Excerpt from An Experimental Study of Sleep: From the Physiological Laboratory of the Harvard Medical School and From Sidis' Laboratory Rom the very earliest times man wondered about sleep and attempted some explanation of it. It was supposed that in sleep the soul wanders away from the body and leaves it in a lifeless condition. Many of the savage tribes are on that account afraid to waken people lest the soul may be frightened away and not return at all to the body. That is why' even at present we often hear the saying that sleep is the companion of death. On the other hand death is often described as sleep. On the same basis dreams were explained by the primitive mind, the soul in sleep leaves the body and wanders away; on its wanderings the soul meets with all kinds of adventures and it is such experience that gives rise to dreams. In sleep the wandering soul, not encumbered by the gross body, can visit great distances in a short time and can even communicate with heavenly powers, with angels and gods. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.