Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development Part 10

"light-dust," and other phenomena due to weak sight or sensitiveness; and, again, before I thought of carefully trying, I should have emphatically declared that my field of view in the dark was essentially of a uniform black, subject to an occasional light-purple cloudiness and other small variations. Now, however, after habituating myself to examine it with the same sort of strain that one tries to decipher a signpost in the dark, I have found out that this is by no means the case, but that a kaleidoscopic change of patterns and forms is continually going on, but they are too fugitive and elaborate for me to draw with any approach to truth. I am astonished at their variety, and cannot guess in the remotest degree the cause of them. They disappear out of sight and memory the instant I begin to think about anything, and it is curious to me that they should often be so certainly present and yet be habitually overlooked. If they were more vivid, the case would be very different, and it is most easily conceivable that some very slight physiological change, short of a really morbid character, would enhance their vividness. My own deficiencies, however, are well supplied by other drawings in my possession. These are by the Rev.

George Henslow, whose visions are far more vivid than mine. His experiences are not unlike those of Goethe, who said, in an often-quoted pa.s.sage, that whenever he bent his head and closed his eyes and thought of a rose, a sort of rosette made its appearance, which would not keep its shape steady for a moment, but unfolded from within, throwing out a succession of petals, mostly red but sometimes green, and that it continued to do so without change in brightness and without causing him any fatigue so long as he cared to watch it. Mr. Henslow, when he shuts his eyes and waits, is sure in a short time to see before him the clear image of some object or other, but usually not quite natural in its shape. It then begins to change from one form to another, in his case also for as long a time as he cares to watch it. Mr. Henslow has zealously made repeated experiments on himself, and has drawn what he sees. He has also tried how far he is able to mould the visions according to his will. In one case, after much effort, he contrived to bring the imagery back to its starting-point, and thereby to form what he terms a "visual cycle." The following account is extracted and condensed from his very interesting letter, and will explain the ill.u.s.trations copied from his drawings that are given in Plate IV.

Fig. 70. The first image that spontaneously presented itself was a cross-bow (1); this was immediately provided with an arrow (2), remarkable for its p.r.o.nounced barb and superabundance of feathering.

Some person, but too indistinct to recognise much more of him than the hands, appeared to shoot the arrow from the bow. The single arrow was then accompanied by a flight of arrows from right to left, which completely occupied the field of vision. These changed into falling stars, then into flakes of a heavy snowstorm; the ground gradually appeared as a sheet of snow where previously there had been vacant s.p.a.ce. Then a well-known rectory, fish-ponds, walls, etc., all covered with snow, came into view most vividly and clearly defined. This somehow suggested another view, impressed on his mind in childhood, of a spring morning, brilliant sun, and a bed of red tulips: the tulips gradually vanished except one, which appeared now to be isolated and to stand in the usual point of sight. It was a single tulip, but became double. The petals then fell off rapidly in a continuous series until there was nothing left but the pistil (3), but (as is almost invariably the case with his objects) that part was greatly exaggerated. The stigmas then changed into three branching brown horns (4); then into a k.n.o.b (5), while the stalk changed into a stick. A slight bend in it seems to have suggested a centre-bit (6); this pa.s.sed into a sort of pin pa.s.sing through a metal plate (7), this again into a lock (8), and afterwards into a nondescript shape (9), distantly suggestive of the original cross-bow.

Here Mr. Henslow endeavoured to force his will upon the visions, and to reproduce the cross-bow, but the first attempt was an utter failure. The figure changed into a leather strap with loops (10), but while he still endeavoured to change it into a bow the strap broke, the two ends were separated, but it happened that an imaginary string connected them (11). This was the first concession of his automatic chain of thoughts to his will. By a continued effort the bow came (12), and then no difficulty was felt in converting it into the cross-bow, and thus returning to the starting-point. Fig. 71.

Mr. Henslow writes:--

"Though I can usually summon up any object thought of, it not only is somewhat different from the real thing, but it rapidly changes.

The changes are in many cases clearly due to a suggestiveness in the article of something else, but not always so, as in some cases hereafter described. It is not at ail necessary to think of any particular object at first, as something is sure to come spontaneously within a minute or two. Some object having once appeared, the automatism of the brain will rapidly induce the series of changes. The images are sometimes very numerous, and very rapid in succession: very frequently of great beauty and highly brilliant.

Cut gla.s.s (far more elaborate than I am conscious of ever having seen), highly chased gold and silver filigree ornaments; gold and silver flower-stands, etc.; elaborate coloured patterns of carpets in brilliant tints are not uncommon.

