largest quantities and after the habit had long been established, nor
while engaged in the painful process of relinquishing it, nor at any
time subsequently, have I had any experience worth narrating of the
influence of the drug over the dreaming faculty. On the contrary, I
doubt whether many men of mature age know so little of this peculiar
state of mind as myself. The conditions in this respect, imposed by
my own peculiarities of constitution, have been either no sleep
sufficiently sound as to interfere with the consciousness of what was
passing, or mere restlessness, or sleep so profound as to leave behind
it no trace of the mind's activity. While it is therefore certain that
this exaggeration of the dreaming faculty is not necessarily connected
with the use of opium, but is rather to be referred to some
peculiarity of temperament or organization in De Quincey himself, I
find myself in turn at a loss to know how far to regard other
phenomena to which I have previously alluded as the natural and
necessary consequences of opium, or how far they may be owing to
peculiarities of constitution in myself. Opium-eaters have said but
little on the subject. The medical profession, so far as I have
conversed with them, and I have consulted with some of the most
eminent, are not generally well informed on any thing beyond the
specific effects of the drug as witnessed in ordinary medication. In
the absence of sufficient authority, it may be safer to say that the
remoter consequences of the disuse of opium consist in a general
disorder and derangement of the nervous system, exhibiting itself in
such particular symptoms as are most accordant with the temperament,
constitutional weaknesses, and personal idiosyncrasies of the
patient. That some considerable suffering must be regarded as
unavoidable seems to be placed beyond question from the nature of the
trial to which the body has been subjected, as well as from what
little has been said on the subject by those who have relinquished the