Essay On Dream A Dream

Dream a Dream

Today when we dream we usually have different kinds of dreams. The ones which I write down and consider significant are the ones that I can remember in graphic detail. On the occasion unfortunately people also have nightmares and those are always most unpleasant. Lots of Americans were doubtful about dreams because in the 18th century they considered them to be the products of bad indigestion or perhaps the beginning of mental illness. People in those days never recorded their dreams nor did they analyze them. Gradually this changed during the 19th century and people began to think of dreams as omens of things to come or perhaps even portals to another world. Soon it became fashionable to tell other people about your dreams and

In his dream Thoreau rode upon horses that bit each other. This greatly troubled him and brought on anxiety since he had to hold the horse’s heads apart. As the dream progressed he found himself sailing over the sea in a small vessel like the Northmen used. He sailed on the Bay of Fundy and onward through many waters until they emptied out into a gulf. Once again he found himself in his small pleasure-boat and learning to sail upon the sea. He raised his sail and his anchor dragged far into the sea. He saw buttons that had come off of the coats of drowned men. Not knowing that he had one he saw his dog standing up to his chin in the sea to warm his legs which had become cold and

These dreams took place in the Age of Sail and therefore when a person was anxious about something he tended to have his dream take place upon the water. It is possible that today an anxiety dream might show a person in a car and driving and getting lost or having some other kind of troubles.

When Thoreau awoke he writes at the end of the description of the dream that he imagined himself to be a musical instrument of some sort such as a clarinet. His body was the organ and channel of melody, his flesh reacted and vibrated to the strain and his nerves were like the chords of the lyre. Burstein mentions that many thinkers in the 19th century were very interested in what impact different activities had on the nervous system.

Abraham Lincoln Relates His Dream to Ward Hill