Varia

From the chapter on “Dreams” in Diderot's “Les Bijoux Indiscrets” . A dialogue in which the Sultan Mangogul, his favorite, Mirzoza, and the confidant of both, Bloculocus, participate.

“‘Seigneur,’ said the favorite to Bloculocus, ‘you must do me a service. Last night there passed, through my head a crowd of extravagances. It is a dream, but God knows, what sort of a dream: and they assure me that you were the first man in the Congo to decipher dreams. Tell me quickly what this one signifies,’ and she recounted it.

“‘Madame,’ replied Bloculocus, ‘I am a mediocre onéironcritiqué’—

“‘Ah, spare me, if you please, the terms of the art,’ cried the favorite, ‘omit science and talk sense.’

“‘Madame,’ said Bloculocus, ‘you shall be satisfied! I have some peculiar ideas concerning dreams: it is perhaps to this I owe the honor of entertaining you and the epithet “dream-pit.” I shall reveal them to you as clearly as possible.’

“‘You are aware, Madame,’ he continued, ‘that most philosophers as well as the rest of mankind, retail them.’ ‘Objects, they say, that have struck us forcibly during the day, occupy our minds at night: the traces they have imprinted during the day before, in the fibres of our brain persist: the animal spirits habituated to moving in certain paths, follow a route familiar to them and from this originate these involuntary representations which afflict or rejoice us. In this system it would appear that a happy lover should always be well served by his dreams: however, it often comes to pass that a (female) person who is not unkind to him when he is awake, treats him while sleeping like a negro, or that in place of possessing a charming woman, he finds in his arms a little deformed monster.’

“‘That was precisely my experience last night,’ Mangogul interjected: ‘I dream almost every night, it is a family malady and we all dream, father and son, since the Sultan Tagrul, who began dreaming in 743,500,000,002. Now then last night, I saw you, Madame,’ said he to Mirzoza