NARCOTIIC DREAMS AND THEIR AFTERMATH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 8

NARCOTIIC DREAMS AND THEIR AFTERMATH.

3 —• c We seldom pause to reflect on i f resemblance between our dreams a i the higlx delirium of fever or alcof ism or, indeed, the permanent hall I inations of the insane. M. Louis Li in the Journal de Psychologic tra i- the connecting links between , dreams evoked wilfully by the use r narcotics and their aftermath—so 1 . quently stable enough to stimulate s mild form of insanity, f As Thomas Do Quincey said in i _ “Confessions of an Opium Eate f “the narcotic can only develop : e , natural predispositions of the addi i to judge of the wonders of opium ] would be absurd to listen to a catl y dealer, since he would dream only 0 herds and pastures.” y An identical mental mechani a causes the normal dream and the m bid raving, and Livct’s experience 1 shown him the remarkable constai with which the narcotic dream has 1 more or loss tenacious traces in 1 mind of the patient, whether as a fi> , s idea or false conviction, a halluci v tion of the senses or disorders of i sensibility. With henjp the illusion i, a satislied desire or forgotten son is prolonged for several days after 9 ' smoker’s visit to the den. Cocaine a 3 alcohol produce illusions of loathso e insects and animals, and depressing t terrifying ideas persist. Opium a e more especially on the domain of id _ and of the imagination, as alcohol d n in,rare cases. The most celebrated ], stance of the fevered imagination c e to alcohol and drugs is the feast t Belshazzar so familiar in the paintii 1 of the Primitives and of the Rem . sauce: — “They drank wine and praised 1 . gods of gold and of silver, of bjra - of iron, of wood and of stone. In i 3 same hour came forth fingers of f man’s hand, and wrote over agab . the candlestock upon the plaster - the wall of the king’s palace, and i t king saw the part of the hand tl 3 wrote. —Daniel.” Another confirmation of M. Live - clinical observations is found in 1 ■ literature of Black Magic, dear to 1 , .French Symbolists and to the “Yollc - Book” school of the English nineti • The jusquiame or henbane was 1 > principal ingredient of the magic oii - ment of the sorcerers of the Midi 1! Ages. The first time the wizards i , nointed themselves witli tins salve ti - bad marvellous visions; the second tii T they rode astride a broomstick to t t Witches’ Sabbath ,and the third tii ; the Devil persuaded them that after i ' anointing they would be changed ii i the beasts of the fields. Livet quo - some extracts from the old lawsu i' against sorcery, collected by Bust Salverte: “Two of the accused witches, put ; sleep by thei magic ointment, had i nqunced that they would go to the sk • with wings. Both believed that t ■ statement was true and were amaz ■ when they were contradicted.” In 1750 at Wurzburg a nun aecus of sorcery was dragged to 1 a law con where she obstinately insisted that s was ai witch and named the persons s had killed by enchantment. These p< sons were still living, but the nun w burned alive. With the jusquiame or henbane, her and belladonna the dreamers belie long after that they have in reali been wedded to the person chosen imagination. Auditory hallucinatio are rarer, though the dreams induct by chloroform or ether begin with characteristic sound of bells ringing, woman who had been brought up in French convent, where the bells f study and chapel were silenced durii Holy Week and rang out at High Ma on Easter _ morning, dreamed in tl ether narcosis that the nuns were sening her to the chapel with flowers ft the altar as the hells were pealing ii the Offertory. The perfume of tl flowers and the chimes persisted in th patient’s nostrils and ears for hou after the operation. Smokers of mai huaiia composed ritual songs in whic onomatopia translated their auditoi hallucinations. Persons especially predestined to tl aftermath phenomena of narcotics ai those of a mental plasticity with a nati ral tendency to disregard and d'islil positive and material' facts. Ohildre and women are thus more susceptible. “Perhaps for this reason,” Mr Live concludes, “we_ find that it was th priestess who was the mouthpiece c: the Oracle in the temple of Apollo, th Druidess with the Celts and the pn: phetess with the Arabs. The Greet and the Romans made girls drunk an then caused them to tell the futur from magic mirrors or crystal spheres while Cagliostro foljowcd the tnctlioi later on, and the American Indian gave their priestesses narcotics tha they might dream and Interpret tlr future from their hallucinations. Desire and the narcotic aid in imprinting on the mind a fixed idea and as tin witch before her narosis desired to g( to the Sabbath, the opium or haschisc) addict goes to the den to satisfy souk special wish, remembrance or hope, re turning with the illusion of satisfied de sire.”