Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 514

490

THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION

§ 82.

The

"

dream

" bears a different stamp.

here sleep or slumber

maintains

its

In the

common

[Div. Ill

first place,

character;

and, secondly, revelation-dreams exhibit almost always the

form of our common dreams, in so far as in these dreams also an isolated drama is seen by the ego of the dreamer. The world of dreams is still a mystery to us. No one can tell whether in sleep one dreams only when 021 awakening one remembers it, or whether one always dreams when asleep but that as a rule in awaking one has no remembrance of it. Our dreams bear very different charIn the common dream all connection is wanting acters. with the actual condition, consisting in the fact that we lie but with the nightmare one dreams mostly of excitin bed ing experiences which overtake us while we lie there. In what is more slumber than sleep we dream that we lie awake He who saw us slumber and are not able to get asleep. took place from that slept, but to us no transition knows we ;

our

da}' into

our night consciousness.

The content

of our

dreams generally is made up from images and remembrances which lie in orderly arrangement in our mind, but now appear ofttimes before us in entirely different combinations. Generally the outlines of the images in our dreams are vague, but often they are so sharply drawn, especially in the nightmare, that what we see we could readily reproduce in a drawing. There are dreams which as mere play of the imagination pass away but there are also dreams which work lasting effects, which discover one to himself, and Holy and demodreams which are not free from guilt. niacal influences often work side by side in our dreams. Whether indeed this wondrous world of our dreams simply shows the aimless movement of the images in us, or whether these dreams are the result of the activity of our spirits in ;

our

sleep,

and constitute a component part of the

spirit's

This, however, remains an absolute secret to us. may be said, that our dreams cannot be verified by us, that they are not consciously produced by us, but that they leave activity,

drama shown to us by some one outside which we ourselves are concerned, without

the impression of a of ourselves, in

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