The Argosy — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“The Stuff that Dreams ave Made of.” Po the Rocky Mountains. He was attacked by two Mexicans, and after a gallant fight was taken prisoner. His captors believed him to be the possessor of secret treasure, and in order to make him reveal its whereabouts put him to the torture of stripping his feet and holding them to a fire. Waking with a cry of agony, he discovered that his hot-water bottle had escaped from its flannel swathings, and that the undue heat of his toes had conjured up all the rest of the tragic story ! | A French physiologist caused many curious experiments to be made on himself during sleep. These experiments took the form of trifling physical sensations, which produced almost invariably a wonderfully exaggerated effect on the sleeping mind. Thus, a feather tickling the lips was converted into the horrible punishment of a mask of pitch being applied to the face. A bottle of eau de Cologne held to his nose sent him into a dream of a perfumer’s shop in Cairo. A pinch on the neck recalled the days of his boyhood and the old family physician applying a blister to that region. In dreams there is no idea of time. It has been repeatedly proved that a dream which covered the events of years may be lived through in a few minutes ; and those people who honestly believe that ‘‘ they dream all night,” probably do so only when on the verge of waking. One authority declares that in a dream “‘he made a voyage to India, spending several days in Calcutta, continued his journey to Egypt, visited the cataracts and pyramids, and held confidential interviews with Mohammed Ali, Cleopatra, and Saladin, the whole journey apparently occupying several months ; but he had slept only an hour. Scientific writers admit that there is a type of dream in which coming physical disease or disaster is shadowed forth—some bodily sensation, perhaps too slight to be noticed by the subject when awake, yet contriving to impress itself in some symbolic form on the sleeping mind. ‘The more striking instances of this sort may serve to explain how, in some lesser degree, certain symbols are likely to attach themselves to certain painful sensations or conditions, until at last they are finally accepted as mysterious presages of evil. Conrad Gesner, the eminent naturalist, dreamed that he was bitten on the left side by a venomous serpent. In a short time a severe carbuncle appeared on the very spot, terminating his life in the space of three days. Another scientific man, who dreamed of being bitten by a black cat, also suffered in the same way. A learned Jesuit, author of many erudite theological works, saw, one night in his sleep, a man laying his hand upon his chest, who announced to him that he would soon die. He was then in perfect health, but was shortly after carried off by a pulmonary disorder. A lady who had a dream in which she saw all objects dim and obscured as by a mist, was soon after attacked by a disease of the eye, of which that was a symptom. A dream of a great fire in which the sleeper himself seemed to be CoOnniclboooks (SO) im