Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, December 26, 1915, Page 20

Tae O Prof. Lough Discusses the Unfortunate Dream of Mr. John Hutchinson Which Landed Him in a Divorce Court Explains What Science Knows About Our Sleep Talk i i ! year that caused you to question your husband in regard to his conduct Mrs. Hutchinson—VYes, because ome night I heard him calling a girl’s name. Lawyer—Where was he; explain to the Judge just what took place, and where? Mrs. H—In bed it was, Lawyer—Did you speak to him about it? Mrs, H—Yes, sir. Lawyer—What did he say? . Mrs, H-I said, ‘‘Who is this Minnie you are call- ing in your sleep?’’ and he got white, he hesitated for & while and he said; ““I didn't say ‘Minnfe,’’ I said, Testimony in the Divorce Suit of Mrs. John J. Hutchinson Against Her Husband Bawyer—-Were any facts brought to your attention in the early part of this Say About Dreams By James E. Lough Professor of Experimental Peychology, i New York University. HAT is a dream? Why do we dream? How do we dream? ‘What do our dreams mean? That all men dream there can be no | psychologists are convinced that have such & thing as dream- H g g less sleep. Aristotle admitted that | horses, oxen, sheep, goats and dogs and l all viviparous quadrupeds dream. Dar- win notes in his Descent of Man that dogs, cats, horses and probably all the higher enimals have vivid dreams. Romanes gives the same opinion in his Mental Bvolution in Animals. ‘Homer declared that dreams were sent by the gods. Socrates and Plato believed in dreams. Xerxes invaded Greece be cause of a dream. Cambyses killed his brother because of & dream warning. The Hgyptians and Babylonians ap- pointed men of the highest learning to i f H 1 say, my bed my couch shall ease thou scarest me with terrifiest me through vis i g Oreek Hippoerstes in the fifth century B, C. attributes the mass of dreams to 'the influences of the mind upon the body. He was the first to ap- proach & rational solution of dream prob- lems. The higher animal kingdom prob- ably spends a third of its life in the mysterious process of dreaming. What . is the meaning and purpose of this world of {llusion? The little domestic tragedy printed above on this page from the court rec- ords of a New Jersey court, contributes an interesting case to the paychologist. far should a jury go in considering talk, which at best is made of the ? In this particular in- borative evidence sleeper was re- & real incident of many,’ I thought we were having some drinks alone may re- main awake, Sol- diers often sleep at sentinel duty ~all their pow- ers are asleep except the mus- cles of the legs. Sallors sleep clinging to the mast. Bir Wwilliam Hamliton tells of a postman at the Universityof - Halle who car- rled the mail to & village elght miles distant This postman used to go to sleep after leaw The End of ing Halle, keay the Dream— the right road, By Damp#t wake at the little bridge he had to cross just before reaching the end of his journey. Hoffman quotes Erasmus in & story of his friend Professor Oporinus, of Basel, He once took a long journey with a distinguished bookseller, and just before they reached the inn where they were to spend. the night an old manu- soript in Sanskrit was found that so greatly interested the bookseller that he persuaded Oporinus to sit up and read it to him. The result was that the pro- fessor fell asleep as to all other powers but kept on reading for a long time, not knowing when he awoke anything about what he had been doing. He had to all intents and purpo.es been talking in his sleep. Dogs bark and grow! in their sleep. A coon dog, with one bark for the chase and one for the stand, can sometimes be lo:lo'od thi an exciting dream chase by the ey Parrots ofts chatter in their sleep. Canary birds have been known to twitter their songs in_sleep. The human animal is a notorious sleep talker. It is all part of the dream process. As In sleep walking, the emo- tions and nerves and motor centres are stimulated in the dream state jus they are in & state of consciousn The physiological processes seem to be similar. If, then, in our sleep talk we make no exception to the rule that our dreams are Always made up of those things that we have had something 1o do with in our past experience, are we to accept sleep gdl as vital to truth? By an idiotic mmnr. mn&-m pret closely tal vhbl‘“.mlo-'munl:nl;;.:fll ummt‘mm-«mw be acting the when we walk up the alsle of & church to play chief mourner at our own funeral. A man ng tions in a dream state, with his tongue en nocent of wrong doing. Most men and e UNDAY BEE MAGAZINE PAGE,| 7 Betrayed Himself byTalking inHis and by states of feeling that we are often perplexed to account for.” In these pathological states of mind Maudsley thinks we rightly discover the occasions of many dreams. He further says; ‘When the breathing is not free in sleep and the heart's action is op- pressed, as it eventually is In such case, the sleeper is apt to wake up suddenly in the greatest apprehension of some- thing terrible being about to be done to him in his dream. The natural and in- voluntary motor expression of an op- pressed heart is such action of the muscles of the face and of respiration as betokens fear and apprebension—but “Mrs. Hutchinson heard her husband say ‘Minnie, Minnie’ in his dream, and on this slender clew she based a successful action for divorce.” the passage of food through the alimen- tary canal may indeed affect the impres- sion made upon the brain,” Maudsley ex- plains, Under the head of Musoular Sensibility the text-books give some Interesting dream demonstrations. For instance, who has not dreamed of flylng? We arise from our bed on wings of alr and float and dip about the room with ease. Out of the window we go and into the streets, where we attempt to demon- strate to our astonished friends how very easy it is to imitate the birds. Mauds- ley relates that it is reported of several holy persons that in their spiritual rap- tures, or ecstasles, they rose