Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/358

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336
OCCULT JAPAN.

next; and the phantasmagoria rolls cheerfully on, breaking all the dramatic unities in its passage, in the most natural way in the world. In our deeper dream states the whole seems real; it is only in our less dense ones that wonder begins to mingle with the show, as a looker-on, who doubts without exactly disbelieving. We have a dim sense that all is not right without quite realizing that anything is wrong.

Now the explanation of this seems to be that in dreams our thread of thought is comparatively fringeless. Motion in the mind is confined largely to one line, a very crooked line, but a simple one. As the current passes along, each idea starts the next, the one most easily associated with it at the moment, without rousing much in the way of side ideas to play critic to its creations and throw unpleasant doubts upon its credibility.

Such action as this shows that the whole brain is not yet roused to that pitch of potential where motion takes place with normal ease. The current encounters inertia in its passage, and in place of spreading into side tracts is confined to the easiest path of dis-