pained me; after that came a
numbness, succeeded with a tingling in my blood; when on a sudden I
thought something alive lay upon me, from my knee to above half my leg.
Upon this I flung myself out of bed where I thought the creature lay;
but finding nothing, _Lord deliver me from evil spirits_, said I, _what
can this be?_ When I lighted a candle, I could perceive no living
creature in the place with me, but the poor parrot, who, being frighted,
cried out, _Hold your tongue_, and _What's the matter with you_, which
words I had taught him, by saying so to him, when he made such screaming
noises as I did not like. _Lord_, said I aloud, _surely the devil has
been here._ _Hold your tongue_, says Poll. I was then mad at the bird,
and putting on my clothes, cried, _I am terribly frighted._ _What's the
matter with you_? says Poll. _You toad_, said I, _I'll knock your brains
out._ _Hold you tongue_, cried he again, and so fell a chattering, and
calling Robinson Crusoe, as he did before. But after I had composed
myself, and went to bed again, I began plainly to see it was a distemper
that affected my nerves, and so my terrors vanished at once.

How intelligences are given or received, we do not know; nor are we
sensible how they are conveyed from spirits embodied to ours that are
in life; or, on the contrary, from us to them; the latter is certainly
done without help of the organs, and the former is conveyed by the
understanding, and the retired faculties of the soul.

The spirits, without the help of voices, converse, and the more
particular discoveries of converse of the spirits, seem to me as
follow: to wit, dreams, voices, noises, impulses, hints, apprehensions,
involuntary sadness, &c.

Dreams of old were the ways by which God himself was pleased to warn
men what services to perform, and what to shun. Joseph was directed of
God in a dream to go to Egypt; and so were the wise men warned in a
dream to depart into their own country another way, to avoid the fury
of Herod. I am not like those who think dreams are the mere designs of
a delirious head, or the relics of a day's perplexities or pleasures;
but, on the contrary, I must beg leave to say, I never met with any
capital mischief in my life, but I had some notice of it by a dream;
and had I not been a thoughtless unbelieving creature, I might have
taken many a warning, and avoided many of the evils I afterwards fell
into, merely by total neglect of those dreams.

I was