"Another peculiarity resides in the extreme restlessness of my visual objects. It is often very difficult to keep them still, as well as from changing in character. They will rapidly oscillate or else rotate to a most perplexing degree, and when the characters change at the same time a critical examination is almost impossible.

When the process is in full activity, I feel as if I were a mere spectator at a diorama of a very eccentric kind, and was in no way concerned with the getting up of the performance.

"When a succession of images has been pa.s.sing, I sometimes _determine_ to introduce an object, say a watch. Very often it is next to impossible to succeed. There is an evident struggle. The watch, pure and simple, will not come; but some hybrid structure appears--something round, perhaps--but it lapses into a warming-pan or other unexpected object.

"This practice has brought to my mind very clearly the distinction between at least one form of automatism of the brain and volition; but the strength of the former is enormous, for the visual objects, when in full career of the change, are _imperative_ in their refusal to be interfered with.

"I will now describe the cases ill.u.s.trated. Fig. 71. I thought of a gun. The _stock_ came into view, the metal plate on the end very distinct towards the left (1). The wood was elaborately carved. I cannot recall the pattern. As I scrutinised it, the stock oscillated up and down, and _crumpled up_. The metallic plate sank inwards: and the stock contracted so that it looked not unlike a tuning-fork (2). I gave up the stock and proceeded cautiously to examine the lock.

I got it well into view, but no more of the gun. It turned out to be an old-fashioned flint-lock. It immediately began to nod backwards and forwards in a manner suggestive of the beak of a bird pecking.

Consequently it forthwith became converted into the head of a bird with a long curved beak, the k.n.o.b on the lock (3) becoming the head of the bird. I then looked to the right expecting to find the barrel, but the snout of a saw-fish with the tip _distinctly_ broken off appeared instead. I had not thought either of a _flint_-lock or of a saw-fish: both came spontaneously.

"Fig. 72. I have several times thought of a rosebud, as Goethe is said to have been able to see one at will, and to observe it expand.

The following are some of the results:--The bud appeared unexpectedly a moss rosebud. Its only abnormal appearance was the inordinately elongated sepals (1). I tried to _force_ it to expand.

It enlarged but only partially opened (2), when all of a sudden it burst open and the petals became reflexed (3).[10]

"Fig. 73. The spontaneous appearance of a poppy capsule (1) dehiscing as usual by 'pores,' but with inordinately long and arching valves over the pores. These valves were eminently suggestive of hooded flowers. Hence they changed to a whorl of _salvias_ (2). Each blossom now gyrated rapidly in a vertical plane.

Concentrating observation on _one_ rotating flower, it became a 'rotating haze,' as the rapid motion rendered the flower totally indistinct. The 'haze' now shaped itself into a circle of moss with a deep funnel-like cavity. This was suggestive of a bird's nest. It became lined with _hair_, but the nest was a _deep_, pointed cavity.

A nest was suggestive of eggs. Hence a series appeared (4); the two rows meeting in one at the apex appears to have arisen from the _perspective_ view of the nest. The eggs all disappeared but one (5), which increased in size; the bright point of light now shone with great intensity like a star; then it gradually grew dimmer and dimmer till it disappeared into the usual hazy obscurity into which all [my] visual objects ultimately vanish."

I have a sufficient variety of cases to prove the continuity between all the forms of visualisation, beginning with an almost total absence of it, and ending with a complete hallucination. The continuity is, however, not simply that of varying degrees of intensity, but of variations in the character of the process itself, so that it is by no means uncommon to find two very different forms of it concurrent in the same person. There are some who visualise well, and who also are seers of visions, who declare that the vision is not a vivid visualisation, but altogether a different phenomenon.

In short, if we please to call all sensations due to external impressions "_direct"_ and all others "_induced_" then there are many channels through which the "_induction_" of the latter may take place, and the channel of ordinary visualisation in the persons just mentioned is different from that through which their visions arise.

The following is a good instance of this condition. A friend writes: --

"These visions often appear with startling vividness, and so far from depending on any voluntary effort of the mind, [10] they remain when I often wish them very much to depart, and no effort of the imagination can call them up. I lately saw a framed portrait of a face which seemed more lovely than any painting I have ever seen, and again I often see fine landscapes which bear no resemblance to any scenery I have ever looked upon. I find it difficult to define the difference between a waking vision and a mental image, although the difference is very apparent to myself. I think I can do it best in this way. If you go into a theatre and look at a scene--say of a forest by moonlight--at the back part of the stage you see every object distinctly and sufficiently illuminated (being thus unlike a mere act of memory), but it is nevertheless vague and shadowy, and you might have difficulty in telling afterwards all the objects you have seen. This resembles a mental image in point of clearness. The waking vision is like what one sees in the open street in broad daylight, when every object is distinctly impressed on the memory.

