Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.

Are dreams so much varied as is generally supposed? Or, taking into consideration our different mental and physical constitutions, is there not rather a remarkable sameness in them? It is certainly a very unusual circumstance to hear of any dream that does violence to the common experience of mankind. One class of dreams, which may be termed Retrospective, is of frequent occurrence. These are characterized by the revival of associations long since forgotten. The faculty of Memory appears to be preternaturally exalted; the vail is withdrawn which obscured the vista of our past life; and the minutest events of childhood pass in vivid review before us. There can be no doubt that something analogous to this occurs in drowning; when, after the alarm and struggle for life has subsided, sensations and visions supervene with indescribable rapidity. The same very remarkable phenomenon takes place also sometimes in hanging; but is by no means uniformly produced. "Of all whom I have seen restored from drowning," observes Dr. Lettsom, "I never found one who had the smallest recollection of any thing that passed under water until the time they were restored." Persons must not, therefore, be deceived by imagining that an Elysium is to be found at the bottom of a garden-well, or a canal, or a river.

But to return – it is not only the very early incidents of childhood which may thus be recalled by our dreams, but recent events, which in our waking hours had escaped the memory, are sometimes suddenly recalled. In his "Notes to Waverley," Sir Walter Scott relates the following anecdote: "A gentleman connected with a Bank in Glasgow, while employed in the occupation of cashier, was annoyed by a person, out of his turn, demanding the payment of a check for six pounds. Having paid him, but with reluctance, out of his turn, he thought no more of the transaction. At the end of the year, which was eight or nine months after, a difficulty was experienced in making the books balance, in consequence of a deficiency of six pounds. Several days and nights were exhausted in endeavors to discover the source of the error, but without success; and the discomfited and chagrined cashier retired one night to his bed, disappointed and fatigued. He fell asleep and dreamed he was at his Bank, and once again the whole scene of the annoying man and his six-pound check arose before him; and, on examination, it was discovered that the sum paid to this person had been neglected to be inserted in the book of interests, and that it exactly accounted for the error in the balance." We read of another gentleman, a solicitor, who, on one occasion, lost a very important document connected with the conveyance of some property; the most anxious search was made for it in vain; and the night preceding the day on which the parties were to meet for the final settlement the son of this gentleman then went to bed, under much anxiety and disappointment, and dreamt that, at the time when the missing paper was delivered to his father, his table was covered with papers connected with the affairs of a particular client; and there found the paper they had been in search of, which had been tied up in a parcel to which it was in no way related.

There is another class of dreams which would appear to be much more extraordinary than these of a Retrospective Character, to wit: those in which the dreamer appears to take cognizance of incidents which are occurring at a distance, which may be designated Dreams of Coincidence. In the "Memoirs of Margaret de Valois" we read, that her mother, Catherine de Medicis, when ill of the plague at Metz, saw her son, the Duc d'Anjou, at the victory of Jarnac, thrown from his horse, and the Prince de Condé dead – events which happened exactly at that moment. Dr. Macnish relates, as the most striking example he ever met with of the co-existence between a dream and a passing event, the following melancholy story: Miss M., a young lady, a native of Ross-shire, was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore in the Peninsular War. The constant danger to which he was exposed had an evident effect upon her spirits. She became pale and melancholy in perpetually brooding over his fortunes; and, in spite of all that reason could do, felt a certain conviction that, when she last parted from her lover, she had parted with him forever. In a surprisingly short period her graceful form declined into all the appalling characteristics of a fatal illness, and she seemed rapidly hastening to the grave, when a dream confirmed the horrors she had long anticipated, and gave the finishing stroke to her sorrows. One night, after falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover, pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and, with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that he had been slain in battle, desiring her, at the same time, to comfort herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. It is needless to say what influence this vision had upon a mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the poor girl died a few days afterward, but, not without desiring her parents to note down the day of the month on which it happened, and see if it would not be confirmed, as she confidently declared it would. Her anticipation was correct, for accounts were shortly afterward received that the young man was slain at the battle of Corunna, which was fought on the very day of the night of which his betrothed had beheld the vision. It is certainly very natural to suppose that there must be some mysterious connection between such a dream and the event which appears to have simultaneously taken place – but, upon reflecting further upon the subject, we shall find that the co-existence is purely accidental. If, as Sir Walter Scott observed, any event, such as the death of the person dreamt of, chance to take place, so as to correspond with the nature and time of the apparition, the circumstance is conceived to be supernatural, although the coincidence is one which must frequently occur, since our dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most probable events. Such a concatenation, therefore, must often take place when it is considered "of what stuff dreams are made," and how naturally they turn upon those who occupy our mind when awake. When a soldier is exposed to death in battle; when a sailor is incurring the dangers of the sea; when a beloved wife or relative is attacked by disease, how readily our sleeping imagination rushes to the very point of alarm which, when waking, it had shuddered to anticipate. Considering the many thousands of dreams which must, night after night, pass through the imagination of individuals, the number of coincidences between the vision and the event are fewer and less remarkable than a fair calculation of chance would warrant us to expect.

