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parts of the Body; divers distempers must needs cause different Dreams.
And hence it is, that lying cold breedeth Dreams of Feare,
and raiseth the thought and Image of some fearfull object
(the motion from the brain to the inner parts, and from the
inner parts to the Brain being reciprocall:) and that as Anger
causeth heat in some parts of the Body, when we are awake;
so when we sleep, the over heating of the same parts causeth Anger,
and raiseth up in the brain the Imagination of an Enemy.
In the same manner; as naturall kindness, when we are awake
causeth desire; and desire makes heat in certain other parts
of the body; so also, too much heat in those parts, while wee sleep,
raiseth in the brain an imagination of some kindness shewn.
In summe, our Dreams are the reverse of our waking Imaginations;
The motion when we are awake, beginning at one end; and when we Dream,
at another.
Apparitions Or Visions
The most difficult discerning of a mans Dream, from his waking thoughts,
is then, when by some accident we observe not that we have slept:
which is easie to happen to a man full of fearfull thoughts;
and whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth,
without the circumstances, of going to bed, or putting off his clothes,
as one that noddeth in a chayre. For he that taketh pains,
and industriously layes himselfe to sleep, in case any uncouth and
exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a Dream.
We read of Marcus Brutes, (one that had his life given him by Julius
Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murthered him,)
how at Phillipi, the night before he gave battell to Augustus Caesar,
he saw a fearfull apparition, which is commonly related by Historians
as a Vision: but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge
to have been but a short Dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and
troubled with the horrour of his rash act, it was not hard for him,
slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him;
which feare, as by degrees it made him wake; so also it must needs make
the Apparition by degrees to vanish: And having no assurance that he slept,
he could have no cause to think it a Dream, or any thing but a Vision.
And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake,
if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales,
and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe
they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards;
whereas it is either their Fancy onely, or els the knavery of such persons,
as make use of such superstitious feare, to pass disguised in the night,
to places they would not be known to haunt.
From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams, and other strong Fancies,
from vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of the Religion of
the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyres, Fawnes, nymphs,
and the like; and now adayes the opinion than rude people have of Fayries,
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