[60]
29. "'Ah,' it is objected, 'but many dreams
are untrustworthy.' Rather, perhaps, their meaning
is hidden from us. But grant that some are untrustworthy, why do we declaim against those that
are trustworthy? The fact is the latter would
be much more frequent if we went to our rest in
proper condition. But when we are burdened with
food and drink our dreams are troubled and confused.
Observe what Socrates says in Plato's Republic:1
"'When a man goes to sleep, having the thinking
and reasoning portion of his soul languid and inert,
but having that other portion, which has in it a
certain brutishness and wild savagery, immoderately gorged with drink and food, then does that
latter portion leap up and hurl itself about in sleep
without check. In such a case every vision presented to the mind is so devoid of thought and
reason that the sleeper dreams that he is committing
incest with his mother, or that he is having unlawful
commerce indiscriminately with gods and men, and
frequently too, with beasts; or even that he is
killing someone and staining his hands with impious
bloodshed; and that he is doing many vile and
[p. 293]
hideous things recklessly and without shame.
1 Plato, De rep. ix. p. 571.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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