In addition to these, we sometimes hear of dreams which appear to reveal the secrets of futurity; and which may be designated Prophetic Dreams – unvailing, as they are supposed to do, the destiny which awaits particular individuals. The prophetic dream of Cromwell, that he should live to be the greatest man in England, has often been referred to as an example of special revelation; but surely there can be nothing very wonderful in the occurrence – for, after all, if we could only penetrate into the thoughts, hopes, and designs which inflamed the ambition of such men as Ireton, Lambert, and the like, we should find both their waking and sleeping visions equally suggestive of self-aggrandizement. The Protector himself was not the only usurper, in those troubled times, who dreamed of being "every inch a king;" but we want the data to compute the probabilities which the laws of chance would give in favor of such a prophecy or dream being fulfilled. The prophetic dream refers generally to some event which, in the course of nature, is likely to happen: is it, then, wonderful that it should occur? It would be curious to know how often Napoleon dreamed that he was the Emperor of the civilized world, or confined as a prisoner of war; how many thrones he imagined himself to have ascended or abdicated; how often he accomplished the rebuilding of Jerusalem. A few years ago, some very cruel murders were perpetrated in Edinburgh, by men named Burke and Hare, who sold the bodies of their victims to the Anatomical Schools. We had ourselves an interview with Burke, after his condemnation, when he told us that many months before he was apprehended and convicted, he used to dream that the murders he committed had been discovered; then he imagined himself going to be executed, and his chief anxiety was, how he should comport himself on the scaffold before the assembled multitude, whose faces he beheld gazing up and fixed upon him. His dream was, in every respect, verified; but who, for an instant, would suppose there could have been any thing preternatural, or prophetic, in such a vision? For the most part, dreams of this description are supposed to portend the illness, or the time of the death, of particular individuals; and these, too, upon the simple doctrine of chance, turn out, perhaps, to be as often wrong as right. It may be true, that Lord Lyttleton died at the exact hour which he said had been predicted to him in a dream; but Voltaire outlived a similar prophecy for many years. It must, however, be conceded, that persons in ill-health may have their death expedited by believing in such fatal predictions. Tell a timorous man that he will die; and the sentence, if pronounced with sufficient solemnity, and the semblance of its fore-knowledge, will, under certain circumstances, execute itself. But, on the other hand, the self-sustaining power of the will, with a corresponding concentration of nervous energy, will sometimes triumph over the presence of disease, and for awhile ward off even the hand of death. The anecdote is told of Muley Moloch, who, being informed that his army was likely to be defeated, sprang from his sick bed in great excitement, led his men on to victory, and, on returning to his tent, lay down and almost instantly expired.

But again it may be asked – what then do dreams portend? Do they admit of any rational interpretation? This branch of the art of divination, which was called formerly by the name of "Oneiromancy," has been practiced in all ages; and there is, perhaps, not a village in Great Britain, or on the great continent of Europe, India, or America, in which some fortune-telling old woman will not be found who professes to be an oracle in propounding their mystical signification. The magicians of old were supposed to be skillful interpreters of dreams, which, like the wiseacres of Christendom, they viewed under very contradictory aspects.

