Illusions Part 20

[45] See, on this point, some excellent remarks by G.H. Lewes, _Problems of Life and Mind_, third series, vol. ii. p. 275.

[46] To some extent this applies to the changes of apparent magnitude due to altered position. Thus, we do not attend to the reduction of the height of a small object which we are wont to handle, when it is placed far below the level of the eye. And hence the error people make in judging of the point in the wall or skirting which a hat will reach when placed on the ground.

[47] I refer to the experiments made by Exner, Wundt, and others, in determining the time elapsing between the giving of a signal to a person and the execution of a movement in response. "It is found," says Wundt, "by these experiments that the exact moment at which a sense-impression is perceived depends on the amount of preparatory self-accommodation of attention." (See Wundt, _Physiologische Psychologie_, ch. xix., especially p. 735. _et seq._)

[48] Quoted by Helmholtz, _op. cit._, p. 626.

[49] When the drawing, by its adherence to the laws of perspective, does not powerfully determine the eye to see it in one way rather than in the other (as in Figs. 5 to 7), the disposition to see the one form rather than the other points to differences in the frequency of the original forms in our daily experience. At the same time, it is to be observed that, after looking at the drawing for a time under each aspect, the suggestion now of the one and now of the other forces itself on the mind in a curious and unaccountable way.

[50] _Ueber die phantastischen Gesichsterscheinungen_, p. 45.

[51] Another side of histrionic illusion, the reading of the imitated feelings into the actors' minds, will be dealt with in a later chapter.

[52] In a finished painting of any size this preparation is hardly necessary. In these cases, in spite of the great deviations from truth in pictorial representation already touched on, the amount of essential agreement is so large and so powerful in its effect that even an intelligent animal will experience an illusion. Mr. Romanes sends me an interesting account of a dog, that had never been accustomed to pictures, having been put into a state of great excitement by the introduction of a portrait into a room, on a level with his eye. It is not at all improbable that the lower animals, even when sane, are frequently the subjects of slight illusion. That animals dream is a fact which is observed as long ago as the age of Lucretius.

[53] This kind of illusion is probably facilitated by the fact that the eye is often performing slight movements without any clear consciousness of them. See what was said about the limits of sensibility, p. 50.

[54] _Mental Physiology_, fourth edit., p. 158.

[55] In persons of very lively imagination the mere representation of an object or event may suffice to bring about such a semblance of sensation. Thus, M. Taine (_op. cit._, vol. i. p. 94) vouches for the a.s.sertion that "one of the most exact and lucid of modern novelists,"

when working out in his imagination the poisoning of one of his fict.i.tious characters, had so vivid a gustatory sensation of a.r.s.enic that he was attacked by a violent fit of indigestion.

[56] Mentioned by Dr. Carpenter (_Mental Physiology_, p. 207), where other curious examples are to be found.

[57] See _Annales Medico-Psychologiques_, tom. vi. p. 168, etc.; tom.

vii. p. 1. etc.

[58] I have already touched on the resonance of a sense-impression when the stimulus has ceased to act (see p. 55). The remarks in the text hold good of all such after-impressions, in so far as they take the form of fully developed percepts. A good example is the recurrence of the images of microscopic preparations, to which the anatomist is liable. (See Lewes, _Problems of Life and Mind_, third series, vol. ii. p. 299.) Since a complete hallucination is supposed to involve the peripheral regions of the nerve, the mere fact of shutting the eye would not, it is clear, serve as a test of the origin of the illusion.

[59] That subjective sensation may become the starting-point in complete hallucination is shown in a curious instance given by Lazarus, and quoted by Taine, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 122, _et seq._ The German psychologist relates that, on one occasion in Switzerland, after gazing for some time on a chain of snow-peaks, he saw an apparition of an absent friend, looking like a corpse. He goes on to explain that this phantom was the product of an image of recollection which somehow managed to combine itself with the (positive) after-image left by the impression of the snow-surface.

[60] For an account of Mr. Galton's researches, see _Mind_, No. xix.

Compare, however, Professor Bain's judicious observations on these results in the next number of _Mind_. The liability of children to take images for percepts, is ill.u.s.trated by the experiences related in a curious little work, _Visions_, by E.H. Clarke, M.D. (Boston, U.S., 1878), pp. 17, 46, and 212.

[61] A common way of describing the relation of the hallucinatory to real objects, is to say that the former appear partly to cover and hide the latter.

[62] Griesinger remarks that the forms of the hallucinations of the insane rarely depend on sense-disturbances alone. Though these are often the starting-point, it is the whole mental complexion of the time which gives the direction to the imagination. The common experience of seeing rats and mice running about during a fit of _delirium tremens_ very well ill.u.s.trates the co-operation of peripheral impressions not usually attended to, and possibly magnified by the morbid state of sensibility of the time (in this case flying spots, _muscae volitantes_), with emotional conditions. (See Griesinger, _loc. cit._, p. 96.)

