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"But in sleep it is otherwise; having, as much as possible, put our senses from their duty, having closed the eyes from seeing, and the ears, taste, and smelling, from their peculiar functions, and having diminished even the touch itself, by all the arts of softness, the imagination is then left to riot at large, and to lead the understanding without an opposer."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Author

Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Work Title

An History of the Earth: and Animated Nature

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for J. Nourse

Date

1774

Metaphor

"But in sleep it is otherwise; having, as much as possible, put our senses from their duty, having closed the eyes from seeing, and the ears, taste, and smelling, from their peculiar functions, and having diminished even the touch itself, by all the arts of softness, the imagination is then left to riot at large, and to lead the understanding without an opposer."

Metaphor in Context

What are we to say to such actions as these; or how account for this operation of the mind in dreaming? It should seem, that the imagination, by day, as well as by night, is always employed; and that often, against our wills, it intrudes where it is least commanded or desired. While awake, and in health, this busy principle cannot much delude us: it may build castles in the air, and raise a thousand phantoms before us; but we have every one of the senses alive, to bear testimony to its falsehood. Our eyes shew us that the prospect is not present; our hearing, and our touch, depose against its reality; and our taste and smelling are equally vigilant in detecting the impostor. Reason, therefore, at once gives judgment upon the cause; and the vagrant intruder, imagination, is imprisoned, or banished from the mind. But in sleep it is otherwise; having, as much as possible, put our senses from their duty, having closed the eyes from seeing, and the ears, taste, and smelling, from their peculiar functions, and having diminished even the touch itself, by all the arts of softness, the imagination is then left to riot at large, and to lead the understanding without an opposer. Every incursive idea then becomes a reality; and the mind, not having one power that can prove the illusion, takes them for truths. As in madness, the senses, from struggling with the imagination, are at length forced to submit, so, in sleep, they seem for a while soothed into the like submission: the smallest violence exerted upon any one of them, however, rouzes all the rest in their mutual defence; and the imagination, that had for a while told its thousand falshoods, is totally driven away, or only permitted to pass under the custody of such as are every moment ready to detect its imposition.
(pp. 143-4)