200 Aristotle and his school
But the problem is that the empirical examples of this mechanism given in
the following lines seem to belong to a different category. The experiences
of hearing thunder, tasting sweet flavours and going through a fire are
apparently the result of movements in the body which present themselves
at the time of sleep. These movements are not the remnants of movements
which have occurred during the daytime but which were overruled then,
but they areactualmovements which take place at the moment of sleep
and which are noticed at the moment that they occur.
Now, as we have seen, Aristotle inOn Dreamsacknowledges that this
kind of perception may take place in sleep; but he immediately adds the
qualification that this kind of perception is not a dream (anenhupnion)in
the strict sense of the word, whereas that is the word he is using here inOn
Divination in Sleep. Moreover, in the present passage Aristotle states that we
perceive these movements ‘more clearly’ in sleep than in the waking state,
whereas the examples of the borderline experiences he gives inOn Dreams
are said to be perceived ‘faintly and as it were from far away’.
There are several ways to cope with this problem, none of which, how-
ever, are free from difficulties.^52 We might consider the possibility that the
experiences mentioned here are not examples of dreams, but effects of a
more general mechanism which is operative in sleep, and of which dreams
are a different species. In this respect the transition from line 10 to 11 may
be understood – and paraphrased with some exaggeration – as follows: ‘for
then it even happens that small movements (no matter whether they are
remnants of earlier perceptions or actual impressions) appear stronger than
they really are’. The word ‘even’ (kai) may then be taken as pointing to
the fact that the examples which follow demonstrate more than is really
necessary for Aristotle’s purpose. What is necessary for the argument is
that the small movements which escaped our notice in the waking state
become manifest to us in sleep. What is redundant in it is, first, thatall
kindsof small movements (i.e. both remnants of small movements from the
waking state and small movements which actually occur to us when we are
asleep) manifest themselves more clearly in sleep than in the waking state
and, secondly, that these small movements appear stronger than they really
are.
(^52) I leave aside the interpretation according to which the experiences mentioned hereare, after all,
remnants of actual sense impressions received during the waking state, in which case there would
be no inconsistency withOn Dreams. This interpretation, however, seems unlikely: the present
participlesgignomen ̄on, katarrheontos, gignomen ̄es, as well as the fact that no example from the visual
domain is given, surely indicate that the occurrence of the stimulus and its experience by the sleeper
are simultaneous.