The two kinds of imagery differ also as regards voluntariness, the image being entirely subservient to the will, the visions entirely independent of it. They differ also in point of suddenness, the images being formed comparatively slowly as memory recalls each detail, and fading slowly as the mental effort to retain them is relaxed, the visions appearing and vanishing in an instant. The waking visions seem quite close, filling as it were the whole head, while the mental image seems farther away in some far-off recess of the mind."

[Footnote 10: The details and ill.u.s.trations of four other experiments with the image of a rosebud have been given me. They all vary in detail.]

The number of sane persons who see visions no less distinctly than this correspondent is much greater than I had any idea of when I began this inquiry. I have received an interesting sketch of one, prefaced by a description of it by Mrs. Haweis. She says:--

"All my life long I have had one very constantly-recurring vision, a sight which came whenever it was dark or darkish, in bed or otherwise.

It is a flight of pink roses floating in a ma.s.s from left to right, and this cloud or ma.s.s of roses is presently effaced by a flight of 'sparks' or gold speckles across them. The sparks totter or vibrate from left to right, but they fly distinctly upwards; they are like tiny blocks, half gold, half black, rather symmetrically placed behind each other, and they are always in a hurry to efface the roses; sometimes they have come at my call, sometimes by surprise, but they are always equally pleasing. What interests me most is that, when a child under nine, the flight of roses was light, slow, soft, close to my eyes, roses so large and brilliant and palpable that I tried to touch them; the _scent_ was overpowering, the petals perfect, with leaves peeping here and there, texture and motion all natural. They would stay a long time before the sparks came, and they occupied a large area in black s.p.a.ce. Then the sparks came slowly flying, and generally, not always, effaced the roses at once, and every effort to retain the roses failed. Since an early age the flight of roses has annually grown smaller, swifter, and farther off, till by the time I was grown up my vision had become a speck, so instantaneous that I had hardly time to realise that it was there before the fading sparks showed that it was past. This is how they still come.

The pleasure of them is past, and it always depresses me to speak of them, though I do not now, as I did when a child, connect the vision with any elevated spiritual state. But when I read Tennyson's _Holy Grail_, I wondered whether anybody else had had my vision, 'Rose-red, with beatings in it.' I may add, I was a London child who never was in the country but once, and I connect no particular flowers with that visit. I may almost say that I had never seen a rose, certainly not a quant.i.ty of them together."

A common form of vision is a phantasmagoria, or the appearance of a crowd of phantoms, sometimes hurrying past like men in a street. It is occasionally seen in broad daylight, much more often in the dark; it may be at the instant of putting out the candle, but it generally comes on when the person is in bed, preparing to sleep, but by no means yet asleep. I know no less than three men, eminent in the scientific world, who have these phantasmagoria in one form or another. It will seem curious, but it is a fact that I know of no less than five editors of very influential newspapers who experience these night visitations in a vivid form. Two of them have described the phenomena very forcibly in print, but anonymously, and two others have written on cognate experiences.

A near relative of my own saw phantasmagoria very frequently. She was eminently sane, and of such good const.i.tution that her faculties were hardly impaired until near her death at ninety. She frequently described them to me. It gave her amus.e.m.e.nt during an idle hour to watch these faces, for their expression was always pleasing, though never strikingly beautiful. No two faces were ever alike, and no face ever resembled that of any acquaintance. When she was not well the faces usually came nearer to her, sometimes almost suffocatingly close. She never mistook them for reality, although they were very distinct. This is quite a typical case, similar in most respects to many others that I have.[1]

A notable proportion of sane persons have had not only visions, but actual hallucinations of sight, sound, or other sense, at one or more periods of their lives. I have a considerable packet of instances contributed by my personal friends, besides a large number communicated to me by other correspondents. One lady, a distinguished auth.o.r.ess, who was at the time a little fidgeted, but in no way overwrought or ill, a.s.sured me that she once saw the princ.i.p.al character of one of her novels glide through the door straight up to her. It was about the size of a large doll, and it disappeared as suddenly as it came. Another lady, the daughter of an eminent musician, often imagines she hears her father playing. The day she told me of it the incident had again occurred. She was sitting in her room with her maid, and she asked the maid to open the door that she might hear the music better. The moment the maid got up the hallucination disappeared. Again, another lady, apparently in vigorous health, and belonging to a vigorous family, told me that during some past months she had been plagued by voices.

