepted with caution, since it emanates from psychologists already
half asleep. More recently an American psychologist, Professor Ladd,
of Yale, has devised a more rigorous method, but of difficult
application, because it requires a sort of training. It consists in
acquiring the habit on awakening in the morning of keeping the eyes
closed and retaining for some minutes the dream that is fading from the
field of vision and soon would doubtless have faded from that of
memory. Then one sees the figures and objects of the dream melt away
little by little into phosphenes, identifying themselves with the colored
spots that the eye really perceives when the lids are closed. One reads,
for example, a newspaper; that is the dream. One awakens and there
remains of the newspaper, whose definite outlines are erased, only a
white spot with black marks here and there; that is the reality. Or our
dream takes us upon the open sea--round about us the ocean spreads its
waves of yellowish gray with here and there a crown of white foam. On
awakening, it is all lost in a great spot, half yellow and half gray, sown
with brilliant points. The spot was there, the brilliant points were there.
There was really presented to our perceptions, in sleep, a visual dust,
and it was this dust which served for the fabrication of our dreams.
Will this alone suffice? Still considering the sensation of sight, we
ought to add to these visual sensations which we may call internal all
those which continue to come to us from an external source. The eyes,
when closed, still distinguish light from shade, and even, to a certain
extent, different lights from one another. These sensations of light,
emanating from without, are at the bottom of many of our dreams. A

candle abruptly lighted in the room will, for example, suggest to the
sleeper, if his slumber is not too deep, a dream dominated by the image
of fire, the idea of a burning building. Permit me to cite to you two
observations of M. Tissié on this subject:
"B---- Léon dreams that the theater of Alexandria is on fire; the flame
lights up the whole place. All of a sudden he finds himself transported
to the midst of the fountain in the public square; a line of fire runs
along the chains which connect the great posts placed around the
margin. Then he finds himself in Paris at the exposition, which is on
fire. He takes part in terrible scenes, etc. He wakes with a start; his eyes
catch the rays of light projected by the dark lantern which the night
nurse flashes toward his bed in passing. M---- Bertrand dreams that he
is in the marine infantry where he formerly served. He goes to
Fort-de-France, to Toulon, to Loriet, to Crimea, to Constantinople. He
sees lightning, he hears thunder, he takes part in a combat in which he
sees fire leap from the mouths of cannon. He wakes with a start. Like
B., he was wakened by a flash of light projected from the dark lantern
of the night nurse." Such are often the dreams provoked by a bright and
sudden light.
Very different are those which are suggested by a mild and continuous
light like that of the moon. A. Krauss tells how one day on awakening
he perceived that he was extending his arm toward what in his dream
appeared to him to be the image of a young girl. Little by little this
image melted into that of the full moon which darted its rays upon him.
It is a curious thing that one might cite other examples