OCR Rendition - approximate

,38 THE VISIONS OF SANE PERSONS. on the first and second, and the picture on the screen will be identical with that which fell on the retina. Shut off the first and turn on the third, and the picture will be identical with the illusion. Visions, like dreams, are often mere patchworks built up of bits of recollections. The following is one of these: "'"'bell passing a shop in Tottenham Court Road, I went in to order n Dutch cheese, and the proprietor (a bullot-headed man whom I had never seen Loyola) rolled a choose on the marble slab of his counter, askcing rno if that ono would do I answered ' yes' lft thhd thh .,oe sop anougt no rues of the incident. The following evening, on closing my ayes, I saw a hoa,l detached from tbo body rolling about slightly on a white surface. I rocoguisod the face but could not remember where I had soon it, red it was only after thinking about it for some time that I identified it as that of the cheosomongor who had sold lire the choose on the previous day. I may mention that I have often seen the mail since, and that I found the vision I saw was exactly like him, although if I lied boon asked to describe the man before I saw the vision I should have boon unable to do so." Recollections need not be joined like mosaic-work ; they may be blended, on the principle I described two years ago, of making composite portraits. I showed that if two lanterns were converged upon the same screen, and the portrait of one person was put into one and that of another person into the other, the portraits being taken under similar aspects and states of light and shade, then on adjusting the two images eye to eye and mouth to mouth, and so superposing them as exactly as the conditions admitted, a new face will spring into existence. It will have a striking appearance of individuality, and will bear a family likeness to each of its constituents. I also showed that these composite portraits admitted of being made photographically' from a large number of components. I suspect that the phantasmagoria may be due to blended memories; the number of possible combinations would be practically endless, and each combination would give a new face. There would thus be no limit to the dies in the coinage of the brain. I have tried a modification of this process with but small success, which will at least illustrate a cause of the tendency in many cases to visualihe grotesque forms. My object was to efface from a portrait that which was common among persons of the same race, and therefore too familiar to attract attention, and to leave whatever was peculiar in it. I proceeded on the following principle:-We all know that the photographic negative is the converse (or nearly so) of the photographic positive, the one showing whites where the other shows blacks, and vice versd. Hence the superposition of a negative upon a positive transparency of the same portrait tends to create a ,uniform smudge. By superposing a negative transparency of a composite portrait on a positive of any one of the individual faces from which it was composed, all that is common to the group ought 11) I have 'sturdy much improved the process and hope shortly to describit e. else Lore - THE THE VISIONS OF SANE PERSONS. 739 to be smudged out, and all that is personal and peculiar to that face ought to remain. I have found that the peculiarities of visualisation, such as the tendency to see Number-forms, and the still rarer tendency to associate colour with sound, is strongly hereditary, and I should infer, what facts Seem to confirm, that the tendency to be a seer of visions is equally so. Under these circumstances we should expect that it would be unequally developed in different races, and that a large natural gift of the visionary faculty might become characteristic not only of certain families, as among the second-sight seers of Scotland, but of' certain races, as that of the (l-ipsies. It happens that the mere acts of fasting, of want of sleep, and of solitary musing, are severally conducive to visions. I have myself been told of cases in which persons accidentally long deprived of food became subject to them. One was of a pleasure-party driven out to sea, and riot being able to reach the coast till nightfall, at a place where they got shelter but nothing to eat. They were mentally at case and conscious of safety, but they were all troubled with visions, half dreams and half hallucinations. The cases of visions following protracted wakefulness are well known, and I also have collected a few. As regards the effect pf solitariness, it may be sufficient to allude to the recognised advantages of social amusements in the treatment of the insane. It follows that the spiritual discipline undergone for purposes of self-control and self-mortification have also the incidental effect of producing visions. It is to be expected that these should often bear a close relation to the prevalent subjects of thought, and although they may be really no more than the products of one portion of the brain, which another portion of the same brain is engaged in contemplating, they often, through error, receive a religious sanction. This is notably the case among_ half-civilised races. The number of great men who have been once, twice, or more frequently subject to hallucinations is considerable. A list, to which it would be easy to make large additions, is given by Brierre do Boismont (Hallucinations, 8'c., 1862), from whom I translate the following account of the star-of the first Napoleon, which he heard, second-hand, from General Rapp : " In 1806 General Rapp, on his return from the siege of Dantzic, having occasion to speak to the Emperor,. entered his study without being announced. Ho found him so absorbed that his entry was unperceived. The General seeing the Emperor continue motionless, thought he might be ill and purposely made a noise. Napoleon-immediately, roused himself, and without any preamble, seizing Itapp by the arm, said to him, pointing to the sky, `Look there, up f}-err•.' The General remained silent, but on being asked a Second time, he answered that he perceived nothing. ; ' What ! 'replied the Emperor, ` you do not seeit?' It is my star, it is before• you, brilliant;' then animating by degrees, be cried out, ' it has never abandoned me, I see it on all great occasions, it commands me to go forward, and it's a constant sign of good fortune to me."' 3 VOL. XXIX. N.S. I}