Pierre Petit (Photo.) — Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury. (B&W Engraving)

Paris: Lemercier, [1800s]. Original B&W gravure. 14.75 x 10.5 inches. Very Good. Light spots of foxing. Signed in the plate. Scarce. Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury (March 23, 1817 - February 11, 1892), was a French scholar and physician, important because his ideas about the interpretation of dreams and the effect of external stimuli on dreams pre-dated those of Sigmund Freud. He is mentioned by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, and by Sebastian Faulks in Human Traces. He coined the term hypnagogic hallucination and reported a dream that famously inspired Salvador Dalí's painting Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. Alfred Maury was contemporary with Hervey de Saint Denys and the two dream researchers were in disagreement with each other (Blanken & Meijer, 1988). .