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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., (© 2023 European Sleep Research Society.)

Physicians and surgeons during the nineteenth century were eager to explore the causes of stomach and intestinal illnesses. Theories abounded that there was a sympathy between the mind and the body, especially in the case of the dyspepsia. The body was thought to have physical symptoms from the reactions of the mind, especially in the case of hypochondriasis. Digestive problems had a mental component, but mental anguish could also result from physical problems. Dissertations from aspiring as well as established physicians probed the mental causes of irritable bowel diseases and other diseases in the medical literature. Healing was thought to come from contextualizing the link between the problems of the mind and the resulting physical problems of the body.