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De Anima

XLIX.

[1] Infantes qui non putant somniare, cum omnia animae pro modo aetatis expungantur in uita, animaduertant succussus et nutus et renidentias eorum per quietem, ut ex re comprehendant motus animae somniantis facile per carnis teneritatem erumpere in superficiem. [2] Sed et quod Libyca gens Atlantes caeco somno transigere dicuntur, animae utique natura taxantur. Porro aut Herodoto fama mentita est nonnunquam in barbaros calumniosa aut magna uis eiusmodi daemonum in illo climate dominatur. Si enim et Aristoteles heroem quendam Sardiniae notat incubatores fani sui uisionibus priuantem, erit et hoc in daemonum libidinibus, tam auferre somnia quam inferre, ut Neronis quoque seri somniatoris et Thrasymedis insigne inde processerit. [3] Sed et a deo deducimus somnia. Quid ergo nec a deo Atlantes somniarent, uel quia nulla iam gens dei extranea est in omnem terram et in terminos orbis euangelio coruscante? Num ergo aut fama mentita est Aristoteli aut daemonum adhuc ratio est? Dum ne animae aliqua natura credatur immunis somniorum.

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A Treatise on the Soul

Chapter XLIX.--No Soul Naturally Exempt from Dreams.

As for those persons who suppose that infants do not dream, on the ground that all the functions of the soul throughout life are accomplished according to the capacity of age, they ought to observe attentively their tremors, and nods, and bright smiles as they sleep, and from such facts understand that they are the emotions of their soul as it dreams, which so readily escape to the surface through the delicate tenderness of their infantine body. The fact, however, that the African nation of the Atlantes are said to pass through the night in a deep lethargic sleep, brings down on them the censure that something is wrong in the constitution of their soul. Now either report, which is occasionally calumnious against barbarians, deceived Herodotus, ¹ or else a large force of demons of this sort domineers in those barbarous regions. Since, indeed, Aristotle remarks of a certain hero of Sardinia that he used to withhold the power of visions and dreams from such as resorted to his shrine for inspiration, it must lie at the will and caprice of the demons to take away as well as to confer the faculty of dreams; and from this circumstance may have arisen the remarkable fact (which we have mentioned ² ) of Nero and Thrasymedes only dreaming so late in life. We, however, derive dreams from God. Why, then, did not the Atlantes receive the dreaming faculty from God, because there is really no nation which is now a stranger to God, since the gospel flashes its glorious light through the world to the ends of the earth? Could it then be that rumour deceived Aristotle, or is this caprice still the way of demons? (Let us take any view of the case), only do not let it be imagined that any soul is by its natural constitution exempt from dreams.