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303
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
109
This
view
of
the
case
(that
a
"ghost"
may
be
a
reflection
of
a
dead
man's
dream)
will
become
less
difficult
to
understand
if
we
ask
ourselves
what
natural
thing
most
resembles
the
common
idea
of
a
ghost.
You
are
reading
alone
at
night,
let
us
say,
the
door
opens
and
a
human
figure
glides
into
the
room.
To
you
it
pays
no
manner
of
attention;
it
does
not
answer
if
you
speak;
it
may
trifle
with
some
object
in
the
chamber
and
then
steal
quietly
out
again.
It
is
the
House-maid
walking
in
her
Sleep.
This
perfectly
accountable
appearance,
in
its
aimlessness,
its
unconsciousness,
its
irresponsiveness,
is
undeniably
just
like
the
common
notion
of
a
ghost.
Now,
if
ordinary
ghosts
are
not
of
flesh
and
blood,
like
the
sleep-walking
house-maid,
yet
are
as
irresponsive,
as
unconscious,
and
as
vaguely
wandering
as
she,
then
(if
the
dead
are
somewhat)
a
ghost
may
be
a
hallucination
produced
in
the
living
by
the
unconscious
action
of
the
mind
of
the
dreaming
dead.
The
conception
is
at
least
conceivable.
If
adopted,
merely
for
argument's
sake,
it
would
first
explain
the
purposeless
behaviour
of
ghosts,
and
secondly,
relieve
people
who
see
ghosts
of
the
impression
that
they
see
"spirits".
In
the
Scotch
phrase
the
ghost
obviously
"is
not
all
there,"
any
more
than
the
sleep
walker
is
intellectually
"all
there".
This
incomplete,
incoherent
presence
is
just
what
might
be
expected
if
a
dreaming
disembodied
mind
could
affect
an
embodied
mind
with
a
hallucination.
But
the
good
old-fashioned
ghost
stories
are
usually
of
another
type.
The
robust
and
earnest
ghosts
of
our
ancestors
"had
their
own
purpose
sun-clear
before
them,"
as
Mr.
Carlyle
would
have
said.
They
knew
what
they
wanted,
asked
for
it,
and
saw
that
they
got
it.
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