From one of the most ancient Arabic manuscripts on the subject, we learn that if you see an angel, it is a good sign; but if you dream that you converse with one, it forebodes evil – to dream you bathe in a clear fountain denotes joy – but if it be muddy, an enemy will bring against you some false accusation. To dream of carrying any weight upon the back denotes servitude, if you are rich – honor if you are poor. There is not an object in nature – not an event that can occur in life – that our modern fortune-tellers have not converted, when seen in a dream, into some sign ominous of good or of evil; and many even well-educated persons are in the habit of fostering their credulity by attaching an undue importance to their dreams. It is a curious circumstance, however, which militates against this mystic art, that the same sign in different countries carries with it a very contrary signification. The peasant girl in England thinks, if she dream of a rose, that it is a sure sign of happiness; but the paysanne in Normandy believes that it portends vexation and disappointment. The Englishman conceives that to dream of an oak-tree is a sign of prosperity; but in Switzerland, the same vision is thought to be a forewarning of some dreadful calamity.

The domestic superstitions which are connected with dreams, are sometimes favored by, and perhaps dependent upon a certain morbid condition or irritability of the nervous system, which suggests the dread of some impending calamity, a painful and indefinite sense of apprehension for which no ostensible reason can be assigned. Strange as it might appear, the influence of our dreams upon our waking state is very remarkable; we may awaken refreshed from a dream which has made us, in our sleep, superlatively happy; or we may rise with melancholic feelings after suffering intense affliction in some dream, and the details of both dreams may alike be forgotten. We can not, after being so much disturbed, at once regain our composure; the billows continue heaving after the tempest has subsided; the troubled nerves continue to vibrate after the causes that disturbed them have ceased to act; the impression still remains, and checkers the happiness of the future day. Even men of strong mind, who do not believe in the interpretation of dreams, may be so affected. When Henry the Fourth of France was once told by an astrologer that he would be assassinated, he smiled at the prediction, and did not believe it; but he confessed that it often haunted him afterward, and although he placed no faith in it, still it sometimes depressed his spirits, and he often expressed a wish that he had never heard it. In like manner, dreams, which persons do not believe in, will unconsciously affect the tenor of their thoughts and feelings.

There are many persons who appear to have habitually the most extraordinary dreams, and there is scarcely a family circle that assemble round the domestic hearth, in which some one or other of the party is not able to relate some very wonderful story. We have, ourselves, a répertoire, from which we could select a host of such narrations; but we have preferred, at the risk of being thought recapitulative, to dwell upon those which have been recorded upon unimpeachable authority. The dreams which men like Locke, Reid, Gregory, Abercrombie, Macnish, &c., have attested, come with a weight of evidence before us which the dreams of persons unknown in the scientific or literary world would not possess. The impressions produced by dreams are so fugitive – so easy is it for persons unintentionally to deceive themselves in recalling their dreams' experience – that Epictetus, long ago, advised young men not to entertain any company by relating their dreams, as they could only, he affirmed, be interesting to themselves, and perhaps would, after all their pains, be disbelieved by their auditors. Nevertheless, it would be well for all persons to study, whether waking or dreaming, the phenomena of their own minds. The ingenious naturalist, Doctor Fleming, suggests that persons should, in contra-distinction to a "Diary," keep a "Nocturnal," in which they should register their dreams. Doubtless such a journal might turn out to be a very amusing psychological record.

A FAIR IN MUNICH

I wonder when there is not a fair in Munich. This, however, was Die Drei Könige Dult, or the Fair of the Three Kings. By way of amusement, I thought I would go to it; but as I could not very well go alone, I invited Madame Thekla to accompany me, with which she was very well pleased, as I promised to treat her to the shows. As far as buying and selling, and the crowds of peasants, and townspeople, and students, and soldiers, go, it was like any other fair. At a little distance from the long array of booths, stood the shows – and thither we bent our steps.

