During the dreaming condition of the brain the senses are asleep. Is it not evident that the extravagance or coherence of the dream depends on the number or combination of organs which are in an active state? For no matter how inconsistent or incoherent the dream, it produces the impression of a reality until the other portions are brought into activity, which correct the false impression produced during the dream. Persons congenitally blind never dream of visions, nor those who from birth never possessed the sense of hearing dream of sounds. Are not these facts of major value to the cerebral physiologist?

The brain cannot produce, under any circumstances, phenomena incompatible with the sources of supply. On the other hand, does not the brain receive multitudinous impressions of which it is not cognizant, and which are only recognised when the organ is in an abnormal state? Does not the dreaming state of the brain form its own exclusive source of connective associations, a kind of double consciousness? We revert in our dreams to the scenes of former dreams, and these continue throughout a long life, which have no actual basis beyond the singularly false impressions produced.

During brain fever the patient loses all sleep for weeks, and frequently there is accompanying mental hallucination. The action of the brain is then so powerful as to overcome the ordinary function of the senses, and throws its false impression beyond their natural visual function. It is not the external eye that is deceived, but the brain's action which overpowers it. The patient often mentally sees persons walking in the room, converses with them, and this hallucination is well-known to medical men. It is evident that the brain has, in this state, rendered the senses subservient to its super-excited state, therefore the spectral illusion.

Abercrombie gives the case of a servant girl who, during cerebral fever, repeated whole passages of Homer in the original Greek. It was found that she had been in the service some years previously of a clergyman who was in the habit of reading Homer aloud. Here is in this case food for philosophical research to satisfy the most abstract inquirer. In the state of somnambulism, the brain is oftentimes so sensitively excited that phenomena are exhibited which only astound and perplex those who are content and will not examine beyond mere normal manifestations.

Abercrombie, "On the Intellectual Powers," page 294, gives the case of a girl, seven years of age, who, during a state of somnambulism, would with her lips imitate the violin and the piano. In a year after the attack, she would discourse with the utmost fluency and correctness on a variety of abstruse topics, both political and religious; the history of the world. In these discussions she showed the most wonderful discrimination, often combined with refined sarcasm and astonishing powers of mimicry. Her language was fluent and correct, and her illustrations often forcible and eloquent. She was fond of illustrating her subjects by a fable, and in these her imagery was both appropriate and elegant. She was by no means limited in her range. Napoleon, Wellington, Blucher, and all the kings of the earth figured among the phantasmagoria of her brain; and all were commented upon with a perfect freedom from restraint, that often made one think poor "Nancy" had been transported into Madame de Genlis's palace of truth. The justice and truth of her remarks on all subjects excited the utmost astonishment in those who were acquainted with her limited means of acquiring information.

She has been known to conjugate correctly Latin verbs, which she had probably heard in the school-room of the family; "and she was once heard to speak "several sentences very correctly in French, at the same time stating "that she had heard them from a foreign gentleman whom she had "met accidentally in a shop. Being questioned when awake, she "remembered having seen a gentleman, but could not repeat a word he "said. During her paroxysms, it was almost impossible to awake her, "and when her eyelids were raised and a candle brought near to the "eye, the pupil seemed insensible to the light. For several years she "was, during the paroxysms, entirely unconscious of the presence of "other persons; but at the age of sixteen she began to observe those "who were in the apartment. She could tell correctly their numbers, "though the utmost care was taken to have the room darkened. She "now also became capable of answering questions that were put to "her, and of noticing remarks made in her presence; and with regard "to both she showed astonishing acuteness.

Her observations, indeed, "were often of such a nature, and corresponded so accurately with "characters and events, that by the country people she was believed to "be endowed with supernatural powers.

During the whole period of this remarkable affection, which seems "to have continued for ten or eleven years, she was, when awake, a "dullt awkward girl, very slow in receiving any kind of instruction, "though much care was bestowed upon her, and in point of intellect "was much inferior to the other servants of the family. In particular "she showed no kind of turn for music. She did not appear to have any "recollection of what had occurred in her sleep."

Had she remembered, she would not have been a dull, awkward girl.

Here we have a most perfect example of the high sensibility of vitalized electricity. During the abnormal state the brain was supplied with a superabundance of nervous fluid.

This case exemplifies the extraordinary sensibility of those nervous ganglions, as seen in ants, bees, wasps, spiders, etc., where the most apparently complicated functions of life are called into activity nearly coeval with their birth. According to the standard of man's comparatively sluggish brain function during normal states, no idea can be conceived of a brain becoming educated in a moment of time. Yet such is the case. If the conditions exist, we exercise faculties of brain which appear marvellous.