Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Cox, Edward W. (Edward William), 1809-1879.
Date:
[1877]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    brains cease to act together. Then the Conscious Self receives either the imperfect impressions of one hrain only, or distinct and often conflicting impressions of the two brains. This is the simple explanation of a large number of mental phenomena, the causes of which have been among the most insoluble problems of Physiology and Psychology. Tit will explain, also, not a few of the phenomena of sleep and dream. The whole brain rarely sleeps at the same time. Some parts of it, by reason of insufficient depletion of blood cor- puscles, remain sufficiently excited to maintain more or less of action. Whatever it be that in our waking state sets up motion in the fibres of the brain and so gives to the Con- scious Self the impressions we call emotions and ideas, that motive force continues to excite the same action in sleep, and according to the more or less of power so exercised is probably the vividness of the~dream which it suggests. But we have two brains, each having the same organs, competent to act together or separately—when they work properly together producing the most perfect mental action ; when working separately, or one working alone, producing imperfect mental action, as may be seen in hemiplegia, which is an affection of one of the brains only, and hence the impairment of one side only of the body. Obviously in the condition of perfect sleep by the entire mental machinery of the brain there could be no dream. Such condition is rare. But it has occurred probably within the memory of all around me, as after long absence of sleep or great fatigue. Then the whole brain sleeps, or seems to sleep, and the Self has no consciousness of any impressions being received from the brain. In such a sleep, even though of many hours duration, the mind has no consciousness of time and the moment of waking seems to have followed [169]