MYSTERY OF DREAMS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2583, 18 April 1877, Page 2

MYSTERY OF DREAMS.

It is related that a man fell asleep as , the clock tolled the first stroke of twelve. Ho awakened ere the echo of the twelfth stroke had died away, .having in -• the interval dreamed that he committed a crime, was detected after five years, tried and condemned; the shock of finding the halter about his neck aroused him to consciousness, when he discovered that all these events had happened in an infinites** . mal fragment of time.. Mohammed, wishing to illustrate .the wonders of sleep, told how a certain man, being a.sheib, found: himself for his pride made a poor fisherman ; that he lived as one for sixty years, bringing up a * family and working : hard ; and how, ■ upon waking up from his - long dream, so short a time had he been ■ asleep, that the narrow-necked gourd bottle filled with water, which'he knew he overturned as he fell asleep, had not time in which to empty itself. How fast" the , soul travels when the body is asleep I. Often, when we awake, we shrink from going back into the dull routine of a sordid „", existence, regretting the pleasanter life of dreamland. How is it that sometimes, when we go to a strange place,' we- fancy that we have seen it before? Is it' possible that when one has been asleep- - the soul has -floated away, seen the place, - and is that memory of it which so surprises us ? In a word, how far dual; is the life of man ? how far not ? " -

The farmer who sent his son to New i York to become a clerk, now writes asking ■- the merchant whether there is " anything in the boy." " Yes," replies the merchant, "just after he has been to a saloon."