, the imagination is
frequently reconducted to the former series. The interruption in the
course of the preceding occurrences is remarked, and the power of
abstracting similarities is in search of the cause of this irregularity.
Hence, in such cases, there usually happens some unfortunate event or
other, which occasions the interruption of the story. The representing
power may again suddenly conduct us to another series of ideas, and thus
the imagination may be led by the subreasoning power before defined,
from one scene to another. Of this kind, for instance, is the following
remarkable dream, as related and explained in the works of professor
Maas of Halle: "I dreamed once," says he "that the Pope visited me. He
commanded me to open my desk, and carefully examined all the papers it
contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling diamond fell out
of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however, neither of us took
any notice. As soon as the Pope had withdrawn, I retired to bed, but was
soon obliged to rise, on account of a thick smoke, the cause of which I
had yet to learn. Upon examination I discovered, that the diamond had
set fire to the papers in my desk, and burnt them to ashes."

On account of the peculiar circumstances by which this dream was
occasioned, it deserves the following short analysis. "On the preceding
evening," says professor Maas, "I was visited by a friend with whom I
had a lively conversation, upon Joseph IInd's suppression of monasteries
and convents. With this idea, though I did not become conscious of it in
my dream, was associated the visit which the Pope publicly paid the
Emperor Joseph at Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against
the clergy; and with this again was combined, however faintly, the
representation of the visit, which had been paid me by my friend. These
two events were, by the subreasoning faculty, compounded into one,
according to the established rule--that things which agree in their
parts, also correspond as to the whole;--hence the Pope's visit, was
changed into a visit made to me. The subreasoning faculty then, in order
to account for this extraordinary visit, fixed upon that which was the
most important object in my room, namely, the desk, or rather the papers
contained in it. That a diamond fell out of the triple crown was a
collateral association, which was owing merely to the representation of
the desk. Some days before when opening the desk, I had