The first thing we came upon was a small ladder-wagon, covered with an arched awning; and, bound to one side of the wagon, were tall poles, from which floated a series of ghastly pictures – hideous raw-head-and-bloody-bone pictures! There were murders, executions, be-headings in German fashion; the criminal extended on a horrid sort of rack, and his head being chopped off by a grim executioner, with a sword, while a priest stood by in his long robes; there were houses on fire; drownings, miraculous escapes; there were tall, smirking hussars, and weeping ladies in white – heroes and heroines in these bloody histories!

The subjects, the hideous drawing, the hard outlines, the goggle-eyes, the blood, the knives, the very fire, made you feel sick. A considerable crowd was collected, and listened breathlessly to the sounds of an organ, to which two Tyrolians sang their appalling tragedies. They sang in such clear, sweet, mountain tones, that you were strangely fascinated. Mournfully sang they, in a monotonous chaunt, of blood, and crime, and terror, till you felt your blood creep; and, by a frightful fascination, your eyes gloated on the disgusting pictures.

What a terribly immoral influence must such exhibitions have upon such an uneducated crowd as surrounded these sirens! Why should not a paternal government, which guards its people from immoral books and disgusting newspapers, not guard them equally from such a disgusting sight and sound as this Tyrolian exhibition? These Tyrolians sold printed histories of the fearful crimes and calamities which were depicted on their banners. These histories are very exciting and romantic reading, as you may believe when I give some of their titles: – "The History of the Great and Terrible Monster, who cruelly murdered his Beloved, his Child, his Father, his Mother, his two Sisters, and his Brother, on the 8th of July, 1850." "Heroic Self-sacrifice of a Bohemian Hussar Officer, and the Punishment of his Murderers." "A true and dreadful History which occurred on the 14th of March, 1850, in Schopka, near Milineck, in Bohemia." "The Might of Mutual Love: a highly remarkable event, which occurred at Thoulon, in the year 1849." "The Cursed Mill: a Warning from Real Life." "The Temptation; the Deed; the Consequences!"

If you care to know any thing of the style of these remarkable productions, I will give you a specimen. One begins thus: – "In Ross-dorf, in Hanover, lived the criminal Peter Natzer. He was by trade a glazier, his father having followed the same calling. Peter was five-and-twenty years old, and was, from his earliest youth, addicted to every species of crime. He had a sweetheart, named Lucie Braun, a poor girl, &c., &c."

Again: – "Silent sat the miller, Leverm, in his garden; thoughtfully gazed he into the distant valley. He was scarcely thirty years of age, but heavy cares had bowed him, and robbed him of his fresh, youthful bloom. Beside him sat his wife, who cast many an anxious but affectionate glance on her husband. How tender and lovely was this young wife! The inhabitants of the neighborhood called her 'The Rose of the Valley.'" In this way begins a most awful tragedy.

Of course we did not read these things in the fair. It was enough for us, there, to listen to the mournful chant of the mountaineers, till our blood was frozen in our veins. I took home with me these printed histories, as many another simple soul did; and now, after I have read them, and been filled with horror and disgust by them, I have put them away from me as unholy things. But think of the effect they will have in many a lonely village, this winter – in many a desolate farm-house or cottage – on the wide plain, or among the mountains! These papers are productive seeds of murder and crime; of that one may be certain.

The next wonder that stopped us in the fair, was a little fat man, who was shouting away at the top of his voice, while he briskly sharpened a knife on a long, rough board, which was smeared over with a black ointment. He was a vender of magical strop-salve! something in the fashion of Mechi. "Ladies and gentlemen;" shouted he, "witness my wonderful invention! The dullest knife, stick-knife, bread-knife, clasp-knife, table-knife, carving-knife, shaving-knife, (rasier-messer) pen-knife, pruning-knife, though dull as this knife —though dull as this knife!" and here he began hacking away upon the edge of a big knife with a strong piece of broken pitcher. "Yes, though dull, dull, dull as this knife! – when subjected to my wonderful salve," and here he smeared it with his black ointment, "will cut a hair, or the most delicate shaving of paper – as it now does!" and with that he severed paper shavings as if they had been nothing. If it was really the same knife, his was a wonderful invention, and beat Mechi hollow.

