William A. Hammond

“ The vukodlack, on the contrary, appreciates all the horror of his morbid perception; he fears and detests it; he combats it with all his power; he has recourse to medicine, to prayers, to division of a muscle, to the amputation of a limb, and sometimes even to suicide. He demands that after his death his children shall pierce his heart with a spike, and fasten his corpse to the coffin, so that his dead body, in the sleep of death, may not be able to follow the instinct of the living body. The vukodlack is, moreover, often a man of note, often the chief of the tribe, the judge, or the poet. ”

“ All this is especially true of the brain. Its substance is consumed by every thought, by every action of the will, by every sound that is heard, by every object that is seen, by every substance that is touched, by every odor that is smelled, by every painful or pleasurable sensation, and so each instant of our lives witnesses the decay of some portion of its mass and the formation of new material to take its place. The necessity for sleep is due to the fact that during our waking moments the formation of the new substance does not go on as rapidly as the decay of the old. ”

“ But this explanation is by no means satisfactory; for a merely swift succession of ideas is no very serious bar to correct judgment, and when the thoughts are as preposterous as those which so often occur in dreams, they present no obstacle at all to a proper estimation of them by the healthy mind. The cause probably resides in some alteration in the circulation of the blood in that part of the brain which presides over the judgment, whereby its power is suspended and the imagination left free to fill the mind with its incongruous and fantastic images. ”

“ But for the brain there is no rest, except during sleep, and even this condition is, as we all know, only one of comparative quietude in many instances. So long as an individual is awake, there is not a single second of his life during which the brain is altogether inactive; and even while he is deprived by sleep of the power of volition, nearly every other faculty of the mind is capable of being exercised; and several of them, as the imagination and memory, for instance, are sometimes carried to a pitch of exaltation not ordinarily reached by direct and voluntary efforts. ”

“ Sometimes we dream that another person proposes an enigma; that we cannot solve it and that others are equally incapable of doing so; but that the person who proposed it, himself gives the explanation. We are astonished at the solution we had so long labored in vain to find. If we do not immediately awaken and afterwards reflect on this proposition of an enigma in our dream, and on its apparent solution, we think it wonderful; but if we awake immediately after the dream, and are able to compare the answer with the question, we find that it was mere nonsense. ”

“ In the case of a person performing on a piano, and at the same time carrying on a conversation, we have a most striking illustration of the diverse though harmonious action of the brain and spinal cord. Here the mind is engaged with ideas, and the spinal cord directs the manipulations necessary to the proper rendering of the musical composition. A person who is not proficient in the use of this instrument, cannot at the same time play and converse with ease, because the spinal cord has not yet acquired a sufficient degree of automatism, and the mind cannot be divided in its action. ”

“ We do not actually lose the power of arriving at a decision, but we cannot exert the faculty of judgment in accordance with the principles of truth and of correct reasoning. An opinion may therefore be formed during sleep, but it is more likely to be wrong than right, and no effort that we can make will enable us to distinguish the false from the true, or to discriminate between the possible and the impossible. ”

“ Through the sadness which is due to the recollection of his nocturnal life, the vukodlack exhibits the most generous and lovable traits of character. It is only during his sleep, when visited with his terrible dreams, that he is a monster, digging up the dead with his hands, feeding on their flesh, and waking those around him with his frightful cries. ”

“ Now it is manifest that the means which nature directs us to employ on such occasions is not to suspend the powers of volition, but to suspend the exertion of those powers whose exercise depends on volition. If it were necessary that volition should be suspended before we fall asleep, it would be impossible for us by our own efforts to hasten the moment of rest. The very supposition of such efforts is absurd, for it implies a continued will to suspend the acts of the will. ”

“ In some types of insanity the patient’s mind is altogether absorbed in the contemplation of a frightful spectral illusion. Under these circumstances the unhappy sufferer is afraid to close his eyes in sleep from an intense fear and dread that he will then fall an easy prey to the horrible phantasms which his morbid imagination has called into existence, and which, he imagines, follow him in all his movements. The patient so afflicted declares he will not sleep, and resolutely repudiates and perseveringly ignores all disposition to slumber. ”

“ If, as we have every reason to believe, each thought involves the destruction of a certain amount of nervous tissue, we can very well understand why, as we go forward in enlightenment and in all the elements of material and intellectual progress, we are at the same time, unless we also advance in the knowledge of the laws of our being, hurrying ourselves with rapid strides to a state of existence in which there is neither waste nor repair. ”

“ Suffice it now to say, that I have administered it to dogs whose brains had been exposed to view by trephining the skull, and that I have invariably found it to lessen the quantity of blood circulating within the cranium, and to produce a shrinking of the brain from this cause. Moreover, we have only to observe its effects upon the human subject to be convinced that this is one of the most important results of its employment. The flushed face, the throbbing of the carotids and temporals, the suffusion of the eyes, the feeling of fullness in the head, all disappear as if by magic under its use. ”

“ The deeds which we imagine we perform in our sleep are generally inadequate to or in excess of what the apparent occasion requires, and we lose so entirely the ideas of probability and possibility, that no preposterous vision appears otherwise than as perfectly natural and correct. Thus, a physician dreamed that he had been transformed into a monolith which stood grandly and alone in the vast desert of the Sahara, and had so stood for ages, while generation after generation wasted and melted away around him. ”

