Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore
his own setting and imagery to a “transferred impression.” Examples where the elements thus introduced are few and simple
§ 8. Examples of dreams which may be described as clairvoyant, but which still must be held to imply some sort of telepathic “agency”; since the percipient does not see any scene, but the particular scene with some actor in which he is connected
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§ 2. It is not surprising that the same seasons should be favourable also to the hallucinations which, as connected with conditions external to the percipient, we should describe, not as subjective, but as telepathic
As evidence for telepathy, impressions of this “borderland” type stand on an altogether different footing from dreams; since their incalculably smaller number supplies an incalculably smaller field for the operation of chance
Very great injustice is done to the telepathic argument by confounding such impressions with dreams.; as where Lord Brougham explains away the coincidence of a unique “borderland” experience of his own with the death of the friend whose form he saw, on the ground that the “vast numbers of dreams” give any amount of scope for such “seeming miracles”
§ 3. Examples where the impression was not of a sensory sort
§ 4. Example of an apparently telepathic illusion hypnagogique
§ 5. Auditory examples. Cases where the sound heard was not articulate
Cases where distinct words were heard
§ 6. Visual examples: of which two (Nos. 159 and 160) illustrate the feature of repetition; another (No. 168) that of the appearance of more than one figure; and two others (Nos. 170 and 171) that of misrecognition on the percipient’s part
§ 7. Cases where the sense of touch was combined with that of sight or hearing. One case (No. 178) presents the important feature of marked luminosity
§ 8. Cases affecting the two senses of sight and hearing. One case (No. 189) presents the feature of non-recognition on the percipient’s part
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HALLUCINATIONS: GENERAL SKETCH.
Hallucinations of the senses are distinguished from other hallucinations by the fact that they do not necessarily imply false belief
They may be defined as percepts which, lack, but which can only by distinct reflection be recognised as lacking, the objective basis which they suggest; a definition which marks them off on the one hand from true perceptions, and on the other hand from remembered images or mental pictures
§ 2. The old method of defining the ideational and the sensory elements in the phenomena was very unsatisfactory. It is easy to show that the delusive appearances are not merely imagined, but are actually seen and heard—the hallucination differing from an ordinary percept only in lacking an objective basis; and this is what is implied in the word psycho-sensorial, when rightly understood
§ 3. The question as to the physiological starting-point of hallucinations—whether they are of central or of peripheral origin—has been warmly debated, often in a very one-sided manner. The construction of them, which is central and the work of the brain, is quite distinct from the excitation or initiation of them, which (though often central also) is often peripheral—i.e., due to some other part of the body that sets the brain to work
§ 4. This excitation may even be due to some objective external cause, some visible point or mark, at or near the place where the imaginary object is seen; and in such cases the imaginary object, which is, so to speak, attached to its point, may follow the course of any optical illusion (e.g., doubling by a prism, reflection by a mirror) to which that point is subjected. But such dependence on an external stimulus does not affect the fact that the actual sensory element of the hallucination, in these as in all other cases, is imposed from within by the brain
§ 5. There, are, however, a large number of hallucinations which are centrally initiated, as well as centrally constructed—the excitation being due neither to an external point, nor to any morbid disturbance in the sense-organs themselves. Such, probably, are many visual cases where the imaginary object is seen in free space, or appears to move independently of the eye, or is seen in darkness. Such, certainly, are many auditory hallucinations; some hallucinations of pain; many hallucinations which conform to the course of some more general delusion; and hallucinations voluntarily originated
§ 6. Such also are hallucinations of a particular internal kind common among mystics, in which the sensory element seems reduced to its lowest terms; and which shade by degrees, on the one side into more externalised forms, and on the other side into a mere feeling of presence, independent of any sensory affection
§ 7. A further argument for the central initiation may be drawn from the fact that repose of the sense-organs seems a condition favourable to hallucinations; and the psychological identity of waking hallucinations and dreams cannot be too strongly insisted on
§ 8. As regards the construction of hallucinations—the cerebral process involved in their having this or that particular form—the question is whether it takes place in the specific sensory centre concerned, or in some higher cortical tract
§ 9. There are reasons for considering that both places of construction are available that the simpler sorts of hallucination, many of which are clearly “after-images,” and which are often also recurrent, may take shape at the sensory centres themselves; but that the more elaborate arid variable sorts must be traced to the higher origin; and that when the higher tracts are first concerned, the production of the hallucination is due to a downward escape of the nervous impulse to the sensory centre concerned
§ 10. The construction of hallucinations in the cortical tracts of the brain, proper to the higher co-ordinations and the more general ideational activities, is perfectly compatible with the view that the specific sensory centres are themselves situated not below, but in, the cortex.
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