Dreams | Page 5

of dreams where
the rays of the moon, caressing the eyes of the sleeper, evoked before
him virginal apparitions. May we not suppose that such might have
been the origin in antiquity of the fable of Endymion--Endymion the
shepherd, lapped in perpetual slumber, for whom the goddess Selene,
that is, the moon, is smitten with love while he sleeps?
I have spoken of visual sensations. They are the principal ones. But the
auditory sensations nevertheless play a rôle. First, the ear has also its
internal sensations, sensations of buzzing, of tinkling, of whistling,
difficult to isolate and to perceive while awake, but which are clearly

distinguished in sleep. Besides that we continue, when once asleep, to
hear external sounds. The creaking of furniture, the crackling of the fire,
the rain beating against the 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 rôle
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
flying or floating, but this time it is the real thing. It has certainly
proved to me that we may free ourselves from the law of gravitation."
Now, if you wake abruptly from this dream, you can analyze it without
difficulty, if you undertake it immediately. You will see that you feel
very clearly that your feet are not touching the earth. And, nevertheless,
not believing yourself asleep, you have lost sight of the fact that you
are lying down. Therefore, since you are not lying down and yet your
feet do not feel the resistance of the ground, the conclusion is natural
that you are floating in space. Notice this also: when levitation
accompanies the flight, it is on one side only that you make an effort to
fly. And if you woke at that moment you would find that this side is the
one on which you are lying, and that the sensation of effort for flight
coincides with the real sensation given you by the pressure of your
body against the bed. This sensation of pressure, dissociated from its
cause, becomes a pure and simple sensation of effort and, joined to the
illusion of floating in space, is sufficient to produce the dream.
It is interesting to see that these sensations of pressure, mounting, so to
speak, to the level of our visual field and taking