Next, I had my fortune told at three different places, for six kreutzers, or two-pence each, and as I was promised pretty much the same fortune by all, I suppose I ought to believe in the truth of it. They foretold me lots of trouble in the way of love-crosses, false friends, and unkind relations, and such small trifles; but were equally liberal of rich lovers, and plenty of them, plenty of money, and a good husband to crown all, and good children to be the props of my old age; so I think I had, after all, a good sixpenny-worth.

Next we came upon a little caravan, on the steps of which vociferated a most picturesque Tyrolian, in broad-brimmed sugar-loafed hat, adorned with chamois hair, and eagles' feathers; in broad-ribbed stockings, and with a broad, gayly-embroidened band round his waist, which half covered his chest. He assured the crowd below that there was not in the whole of Bavaria, any thing half as interesting, half as extraordinary, half as astounding as the singularly gifted, singularly beautiful, singularly intellectual being within; a being from another quarter of the globe, a being adapted to an entirely different mode of existence to ours; a being who could see in the dark, a being who only lived upon raw meat! A wonderful Albino who could speak the German tongue!

Of course we must see the Albino; so in we went, and some way or other I felt an unusual shock. There he sat, in a black velvet dress spangled with silver, the light coming in from the top of the caravan, and his transparent complexion, his burning, fiery eyes, like carbuncles, his long waves of white, silky hair, and his long, curling, snow-white, silky beard, gave him the appearance of some enchanted dwarf – some cobold or gnome out of a subterranean palace.

But I had not much time to lose myself in dreams about enchanted dwarfs or gnomes, for there was something else burning in the caravan besides the Albino's eyes, and that was Madame Thekla's grand silk cloak! She had come out with me in all her grandeur; and now, while we stood enchanted before the Albino, her fine silk cloak was singeing at a little iron stove that stood behind the door. Poor Madame Thekla! Out we rushed, and she revenged herself by vociferating to the crowd outside, as the Tyrolian had done just before, and by exhibiting her unlucky cloak in a sort of savage despair.

An hour afterward, we again passed the caravan, and the Tyrolian in the ribbed stockings was again holding forth on the steps, when, at sight of us, he interrupted his oration, and politely invited us to re-enter, and complete, free of cost, our inspection of the Albino. But Madame Thekla, pointing with stern dignity to her cloak, declined, and marched on.

After this we went to the wäffeln-booths, were we ate hot-baked wäffeln, a kind of gofre cake; and then, resisting a wonderful elephant show, we hastened to the monkey theatre, the poor elephant's rival exhibition; the "Grand Monkey Theatre from Paris," in which forty-two apes and poodles, the property of M. Le Cerf, would exhibit the most wonderful and artistic feats.

We had to wait some time till the four o'clock performance was over, which unfortunately had begun before we arrived; and while Madame Thekla and I stood impatiently waiting in the cold, up there came a merry-faced lad of about ten, and began, in great glee, to describe to us the glorious things that were performed by those "dear little monkeys and dogs." He was quite eloquent in his delight; and, "Oh!" said he, "if I had but another sechser (twopenny-piece), wouldn't I see it again!" "There is another sechser, then!" said I, and put one into his fat little hand. What an astonished, bright face looked up into mine; and he seized my hand in both his, and shook it almost off. And away he ran up the steps for his ticket, flying down again to us, and keeping as close to us as possible, talking all the time, and fairly dancing for joy.

"You've quite bewitched that little fellow," said Madame Thekla; and I seemed to have bewitched all the little lads in the fair, for, by a strangely-mysterious power, they were drawn toward us in crowds, from all hands – little fellows in blouses, little fellows in little green and brown surtouts, little fellows in old-fashioned and, in England, almost forgotten, buttoned-up suits – and all crept bashfully toward us! Oh, the wonderful magic of a twopenny-piece! Heaven only knows how the news of this munificent gift of a sechser had so swiftly spread through the fair! One little lad actually had the bravery to say to me that "children were admitted at half-price!" And was I not a cold-hearted wretch to reply, "Oh, indeed!" just as though it were a matter of perfect indifference to me, though, in truth, it was not; but I felt rather appalled at the sight of such a crowd of little eager heads, well knowing that my purse was not full to overflowing, even with twopenny-pieces!