SHORTNES'S OF DREAMS.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4409, 20 February 1883, Page 4

SHORTNESS OF DREAMS.

One of tne most remarkable phenomena connected with dreams is the shortness of time needed for their consummation. Lord'Broughtori'sayß that.'in dictating, a man may frequently« fall asleep after uttering, a few words, and be awakened by the amanuensis repeating the last word io show he has written' the whole; but though . fire 1 oei six > seconds only have elapsed between the delivery of the sentence and-its transfer to paper, the sleeper may have passed through a dream extending through half-a lifetime!'. Lord Holland and Mf'Babbage both corifirm this theory. {Che one., was 'listening to ' a friend .reading, aloud, and - .slept wfrom the .of, one sentence to; the latter ; part, 0^ the, sentenc^, immediately succe'edibg;' yet, .'during this, time he had a dream',thfe;particulars of which would haye "taken" more than a quarter of an hour to write.! TSfr Babbage dreamt a J succession of events, and woke in time to hear the concluding words of a friend's answer to a question tie had just put to him. One Iman. was' liable,to a feeling of suffocation, accompanied by a dream 0f,..a skeleton' grasping his throat whenever he slept in a lying posture, and had an attendant to wake him the moment he sank down. But though,awakened the moment' he began to sink, the time suffice^ for,, a Jong- struggle.,,with,, the skeleton* J 'Another man dreamt tb&t he crossed the Atlantic,.spent a fortnight in America,-and : fell overboard when embarking to return ; yet his sleep had not lasted more than ten minutes.