Dreaming and insanity are often compared. In both the sense of time is wahting; events that would really take days or months to occur appear to transpire in a very short time. In both illusions, delusions, and hallucinations are considered real. In both physical sensations are distorted; thus, hypochondriacs sometimes attribute cutaneous sensations to spiders and other animals crawling over their bodies, just as may the dreamer. In both wishes come true; the dreamer is rich, powerful, beloved, just as the insane are great inventors, painters, kings, etc. Because of these and other points of similarity, the insane person has been termed a constant dreamer, differing from the normal person in that the latter dreams by night. Indeed, Sir Walter Scott has Oldbuck1 say: "I see no difference betwixt them (dreams) and the hallucinations of madness - the unguided horses run away with the carriage in both cases, only in the one the coachman is drunk, and in the other he slumbers. What says our Marcus Tullius - Si insanorum visis fides non est habenda, cur credatur somnientium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intelligo."2

It is interesting to note that, in some instances, disturbing dreams may hasten or usher in an outbreak of insanity where the seeds of the latter are present. These dreams often resemble the beliefs which characterize the type of insanity from which the individual suffers. Hammond tells of a man who awoke one night and told his wife that a large fortune had been left him by a miner in California. He then went to sleep, and repeated the dream in the morning. The idea that a fortune had been left him persisted for twelve years, though in other respects the man was normal.

Another interesting feature is that after recovery the insane often refer to their former state as one long dream, pleasant or unpleasant according to the nature of the insanity. Instances are recorded where, for some time after recovery, the individual was tortured in dreams by the same delusions as existed during the period of mental enfeeblement. Sometimes recovery from insanity occurs like the awaking from sleep, and the individual either forgets the entire period of mental derangement, or remembers and is confused by various memories which seem to be fragments of dreams.

1 The Antiquary, Chap. XIV.

2 If truth must not be placed in the visions of the insane, I do not understand why you should believe the visions of sleep which are even more disturbed.

While the dreams of the insane are apt to be variable, in general they have some resemblance to the type of mental disease from which they suffer. Thus, the maniac tends to have wild, disordered dreams; the melancholi-ac's dreams are depressing, accusative; the general paralytic tends to have dreams in which he is a person of importance, etc.

To many of us the acts of the insane seem as absurd as the acts in dreams. However, when we understand dream life we find in dreams much that is rational when interpreted, and which may or may not be useful in understanding the mental life of the individual. If we understand the mechanism of dreams, we are apt to have a better insight into the mental life of the insane, for the mental activities of the dreamer and the insane are largely governed by unconscious motives. For example, a certain lady has an obsession for the strictest cleanliness of her person and her surroundings; she is constantly washing herself, sweeping the floor, dusting, washing her clothes, etc.; her acts so interfere with her usefulness that she is sent to a sanitarium. But when her mental life is analysed it is found that, deep within her mind, there is a sense of moral uncleanliness; possibly because of a base thought, or an observation, she feels polluted, and the thought so dominates her as to deprive her of normal thought and action. Her attempt to keep herself and her surroundings absolutely free from dirt is simply a reaction to her inner sense of un-cleanliness.

If the above example strikes the reader as absurd, then it might be pointed out that Shakespeare gave an almost similar illustration more than three hundred years ago. In Macbeth (Act V, Sc. 1) the doctor and the gentlewomen are discussing the illness of Lady Macbeth; the latter, in an attack of sleep-walking, makes an appearance.

Doctor. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Further in the scene Lady Macbeth reveals that it is the stain of blood which she is endeavouring to remove from her hands. The stain is really on her con-science.

The insane person is, of course, irrational, but if we were able to see things as he does we would comprehend the significance of his acts, and would not be 80 prone to laugh at his " foolishness." His every act and thought have a meaning, and it is by a study of them that the modern psychologist or psychiatrist is able to discover the nature of the insane person's reasoning; understanding this, a wealth of light is thrown upon the cause of the mental impairment, and its cure, if possible, is facilitated.