[63] Wundt (_Physiologische Psychologie_, p. 652) tells us of an insane woodman who saw logs of wood on all hands in front of the real objects.

[64] It is stated by Baillarger (Memoires de l'Academie Royale de Medicine, tom. xii. p. 273, etc.) that while visual hallucinations are more frequent than auditory in healthy life, the reverse relation holds in disease. At the same time, Griesinger remarks (_loc. cit._, p. 98) that visual hallucinations are rather more common than auditory in disease also. This is what we should expect from the number of subjective sensations connected with the peripheral organ of vision. The greater relative frequency of auditory hallucinations in disease, if made out, would seem to depend on the close connection between articulate sounds and the higher centres of intelligence, which centres are naturally the first to be thrown out of working order. It is possible, moreover, that auditory hallucinations are quite as common as visual in states of comparative health, though more easily overlooked.

Professor Huxley relates that he is liable to auditory though not to visual hallucinations. (See _Elementary Lessons in Physiology_, p. 267.)

[65] See Baillarger, _Memoires de l'Academie Royale de Medicine_, tom.

xii. p. 273, _et seq._

[66] See Baillarger, _Annales Medico-Psychologiques_, tom. vi. p. 168 _et seq._; also tom. xii. p. 273, _et seq._ Compare Griesinger, _op.

cit._ In a curious work ent.i.tled _Du Demon de Socrate_ (Paris, 1856), M.

Lelut seeks to prove that the philosopher's admonitory voice was an incipient auditory hallucination symptomic of a nascent stage of mental alienation.

[67] This is well brought out by Dr. J. Hughlings Jackson, in the papers in _Brain_, already referred to.

[68] _Friend_, vol. i. p. 248. The story is referred to by Sir W. Scott in his _Demonology and Witchcraft_.

[69] See E.B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ch. xi.; _cf._ Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, ch. x.

[70] For a fuller account of the different modes of dream-interpretation, see my article "Dream," in the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.

[71] For a fuller account of the reaction of dreams on waking consciousness, see Paul Radestock, _Schlaf und Traum_. The subject is touched on later, under the Illusions of Memory.

[72] For an account of the latest physiological hypotheses as to the proximate cause of sleep, see Radestock, _op. cit._, appendix.

[73] Plutarch, Locke, and others give instances of people who never dreamt. Lessing a.s.serted of himself that he never knew what it was to dream.

[74] The error touched on here will be fully dealt with under Illusions of Memory.

[75] For a very full, fair, and thoughtful discussion of this whole question, see Radestock, _op. cit._, ch. iv.

[76] This may be technically expressed by saying that the liminal intensity (Schwelle) is raised during sleep.

[77] See Wundt, _Physiologische Psychologie_, pp. 188-191.

[78] There is, indeed, sometimes an undertone of critical reflection, which is sufficient to produce a feeling of uncertainty and bewilderment, and in very rare cases to amount to a vague consciousness that the mental experience is a dream.

[79] _Observations on Man_, Part I. ch. iii, sec. 5.

[80] Quoted by Radestock, _op. cit._, p. 110.

[81] _Le Sommeil et les Reves_, p. 132, _et seq._

[82] _Das Leben des Traumes_, p. 369. Other instances are related by Beattie and Abercrombie.

[83] _Le Sommeil et les Reves_, p. 42, _et seq._

[84] _Beitrage sur Physiognosie und Heautognosie_, p. 256. For other cases see H. Meyer, _Physiologie der Nervenfaser_, p. 309; and Strumpell, _Die Natur und Entstehung der Traume_, p. 125.

[85] A very clear and full account of these organic sensations, or common sensations, has recently appeared from the pen of A. Horwicz in the _Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, iv.

Jahrgang 3tes Heft.

[86] Schopenhauer uses this hypothesis in order to account for the apparent reality of dream-illusions. He thinks these internal sensations may be transformed by the "intuitive function" of the brain (by means of the "forms" of s.p.a.ce, time, etc.) into quasi-realities, just as well as the subjective sensations of light, sound, etc., which arise in the organs of sense in the absence of external stimuli. (See _Versuch uber das Geisterschen: Werke_, vol. v. p. 244, _et seq._)

[87] _Das Alpdrucken_, pp. 8, 9, 27.

[88] It is this fact which justifies writers in a.s.signing a prognostic character to dreams.

[89] A part of the apparent exaggeration in our dream-experiences may be retrospective, and due to the effect of the impression of wonder which they leave behind them. (See Strumpell, _Die Natur und Entstehung der Traume_.)

[90] _Cf._ Radestock, _op. cit._, pp. 131, 132.