Savages generally may have evolved the conception of a soul or spirit as an explanation of dreams, according to the view taken by Mr.E.Clodd in _Myths and Dreams_, [121] Mr.Clodd shows that dreams were necessarily and invariably considered as real events, and it could not have been otherwise, as primitive man would have been unable to conceive the abstract idea of a vision or fantasy.

And since during dreams the body remained immobile and quiescent, it was thought that the spirit inside the body left it and travelled independently.

Hence the reluctance often evinced to waking a sleeper suddenly from fear lest the absent spirit might not have time to return to the body before its awakening and hence the man might die.

Savages, not having the conception of likeness or similarity, [122] would confuse death and sleep, because the appearance of the body is similar in death and in sleep.

Legends of the type of Rip Van Winkle and the Sleeping Beauty, and of heroes like King Arthur and Frederick Barbarossa lying asleep through the centuries in some remote cave or other hiding-place, from which they will one day issue forth to regenerate the world, perpetuate the primitive identification of death and sleep.