Here is documentation that your 1866 example in your post is actually from 1694 or earlier, in a description "of the Beasts of Virginia," by Mr. John Clayton.
From Google books, Philsophical Transactions, vol XVIII, London.
The Common Rate of a Cow and Calf, is 50 s. sight unseen, be she big or little, they are never very Curious to Examine that Point.
There is a very similar expression that means the same thing, and which seems much more common in the 18th century: unsight, unseen. The earliest I can find this expression in Google books is from 1694, in Hudibras by Samuel Butler:
For to subscribe, unsight, unseen,
T' an unknown Church Discipline,
What is it else, but beforehand,
T' ingage, and after understand?
The OED dates unsight, unseen (Obs.) to 1627:
a1627 T. Middleton & W. Rowley Old Law (1656), Take that at hazard sir... Unsight, unseen, I take 3. to one.
1632 R. Brome Northern Lasse, I would I had his Neece unsight and unseen I faith for her monies sake.
So I would conjecture that sight unseen originated from an alteration of unsight unseen. This alteration makes some sense, and replaces the word unsight, which the OED says is used as an adjective only in that expression. The OED's guess at the etymology of unsight, unseen is that it is a corrupted or dialect version of unsighted, unseen. But they attach a question mark to this etymology, so they aren't very sure about this.
Early awareness of the phenomenon of jet lag
The New York Herald Tribune article from 1965 mentioned in the posted question also shows up under the title "New ailment—jet lag," in the Mason City [Iowa] Globe-Gazette of March 4, 1965 (as noted in DavePhD's comment above), under the title "'Jet Lag' Unbalances Victims' Time Sense," in the St. Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch of March 5, 1965, under the title "Jet Lag Is Chic: Ailment Follows Travel," in the Cincinnati [Ohio] Enquirer of March 21, 1965, and under the title "Jet Lag," in the Kingston [Jamaica] Gleaner of April 3, 1965. These links go to pay sites (Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com).
Wayne Brandstadt, "The Doctor Says: German Scientist Finds Secret of Body's Timing," in the Columbia Missourian (February 23, 1966) cites research into the phenomenon indicating that symptoms of jet lag are far more acute in travel west to east than in travel east to west:
These findings explain why our efficiency is greatest during the day and why, after a trip in a jet-propelled plane that crosses several time zones in a few hours, you may suffer from what has been called the [time zone] syndrome or jet lag. This syndrome is characterized by fatigue, decreased appetite and lessened efficiency.
If you travel travel from east to west (with the sun) for a distance of about 3,000 miles it takes about about 2 days for your body to readjust If, on the other hand, you travel the same distance at the same speed against the sun it usually takes three or four days to readjust. The greatest effect is seen in persons who have to make such trips frequently.
The Missourian's version of the column omits the words "time zone" from the phrase "time zone syndrome," but this omission is probably accidental (since the resulting wording "what has been called the syndrome or jet lag" is, at a minimum, grammatically awkward. The [Palm Springs, California] Desert Sun (April 13, 1966) reproduces the same column with the phrase "time zone syndrome or jet lag" properly in place.
'Time zone syndrome' versus 'jet lag'
The expression time zone syndrome seems to be a slightly earlier name for jet lag. It appears, for example, in this bibliographical entry from Bibliographical List, issues 1–18 [combined snippets]:
- Lodeesen, Marius and James E. Crane. RACING THE SUN. Air Line Pilot, 33:8–9, 22–3, January 1964. What we are just beginning to realize is that traveling rapidly around the globe upsets our physiological life cycle. A new element has been discovered in jet flying: the time zone syndrome.
Lodeesen was a pilot with Pan American Airways, and Crane was a doctor and a medical examiner with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. The same two authors had published an article titled "Tired Jet Pilots" in the March 1963 issue of Flying magazine, but the bibliographical blurb for that article in Bibliographical List doesn't specify a physiological syndrome as the underlying cause:
Flight crew fitness — the human factor — is lagging behind as the jets gain new levels in speed and schedule frequency.
The January 1964 Air Line Pilot article begins with much the same language as the bibliographical blurb noted earlier:
Any school child knows that when it is noon in New York, it is midnight on the other side of the world. What we are just beginning to realize is that traveling rapidly around the globe upsets our physiological life cycle. A new element has been discovered in jet flying: the time zone syndrome.
Another early treatment of the phenomenon appears in Aviation Week & Space Technology, volume 80 (1964) [combined snippets]:
Pilots are already complaining of the stresses brought on them by the jet transport. They are pressing in contract negotiations for fewer flight hours per month and more assurance of full benefits should a health defect force early retirement. New phrases, such as "time-zone syndrome" and "metabolic clock" are being used as pilots cite the mental and physical upset of rapid and frequent shifting away from the routine of home environment.
As far as I've been able to determine, this article does not use the term jet lag, although it is clearly devoted to the phenomenon of jet lag.
An unrelated form of 'jet lag'
The term jet lag in an unrelated sense does appear in three Australian newspaper headlines from the 1950s. From the [Brisbane, Queensland] Courier Mail (June 30, 1950):
See big jet lag in naval aid force
From Newcastle [New South Wales] Morning Herald & Miners' Advocate (December 18, 1954):
Jet Lag In U.K. Hits Defence
And from the Sydney [News South Wales] Morning Herald (December 18, 1954):
Anxiety Over Jet Lag
In all three cases, the phrase "jet lag" refers to a lag in production of jet airplanes, not to a physiological syndrome.
