Page:A Short History of Aryan Medical Science.djvu/187

IX.] lish the relation supposed to exist between the dreams and the events which they predict. The Indian writers, too, have endeavoured to throw some light on the question. This, however, is not the place to discuss their theory. Suffice it to say that the Indians have recognised dreams as the result of a state of life distinct both from the waking and the sleeping states, having at the same time a subtle connection with both. Assuming this to be the case, the Hindoo practitioners believe they can derive useful indications from the dreams of their patients. Dreams are, according to them, sometimes caused by fear, debility, and abnormal secretion of urine, wind, or bile. These are distinguished from those which are supposed to be prophetic and symbolic in their character. To ride a camel or a buffalo, to embrace a corpse or a mendicant, to see one's dead relatives, or find oneself besmeared with oil, to eat cooked food, or drink milk or oil, to see raw cotton, ashes, or bones, to discern a bare-headed black person riding a donkey and going in a southern direction, to find oneself decked with red flowers, — all such dreams are considered bad. A healthy man dreaming of these things will get ill, while a sick person will get worse. On