“ About the age of fourteen, I was almost every night unhappy in my sleep from frightful dreams. Sometimes hanging over a frightful precipice and just ready to drop down; sometimes pursued for my life and stopped by a wall or by a sudden loss of all strength; sometimes ready to be devoured by a wild beast. ”

“ Even though the train of ideas excited by this faculty when we are asleep be rational and coherent, we are fully conscious on awaking that we are capable of doing much better by intentionally setting the brain in action and governing it by our will and judgment.
Owing to the fact that these two faculties of the mind are incapable of acting normally during sleep, the imagination is left absolutely without controlling influence. Indeed, we are often cognizant in those dreams which take place when we are half awake, of an inability to direct it. ”

“ Somnolence is nothing more than an inordinate tendency to sleep. When manifested in a slight degree it is difficult, without careful examination and a thorough inquiry into the history of the case, to distinguish it from moderate stupor. It is of course very important that the distinction should be made; for, in reality, somnolence is ordinarily no very serious disorder, and is generally symptomatic of eccentric disease, whereas stupor almost invariably results from organic brain affections, from cerebral injuries, or the circulation of poisoned blood through the encephalic blood-vessels. ”

“ A periodical renewal of the nervous energies as often as once a day is an institution of nature, none the less necessary to the well-being of the animal economy, because in some degree under the control of the will. To disregard its requirements with impunity is no more possible than it is to violate any other organic law with impunity, and no man need flatter himself that he may systematically intrench upon the hours usually devoted to rest and still retain the freshness and elasticity of his faculties. ”

“ During the disturbed rest which we sometimes have when the body is indisposed, the mind appears to retain some power over it; but as even in these cases the motions which are made consist rather of a general agitation of the whole system than of the regular exertion of a particular member of it with a view to produce a certain effect, it is reasonable to conclude that in perfectly sound sleep the mind, although it retains the power of volition, retains no influence whatever over the bodily organs. ”

“ Under the influence of fatigue, the countenance becomes pale; through the actions of certain emotions, blushing takes place. When we are anxious or suffering or engaged in intense thought, the perspiration comes out in big drops on our brows; danger makes some men tremble, grief causes tears to flow. Many other examples will suggest themselves to the reader. It is surely, therefore, no assumption to say that certain mental or physical influences are capable of inducing such an alteration in the state of the brain as necessarily to cause sleep. ”

“ The theory that the will is in action during sleep is, therefore, to my mind untenable. It has probably had its origin in the idea that confounds it with desire, from which it differs so markedly that it seems strange the distinction should ever fail of [Pg 104] being made. Locke [62] points out very clearly the differences between the two faculties. In fact they may be exerted in directly opposite ways. Desire often precedes volition; but we all, at times, will acts which are contrary to our desire, and desire to perform others which we are unable to will. ”

“ If an individual engaged in reading a book allows his mind to be diverted to some other subject than that of which he is reading, he continues to see the words, which make no impression upon his brain, and he turns over the leaf whenever he reaches the bottom of a page with as much regularity as though he comprehended every word he has read. ”

“ Dreaming is nothing more than the occupation of the mind in sleep with the pictorial world of fancy. As the closed or quiescent senses afford it no materials, the mind, ever active, must make use of the store which memory retains ”

“ Exercise strengthens the mind and improves its faculties, if it is succeeded by a proper period of repose, during which the vessels are emptied to some extent of their contents, and are thus enabled to recover their tone. If, however, the brain is often kept for long periods on the stretch, during which the vessels are filled to repletion, they cannot contract even when the degree of cerebral activity is diminished. Wakefulness results as a necessary consequence, and every day renders the condition of the individual worse, because time also brings the force of habit into operation. ”

“ Wakefulness is also caused by functional derangements of certain organs of the body, whereby an increase in the amount of blood in the brain is produced.
Under this head are embraced those cases of sleeplessness due to exalted sensibility of the nervous system. They are chiefly met with in persons of [Pg 272] feeble constitution. The slightest impression made upon the skin, or any other organ of sense, is converted into a sensation out of all proportion to the exciting cause. There is thus a condition of general hyperæsthesia which greatly tends to the prevention of sound and refreshing sleep. ”

“ We do not see, hear, smell, taste or enjoy the sense of touch in sleep, although the brain may be aroused into activity and we may awake through the excitations conveyed to it by the special senses. The emotions have full play, unrestrained by the will and governed only by the imagination. ”

“ We all know how fatigued we are, and how indisposed to exertion the brain is, after a night of continued dreaming, and we can easily imagine what would be the consequences if such a condition were kept up night after night. To say that we [Pg 108] really do dream not only every night, but every instant of the night, in fact always and continually when we sleep, but that we forget our dreams as soon as they are formed, remembering solely those which are most vivid, is making assertions which not only are without proof, but which are impossible of proof. ”

“ Almost every night a woman, whose figure is not unknown to me, comes and throws herself on my breast, and embraces me with such power that I can scarcely breathe. I endeavor to cry out, but she stifles my voice, and the more I try the less successful I am. I can neither use my arms to defend myself, nor my legs to escape. ”

“ The object of desire may be anything which appetite, passion, or affection leads us to pursue; it may be any event which we think good for us, or for those to whom we are well affected. I may desire meat or drink, or ease from pain. But to say that I will meat, or will drink, or will ease from pain, is not English. There is, therefore, a distinction in common language between desire and will. And the distinction is, that what we will must be an action and our own action; what we desire may not be our own action, it may be no action at all. ”