The words were at first simple nonsense; then the word "pray" was frequently repeated; this was followed by some more or less coherent sentences of little import, and finally the voices left her. In short, the familiar hallucinations of the insane are to be met with far more frequently than is commonly supposed, among people moving in society and in good working health.

I have now nearly done with my summary of facts; it remains to make a few comments on them.

The weirdness of visions lies in their sudden appearance, in their vividness while present, and in their sudden departure. An incident in the Zoological Gardens struck me as a helpful simile. I happened to walk to the seal-pond at a moment when a sheen rested on the unbroken surface of the water. After waiting a while I became suddenly aware of the head of a seal, black, conspicuous, [12] and motionless, just as though it had always been there, at a spot on which my eye had rested a moment previously and seen nothing. Again, after a while my eye wandered, and on its returning to the spot the seal was gone. The water had closed in silence over its head without leaving a ripple, and the sheen on the surface of the pond was as unbroken as when I first reached it. Where did the seal come from, and whither did it go? This could easily have been answered if the glare had not obstructed the view of the movements of the animal under water. As it was, a solitary link in a continuous chain of actions stood isolated from all the rest. So it is with the visions; a single stage in a series of mental processes emerges into the domain of consciousness. All that precedes and follows lies outside of it, and its character can only be inferred. We see in a general way that a condition of the presentation of visions lies in the over-sensitiveness of certain tracks or domains of brain action and the under-sensitiveness of others, certain stages in a mental process being represented very vividly in consciousness while the other stages are unfelt; also that individualism is changed to dividualism.

[Footnote 12: See some curious correspondence on this subject in the _St. James' Gazette_, Feb. 10, 15, and 20, 1882.]

I do not recollect seeing it remarked that the ordinary phenomena of dreaming seem to show that partial sensitiveness is a normal condition during sleep. They do so because one of the most marked characteristics of the dreamer is the absence of common sense. He accepts wildly incongruous visions without the slightest scepticism.

Now common sense consists in the comprehension of a large number of related circ.u.mstances, and implies the simultaneous working of many parts of the brain. On the other hand, the brain is known to be imperfectly supplied with blood during sleep, and cannot therefore be at full work. It is probable enough, from hydraulic a.n.a.logies, that imperfect irrigation would lead to partial irrigation, and therefore to suppression of action in some parts of the brain, and that this is really the case seems to be proved by the absence of common sense during dreams.

A convenient distinction is made between hallucinations and illusions.

Hallucinations are defined as appearances wholly due to fancy; illusions, as fanciful perceptions of objects actually seen. There is also a hybrid case which depends on fanciful visions fancifully perceived. The problems we have to consider are, on the one hand, those connected with "_induced_" vision, and, on the other hand, those connected with the interpretation of vision, whether the vision be _direct_ or _induced_.

It is probable that much of what pa.s.ses for hallucination proper belongs in reality to the hybrid case, being an illusive interpretation of some induced visual cloud or blur. I spoke of the ever-varying patterns in the optical field; these, under some slight functional change, may become more consciously present, and be interpreted into fantasmal appearances. Many cases could be adduced to support this view.

I will begin with illusions. What is the process by which they are established? There is no simpler way of understanding it than by trying, as children often do, to see "faces in the fire," and to carefully watch the way in which they are first caught. Let us call to mind at the same time the experience of past illnesses, when the listless gaze wandered over the patterns on the wall-paper and the shadows of the bed-curtains, and slowly evoked the appearances of faces and figures that were not easily laid again. The process of making the faces is so rapid in health that it is difficult to a.n.a.lyse it without the recollection of what took place more slowly when we were weakened by illness. The first essential element in their construction is, I believe, the smallness of the area covered by the glance at any instant, so that the eye has to travel over a long track before it has visited every part of the object towards which the attention is directed generally. It is as with a plough, that must travel many miles before the whole of a small field can be tilled, but with this important difference--the plough travels methodically up and down in parallel furrows; the eye wanders in devious curves, with abrupt bends, and the direction of its course at any instant depends on four causes: (1) on the easiest sequence of muscular motion, speaking in a general sense, (2) on idiosyncrasy, (3) on the mood, and (4) on the a.s.sociations current at the moment.

The effect of idiosyncrasy ft excellently ill.u.s.trated by the "Number-Forms," where we observe that a very special sharply-defined track of mental vision is preferred by each individual who sees them.

The influence of the mood of the moment is shown in the curves that are felt appropriate to the various emotions, as the lank drooping lines of grief, which make the weeping willow so fit an emblem of it.

