Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on sleep and dreams 18110. When one is under the influence of strong emotions, one is very susceptibleto sensitive illusions (460 b 4–16).11. When one crosses two fingers and puts an object between them, it is as if onefeels two objects (460 b 22–3).12. When one is on a ship which is moved by the sea and looks at the land, it isas if the land moves (460 b 26–7).13. Weak stimuli of pleasure and pain are extruded by stronger ones and escapeour attention (461 a 1–3).14. When one gets to sleep immediately after dinner, one has no dreams (461 a11–12).15. Very young children do not dream at all (461 a 12;cf.Gen. an. 779 a 13).16. Dreams occur in a later stage of sleep; they are often distorted and unclear, butsometimes they are strong (461 a 18–27).17. Melancholics, drunk people and those suffering from fever have confused andmonstrous dream images (461 a 21–2).18. The dream image is judged by the dreaming subject (461 b 3–7).19. When one presses a finger under one’s eye, one single object appears double(462 a 1).20. Sometimes, during sleep, one is aware of the fact that one is dreaming (462 a2–8).21. At the moment of falling asleep and of awakening, one often sees images (462a 10–11).22. Young people see in the dark all kinds of appearances when their eyes are wideopen (462 a 12–15).23. In situations of half-sleep, one can have weak perceptions of light and soundsfrom one’s environment (462 a 19–25).24. One may even give answers to questions when one is asleep (462 a 25–6).25. Many people never had a dream in their whole lives; others first got them afterconsiderable advance in age (464 b 1–11;cf.Hist. an. 537 b 13 ff.).This is a substantial list of empirical claims, some of which testify to Aristotle’ssharp observational capacities (for example, nos. 2, 4, 20). However,we also find claims that are highly questionable from a modern point ofview or for which the empirical basis can only be said to be very weak (e.g.8, 11, 14, 15). It is difficult to decide to what extent these ‘data’ (phainomenaor sumbainonta, as Aristotle would call them) are derived from deliberateand purposeful observation by Aristotle and his pupils themselves, or justfrom common human experience (on the list, observations 15 and 25 arealso found in other biological works of Aristotle, but they are evidentlyonly a minority). Moreover, we should certainly take into account the possibilitythat Aristotle has borrowed some of these data from other scientificwritings, for example the psychological works of Democritus (whom Aristotlementions in Div. somn. 464 a 4) and medical literature (to which he