bodily from the earth and floated in the air. And _ there can be no doubt but what some of them felt and believed that they did. St. Philip Neri, 8t. Dunstan, St. Christina could hardly be held down by their friends. It is told of Agnes of Bohemia that when walking in her garden one day she was suddenly raised from the ground and disappeared from sight of her com- panfons, making no answer to their anxfous inquiries but a sweet and ami- able smile on her return to earth after her flight. “The explanation,” says Maudsley, “is Some o.! the Popular Superstiticns of the Meaning of Dreams Which Have No Scientific Basis Dream gnih;:p and Fortune Dream of the Moon and You Yours. most women will admit such instances out of their own experiences. Most people are comvinced that their dreams are influenced by thelr state of health. The welsh rabbit, lobsters, all indigestible food is accused of dream meddling. Henry Maudsley in his book, The Pathology of the Mind (page 29), comments upon this phase of dreaming: P dreams which I Will Fall in Love, this action cannot take place in sleep, and an equally involuntary expression of the physical state is shown in the terrifying dream and in the frantic but bootless de- sire which 1is felt to escape from the threatened danger.” As several psychologists point out, a heavy and indigestible meal eaten shortly before retiring often results in dreams in which we find mountains or huge mon- sters sitting on our chests. Maudsley questions whether these dreams are the direct result of the action of the over- loaded stomach upon the brain or an in- direct effect of the oppression of the functions of the lungs and the heart. The troubles of indigestion seldom fail to cause troubled sleep. It is not known whether the spleen ever gives color to & dream. There is little doubt, however, Mdnmolmuvuuda!m. Dream of Ruins and You Will Be Honored. not far to seek, A person may have a motor hallucination and imagine that he makes the movement which he does not, Just as he may have a sensory hallucina- tion and imagine he sees or hears the thing he does not. We are the victims of motor hallucination when we suffer from vertigo and the room seems to turn round. . Theee sensory disturb- snces play a vital part in the phe- nomena of dreaming.” It has been suggested that the rhythm of breathing may suggest the rhythm of fiying. Dr. Gregory dréamed of walk- ing up Mount Btna, suffering intensely from the heat, when he had a bottle of hot water applied to his feet. Aristotle mentions that rooph can be made to dream of thunderstorms by making s m&z noise in the ears when they are asleep. Alfred Maury once oconducted & num- ber of tests upon himself to determine N the influence of impressions made upon him when he was asleep. He detailed a person to make varlous experiments upon his senses without informing him in advance what he was about to do, and to wake him aefter each test. His nose and his lips were first tickled with a feather. He dreamed that a pitch plaster had been applied to his fdce and later torn away so violently as to bring with it the skin from his face. A pinch at the back of the neck made him dream of a blister and brought to his memory a doctor who had attended him when a child. Psychologists often have to eonsider the very common dream of a person go- ing about the streets and other public places without clothing. Most people have had this dream experience. It probably arises from a sensation of cold following an insufficiency of clothing or following the loss of bed clothing. A feverish condition followed by chill might also produce this dream effect When the skin {s particularly sensitive through illness the smallest impressions may be perverted into hammer blows, attacks from wild animals, ete. ‘Maudsley, {n his most interesting chap- ters on sleep and dreaming in The Path- ology of the Mind, attributes many drea: causes to cerebral circulation (page 89). When the brain s thinking, he explains, there is a more active flow of blood through it than when it is at rest, but this flow must not be too active, or sound thinking is impossible. An excessive or a defliclent flow of blood through the brain is adverse to successful thought. When these conditions are applied to the brain at sleep we obtain interesting dream results. Nightmares which awaken one and then return again with sleep are of this nature. Local fluctuations of the circulation also may be the cause of dis- turbed dreams. It {8 easy to conceive, says Maudsley, that some trivial dis- order of an organ may affect temporarily, through vaso-motor nerves the circula- tion in the cerebral area in which it is represented; the particular vascular area will blush or become pale, as it were, in sympathy with the state of the organ. The quality of the blood is also an im portant factor in dreams. Lack of iron in the blood or a deficlently carbonized blood will have the same effect upon the sleeping brain as upon the waking mind. Overwork is a well-known cause of bad dreams. Physical and nervous ex haustion affect the brain centres and react in sleep as they do when you are awake. Moral shocks disturb the brain cells and produce disordered sleep consciousness. 1S As sclentists experiment more and more with dreams, the more we work away from the old superstitions snd at taln a correct pathological reason for consciousness in sleep. The anclents tried to draw prophecy and portent and guidance from their dreams. We are be- ginning to analyze and run to the doe- tor. It 18 a normal thing to dream—the mind goes on with its curious working when judgment drops its hand in sleep and {8 no longer at the rudder. Most dreams seem to be nothing more nor less than harmless reassociation of impres- slons flitting before us like a moving pic- ture film gone mad. Those dreams which tell us of physical disorder, we are just beginning to note. They usu- ally are due to derangements following lack of physical exercise and ordinary watchfulness of the functions of elim- dnation