Conclusion
The term jet lag was almost certainly coined in the 1960s—certainly not later than early 1965, when the New York Herald Tribune published an article using the term. Awareness of the phenomenon of jet lag is not much older. In Google Books search results, articles describing symptoms of jet lag among jet pilots date to 1963, and articles dubbing the associated phenomenon time-zone syndrome date to January 1964. The January 1964 article specifically observes that "we are just beginning to realize" the existence and dimensions of the problem. During the middle 1960s, time-zone syndrome seems to have been a more common term than jet lag in aviation literature.
The New York Herald Tribune's early 1965 article in which jet lag appeared—which is as yet the earliest confirmed instance of the term in print—was subsequently reprinted in multiple newspapers across the United States and even in one Jamaican newspaper, with prominent place given to the term jet lag in the headline. Evidently, by the early 1970s, time-zone syndrome had fallen out of favor as jet lag became the standard colloquial term for the phenomenon. Nevertheless, a Google Books search finds instances of the time-zone syndrome in texts published as recently as 2006.
Best Answer
Smoke Rising
Smoking gives rise not only to smoke, but also to dreams and dreaming. The smoke may be from tobacco or opium, and the dreams inspired differ somewhat depending on which, certainly. Yet the dreams are dreams first, and opium or tobacco dreams second. Such 'smoke' dreams may stem from the euphoria and relaxation caused by smoking either substance, and may occur during sleep or during wakefulness.
In one of the first instances I could uncover where the association is made between smoking and dreaming, the substance smoked is not specified, and could be either tobacco or opium:
Even earlier, however, comes an association with dreams where the substance, opium, is specified, but whether the opium was smoked or eaten is not declared:
In the first case, the dreams are not well-described as 'pipe dreams' according to the usual lexical definition. Such dreams are, rather, fond or comfortable recollections, relaxed musings on times past. In the second case, insofar as can be determined from the scanty relevant context, the dreams correspond with the usual lexical sense of 'pipe dreams'.
Setting the Phrase
The usual lexical sense of 'pipe dream' does not, however, preclude other uses, which are readily understood in context. As a set phrase, 'pipe dream' is
As a set phrase, a more comprehensive definition of 'pipe dream' in both contemporary and historical use would be
'Pipe dream' is understood whether or not a literal pipe is involved; whether or not smoking is involved; whether or not literal dreams are involved. In each case, the meaning of the phrase "cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up".
So, in the case of the 1870 UK use of the set phrase 'pipe dream' in Tales of Life and Death, "The Fair Doe of Fernditch",
alludes to an actual incident (the "unwelcome conclusion" mentioned as the end part of Hastings' 'pipe-dream'), wherein Hastings is kissed by the housekeeper; it also refers figuratively to a fantastic dream caused by smoking tobacco. Pipes, it is clear, do not themselves dream; neither was it the pipe that caused the dream. Rather, the source of the dream was first, the man smoking, and second, nicotine's narcotizing effects.
That the phrase is 'set', and means more than can be inferred from the meanings of the words, readily appears when the wording is changed. Thus, the phrasing "...perhaps the unwelcome conclusion to the dream he had when he fell asleep after smoking his pipe last night" does not convey the suggestion that the dream was caused by the pipe-smoking, nor does it convey that the dream was fantastic and improbable, nor yet does it convey that the fantastic and improbable elements of the dream were stimulated by the effects of smoking. Yet all these suggestions are conveyed by the set phrase 'pipe-dream'.
As a further illustration, a precursor phrase to 'pipe dream' is equally 'set' and, while it will still be understood as more than the sum of its parts, has not survived so well:
As with 'smoking dream' and 'pipe dream', so also the phrase 'pipe story' is set but, like 'smoking dream', has not survived as well as 'pipe dream'; OED Online provides an origin, some history, and a lexical definition in the list of compounds formed from 'pipe':
The relationship between 'pipe dream' and 'pipe story' is evident; 'pipe story', however, has largely been supplanted by the set phrases 'tall tale' and 'tall story' in contemporary use, although 'pipe story' is readily understood even now (perhaps by analogy with its historical contemporary, 'pipe dream').
To sharpen the point with a bludgeon of further evidence, other early associations of smoking and dreaming include these:
Multiple associations of dreaming and smoking continue through 1885 in US sources:
The Diaspora of Pipe Dream
The associations of smoking and dreaming, as well as the appearance of the phrases 'smoking dream' (Irish, 1860, 1861), 'pipe dream' (British, 1870) and 'tobacco dream' (US, 1885) lead to what OED recommends as a US origin in 1890 Chicago. The attestation given by OED,
should be supplemented with a second appearance, in another Chicago newspaper, on the same day in 1890:
For my part, I recommend that the evidence, comprising as it does earlier appearances of the very similar (if not identical) set phrases 'smoking dream' and 'tobacco dream', along with the earlier appearance of 'pipe dream' itself, in Ireland, the US, and Britain respectively, argues for a spontaneous independent international origin owing more to the tendency of English, where ever it is spoken, to form nouns by a compounding process mortared by set phrases, than to use of the particular phrase spreading from one to another nation.