Science and the ‘emancipation of the mind’: dreams, the mind, and slavery

Summary Dreams were a subject of interest to philosophers thinking about the connection between the mind and the body in the nineteenth century. Many scholars have pointed out that the mind and the body were intimately linked and affected each other. Although science was on its way to becoming more...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of sleep research 2024-04, Vol.33 (2), p.e13995-n/a
Main Authors:	Smith, Laura Elizabeth, Driggers, E. Allen
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Dreams Enslavement history of abolition history of dreams history of medicine history of slavery history of sleep Humans intellectual history Motivation Sleep Somnambulism
Online Access:	Request full text
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Summary:	Summary Dreams were a subject of interest to philosophers thinking about the connection between the mind and the body in the nineteenth century. Many scholars have pointed out that the mind and the body were intimately linked and affected each other. Although science was on its way to becoming more technical and numbers focused in its investigatory practices, medical students and other physician‐philosophers investigated the nature of sleep and dreams. Medical students and advanced researchers speculated on the nature of consciousness and mused on where the mind travels to during the sleep processes. Other romantic figures like Dr Polydori speculated on the nature of sleep walking in their medical dissertations. Dreams also had a powerful moral and motivational component, as dreams and activities in dreams, drove people like Benjamin Rush to embrace abolition. Other promoters of abolition used the nature of dreams to discusses the dreadfulness and suffering of slavery.
ISSN:	0962-1105 1365-2869