In constructing fire-faces it seems to me that the eye in its wanderings tends to follow a favourite course, and it especially dwells upon the marks that happen to coincide with that course. It feels its way, easily diverted by a.s.sociations based on what has just been noticed, until at last, by the unconscious practice of a system of "trial and error," it hits upon a track that will suit--one that is easily run over and that strings together accidental marks in a way that happens to form a well-connected picture. This fancy picture is then dwelt upon; all that is incongruous with it becomes disregarded, while all deficiencies in it are supplied by the fantasy. The latest stages of the process might be represented by a diorama. Three lanterns would converge on the same screen. The first throws an image of what the imagination will discard, the second of that which it will retain, the third of that which it will supply. Turn 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.

Turner the painter made frequent use of a practice a.n.a.logous to that of looking for fire-faces in the burning coals; he was known to give colours to children to daub in play on paper, while he keenly watched for suggestive but accidental combinations.

I have myself had frequent experience of the automatic construction of fantastic figures, through a practice I have somewhat encouraged for the purpose, of allowing my hand to scribble at its own will, while I am giving my best attention to what is being said by others, as at small committees. It is always a surprise to me to see the result whenever I turn my thoughts on what I have been subconsciously doing. I can rarely recollect even a few of the steps by which the drawings were made; they grew piece-meal, with some almost forgotten notice, from time to time, of the sketch as a whole. I can trace no likeness between what I draw and the images that present themselves to me in dreams, and I find that a very trifling accident, such as a chance dot on the paper, may have great influence on the general character of any one of these automatic sketches.

Visions, like dreams, are often mere patchworks built up of bits of recollections. The following is one of these:--

"When pa.s.sing a shop in Tottenham Court Road, I went in to order a Dutch cheese, and the proprietor (a bullet-headed man whom I had never seen before) rolled a cheese on the marble slab of his counter, asking me if that one would do. I answered 'Yes,' left the shop, and thought no more of the incident. The following evening, on closing my eyes, I saw a head detached from the body rolling about slightly on a white surface. I recognised the face, but could not remember where I had seen it, and it was only after thinking about it for some time that I identified it as that of the cheesemonger who had sold me the cheese on the previous day. I may mention that I have often seen the man since, and that I found the vision I saw was exactly like him, although if I had been asked to describe the man before I saw the vision I should have been unable to do so."

Recollections need not be combined like mosaic work; they may be blended, on the principle of composite portraiture. I suspect that the phantasmagoria may be in some part 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 found that the peculiarities of visualisation, such as the tendency to see Number-Forms, and the still rarer tendency to a.s.sociate 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Gipsies.

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 for a brief time subject to them. One was of a pleasure party driven out to sea, and not being able to reach the coast till nightfall, at a place where they got shelter but nothing to eat.

They were mentally at ease and conscious of safety, but all were troubled with visions that were half dreams and half hallucinations.

The cases of visions following protracted wakefulness are well known, and I have collected a few of them myself. I have already spoken of the maddening effect of solitariness: its influence may be inferred from the recognised advantages of social amus.e.m.e.nts 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 de Boismont (_Hallucinations_, etc., 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. He 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 Rapp by the arm, said to him, pointing to the sky, 'Look there, up there.'

The General remained silent, but on being asked a second time, he answered that he perceived nothing. 'What!' replied the Emperor, 'you do not see it? It is my star, it is before you, brilliant;'

then animating by degrees, he cried out, 'it has never abandoned me, I see it on all great occasions, it commands me to go forward, and it is a constant sign of good fortune to me.'"

Napoleon was no doubt a consummate actor, ready and unscrupulous in imposing on others, but I see no reason to distrust the genuineness of this particular outburst, seeing that it is not the only instance of his referring to the guidance of his star, as a literal vision and not as a mere phrase, and that his belief in destiny was notorious.

It appears that stars of this kind, so frequently spoken of in history, and so well known as a metaphor in language, are a common hallucination of the insane. Brierre de Boismont has a chapter on the stars of great men. I cannot doubt that visions of this description were in some cases the basis of that firm belief in astrology, which not a few persons of eminence formerly entertained.

The hallucinations of great men may be accounted for in part by their sharing a tendency which we have seen to be not uncommon in the human race, and which, if it happens to be natural to them, is liable to be developed in their overwrought brains by the isolation of their lives. A man in the position of the first Napoleon could have no intimate a.s.sociates; a great philosopher who explores ways of thought far ahead of his contemporaries must have an inner world in which he pa.s.ses long and solitary hours. Great men may be even indebted to touches of madness for their greatness; the ideas by which they are haunted, and to whose pursuit they devote themselves, and by which they rise to eminence, having much in common with the monomania of insanity. Striking instances of great visionaries may be mentioned, who had almost beyond doubt those very nervous seizures with which the tendency to hallucinations is intimately connected.