Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/884

 subject is apt to develop the object suggested to him, as present to one of his senses, and to perceive it also through other senses.

Among visual hallucinations the human figure, and among auditory hallucinations human voices, are the objects most commonly perceived. The figure seen always appears localized more or less definitely in the outer world. In many cases it appears related to the objects truly seen in just the same way as a real object; e.g. it is no longer seen if the eyes are closed or turned away, it does not move with the movements of the eyes, and it may hide objects lying behind it, or be hidden by objects coming between the place that it appears to occupy and the eye of the percipient. Visual hallucinations are most often experienced when the eyes are open and the surrounding space is well or even brightly illuminated. Less frequently the visual hallucination takes the form of a self-luminous figure in a dark place or appears in a luminous globe or mist which shuts out from view the real objects of the part of the field of view in which it appears.

Auditory hallucinations, especially voices, seem to fall into two distinct classes—(1) those which are heard as coming from without, and are more or less definitely localized in outer space, (2) those which seem to be within the head or, in some cases, within the chest, and to have less definite auditory quality. It seems probable that the latter are hallucinations involving principally kinaesthetic sensations, sensations of movement of the organs of speech.

Hallucinations occur under a great variety of bodily and mental conditions, which may conveniently be classified as follows.

a. It would seem that a considerable number of perfectly healthy persons occasionally experience, while in a fully waking state, hallucinations for which no cause can be assigned. The census of hallucinations conducted by the Society for Psychical Research showed that about 10% of all sane persons can remember having experienced at least one hallucination while they believed themselves to be fully awake and in normal health. These sporadic hallucinations of waking healthy persons are far more frequently visual than auditory, and they usually take the form of some familiar person in ordinary attire. The figure in many cases is seen, on turning the gaze in some new direction, fully developed and lifelike, and its hallucinatory character may be revealed only by its noiseless movements, or by its fading away in situ. A special interest attaches to hallucinations of this type, owing to the occasional coincidence of the death of the person with his hallucinatory appearance. The question raised by these coincidences will be discussed in a separate paragraph below.

b. A few persons, otherwise normal in mind and body, seem to experience repeatedly some particular kind of hallucination. The voice ( ) so frequently heard by Socrates, warning or advising him, is the most celebrated example of this type.

a. A kind of hallucination to which perhaps every normal person is liable is that known technically as “recurrent sensation.” This kind is experienced only when some sense-organ has been continuously or repeatedly subjected to some one kind of impression or stimulation for a considerable period; e.g. the microscopist, after examining for some hours one particular kind of object or structure, may suddenly perceive the object faithfully reproduced in form and colour, and lying, as it were, upon any surface to which his gaze is directed. Perhaps the commonest experience of this type is the recurrence of the sensations of movement at intervals in the period following a sea voyage or long railway journey.

b. A considerable proportion of healthy sane persons can induce hallucinations of vision by gazing fixedly at a polished surface or into some dark translucent mass; or of hearing, by applying a large shell or similar object to the ear. These methods of inducing hallucinations, especially the former, have long been practised in many countries as modes of divination, various objects being used, e.g. a drop of ink in the palm of the hand, or a polished finger-nail. The object now most commonly used is a polished sphere of clear glass or crystal (see ). Hence such hallucinations go by the name of crystal visions. The crystal vision often appears as a picture of some distant or unknown scene lying, as it were, in the crystal; and in the picture figures may come and go, and move to and fro, in a perfectly natural manner. In other cases, written or printed words or sentences appear. The percipient, seer or scryer, commonly seems to be in a fully waking state as he observes the objects thus presented. He is usually able to describe and discuss the appearances, successively discriminating details by attentive observation, just as when observing an objective scene; and he usually has no power of controlling them, and no sense of having produced them by his own activity. In some cases these visions have brought back to the mind of the scryer facts or incidents which he could not voluntarily recollect. In other cases they are asserted by credible witnesses to have given to the scryer information, about events distant in time or place, that had not come to his knowledge by normal means. These cases have been claimed as evidence of telepathic communication or even of clairvoyance. But at present the number of well-attested cases of this sort is too small to justify acceptance of this conclusion by those who have only secondhand knowledge of them.

c. Prolonged deprivation of food predisposes to hallucinations, and it would seem that, under this condition, a large proportion of otherwise healthy persons become liable to them, especially to auditory hallucinations.

d. Certain drugs, notably opium, Indian hemp, and mescal predispose to hallucinations, each tending to produce a peculiar type. Thus Indian hemp and mescal, especially the latter, produce in many cases visual hallucinations in the form of a brilliant play of colours, sometimes a mere succession of patches of brilliant colour, sometimes in architectural or other definite spatial arrangement.

e. The states of transition from sleep to waking, and from waking to sleep, seem to be peculiarly favourable to the appearance of hallucinations. The recurrent sensations mentioned above are especially prone to appear at such times, and a considerable proportion of the sporadic hallucinations of persons in good health are reported to have been experienced under these conditions. The name “hypnagogic” hallucinations, first applied by Alfred Maury, is commonly given to those experienced in these transition states.

f. The presentations, predominantly visual, that constitute the principal content of most dreams, are generally described as hallucinatory, but the propriety of so classing them is very questionable. The present writer is confident that his own dream-presentations lack the sensory vividness which is the essential mark of the percept, whether normal or hallucinatory, and which is the principal, though not the only, character in which it differs from the representation or memory-image. It is true that the dream-presentation, like the percept, differs from the representative imagery of waking life in that it is relatively independent of volition; but that seems to be merely because the will is in abeyance or very ineffective during sleep. The wide currency of the doctrine that classes dream-images with hallucinations seems to be due to this independence of volitional control, and to the fact that during sleep the representative imagery appears without that rich setting of undiscriminated or marginal sensation which always accompanies waking imagery, and which by contrast accentuates for introspective reflection the lack of sensory vividness of such imagery.

g. Many of the subjects who pass into the deeper stages of hypnosis (see ) show themselves, while in that condition, extremely liable to hallucination, perceiving whatever object is suggested to them as present, and failing to perceive