The bodily senses are our medium of connection with the external world. We close our eyes, and lo, the universe is shut from our outer sight; we close our ears and find ourselves in a silence as profound as the darkness; if disease destroys the sense of taste or smell, the world becomes insipid and odorless; when anaesthesia is produced upon any special part of the body, the sensation of life is gone therefrom, and

\ yet, in sleep, with our eyes closed, and the body apparently unconscious, it is sensitive to the smallest touch or sound. The desire to unravel this mystery of sleep has led to countless experiments upon sleeping persons. Various stimuli have been applied during slumber and then the subject aroused that he might give an account of the effect. Of course these purely sensory stimuli did not reach beyond the outer fringe of sleep, and yet the results have been interesting and at times surprising. The slightest touch, or suggestion in sleep may produce a dream.

The time-honored theory of a heavy meal as the creator of evil dreams is rejected by the Freudians in favor of the more psychological but decidedly more nebulous hypothesis of the wish as an incentive to every dream. Many students, however, are reluctant to resign the established point of view, whether from personal observation, or whether from the fact that Galen, Hippocrates, Artemidorus and others have stamped it with their approval. In any event, the theory of heavy food as a dream incentive has withstood time. Paracelsus agrees with his predecessors as to this source of dreams and as to the unimportance of the dreams themselves, save as physical warnings against excess. Later we have no less an authority than MacNish, who instances Mrs. Radcliff, the author of "The Mysteries of Udolpho" and a "Romance of the Forest," as deliberately consuming large quantities of indigestible food in order that she might behold more vividly the horrors portrayed in her stories. We are also informed that in order to induce splendid dreams, Dryden and Fuselli ate raw flesh.

The sensibilities seem in a measure preserved during sleep, for the sleeper can hear, feel or smell, although the workings of the sense Organs are intensified or modified in some mysterious fashion not as yet accounted for. In the case of disease, for example, premonitory symptoms frequently manifest more clearly to the sleeping than to the waking mind. A case in question is that of M. Terte, a minister of justice in the time of

Louis Philippe; his dream of an attack of apoplexy preceded his death of that disease by three days.

Macario, the first scientific writer on pathological dreams, recalls his own dream of a severe pain in his throat. On awaking he felt perfectly well, but a few hours later developed an acute attack of quinsy sore throat. Macario divided pathological dreams into three groups, prodromic dreams, or those preceding the disease; symptomatic dreams, or those occurring in the course of the disease, and essential morbid dreams, in which the dream constitutes the main feature of the disease.

A young woman who dreamed that she had swallowed molten lead and awaked with an attack of tonsilitis, and a case mentioned by Havelock Ellis of a gentleman who before an attack of hemiplegic paralysis repeatedly dreamed that he had been cut in two down the middle and could only move on one side are among numerous examples of Macario's classifications.

Physical sensations are frequently and unaccountably dramatized and symbolized during sleep. A mosquito's bite becomes the attack of a monster; a headache is symbolized by spiders crawling over the wall; a sore throat becomes a dream of a consuming fire.

MacNish quotes a case in which a man dreamed of being assaulted and thrown on his back, then a stake was driven into the ground between his toes. He waked to find a blade of straw between his toes.

In another instance when he dreamed he was being hanged he found that the button of his shirt was too tight around his neck.

Dr. Gregory having applied a hot water bottle to his feet dreamed of scaling Mount Ętna; another individual dreamed that he was taking a walk with the devil. A paroxysm of gout during sleep has suggested the tortures of the Inquisition, and a man having a blister applied to his head dreamed that he was scalped by a party of Indians. Another person, having inadvertently gone to bed between damp sheets, dreamed that he was being dragged through a stream.

Maury attempted a series of experiments in which external sensations were provoked by stimuli of which he was igno-rant at the time of falling asleep.

1. His lips and nose were tickled by his coadjutor with a feather; he dreamed that he was subjected to horrible tortures, that a pitch plaster was applied to his face, descending to his lips and cheeks, it was withdrawn causing hideous pain.

2. A pair of tweezers were struck by scissors, while held close to his ears. He dreamed that he heard the ring of bells which speedily became the tocsin, and suggested June, 1848.

3. He was made to smell eau de cologne. He dreamed of being in the shop of a perfumer, which led his fancy to the East, and to the establishment of John Farina in Cairo.

4. He was made to feel the heat and odor of a burning match, and the wind at the time whistled through the shutters. He dreamed that he was at sea and that the powder room of the vessel blew up.

5. His neck was slightly pinched. He dreamed that a blister was applied, and then there arose the recollection of a physician who had treated him in youth.

6. A piece of red-hot iron was held close to his face until it communicated a slight heat. He dreamed of bandits who broke into houses and applied hot irons to the feet of the inhabitants, in order to extract money from them. This idea suggested that of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, in whose memoirs he had read of chauffeurs, or bandits, who had burned people. He dreamed that he was employed as her secretary.