The officer's face was distorted with alarm, and he wept.
"What is the matter?" I said to him.
"That was dreadful," he answered.
"What?"
When I have related this story to others, they have objected that it was a fainting fit or an attack of giddiness, words which say little and explain nothing. First and foremost, fainting fits and giddiness are accompanied by loss of consciousness. Nor was it a case of amyosthenia (depression of muscular action), as I remained sitting on my chair, and spoke consciously about my partial unconsciousness.
At that time I was unaware of the phenomenon itself, and did not know the expression "exteriorisation of sensibility." Now that I know it, I am sure that the soul possesses the power of expansion which it exercises in a very high degree during ordinary sleep, and at death to such an extent that it leaves the body, and is by no means extinguished.
Some days ago, as I was going along the pavement, I saw an inn-keeper before his door, loudly abusing a knife-grinder who was standing in the street. I did not want to cut off the connection between the two, but it could not be avoided, and I felt a keen feeling of discomfort as I passed between the two quarrelling men. It was as though I divided a cord which was stretched between them, or rather as though I crossed a street which was being sprinkled on both sides with water.
The connection between friends, relatives, and especially between husband and wife, is a real bond and has a palpable actuality. We begin to love a woman, and deposit our soul piece-meal, so to speak, with her. We double our personality, and the loved one, who was formerly indifferent and neutral, begins to clothe herself in our other "I," and becomes our counterpart. When she takes it into her head to depart with our soul, the pain which it causes us is perhaps the most violent that there is, only to be compared to that of a mother who has lost her child. There is a painful sense of emptiness and woe to the man who has not strength enough to begin to divide himself again and to find another vessel to fill. Love is an act through which the masculine blossom attains to fruit, because it is the man who loves, and it is a sweet illusion to suppose that he is loved by his wife, his other self, a creation of his own.
Between a married pair the invisible bond often develops itself in a mediumistic fashion. They can call each other from a distance, read each other's thoughts, and practise mutual "suggestion" when they like. They no longer feel the need of speech; the mere presence of the beloved gives joy, her soul radiates warmth. When they are divided the bond between them expands; the sense of longing and pining increases with distance, sometimes to such a degree as to involve the breaking of the bond, and thereby death.
For many years I have taken notes of all y dreams, and have arrived at the conviction lat mail leads a double life, that imaginations, fancies, and dreams possess a kind of reality.