One afternoon at tea time, before a meeting of the Royal Society, Sir Risdon Bennett (1809-1891, a well-known physician. President of the College of Physicians in 1876, and a fellow of the Royal Society), drew me apart and told me of a strange experience he had had very recently. He was writing in his study separated by a thin wall from the passage, when he heard the well-known postman's knock, followed by the entrance into his study of a man dressed in a fantastic medieval costume, perfectly distinct in every particular, buttons and all, who, after a brief time, faded and disappeared. Sir Risdon says that he felt in perfect health; his pulse and breathing were normal and so forth, and he was naturally alarmed at the prospect of some impending brain disorder. Nothing, however, of the sort had followed. The same appearance recurred; he thought the postman's knock somehow originated the hallucination. ... I heard the story at length, very shortly after the event, told me with painstaking and scientific exactness and in tones that clearly indicated the narrator's earnest desire to be minutely correct.
Those who are especially interested in this subject will find any number of similar stories, some apparently rich with meaning, most of them quite [{607}] meaningless, in the volumes of transactions of the English Psychic Research Society, in F. W. H. Myers' "Human Personality," in Podmore's "Naturalizing the Supernatural," in Flammarion's "The Unknown," or many other books published in recent years. It is quite easy to get sufficient material to bring reassurance to any patient that visual hallucinations, at least, mean nothing serious for the mind or body of the individual having the experience.
Hallucinations in the Past.—It must not be thought, however, that this subject of hallucinations is new. Literature is full of it and from the earliest times we find traces of it. Egyptian, Babylonian and Chaldean writers mention them. Nor indeed is the scientific consideration of the subject new. Aristotle speaks of them and it is evident that many of the old writers thought of them as psychic incidents on some physical basis, or at least due to some predisposition in the individual or in some special state of his senses. Two generations ago Johann Müller, the great German physiologist, discussed the whole subject at length in a monograph, and considered it of so much importance for physicians that he introduced a résumé of it into his great text-book of physiology. His explanation of the occurrence of visual hallucinations is not only a striking illustration of the thoroughly scientific character of his treatment of the subject, but it serves to show how well men considered these subjects long before the present fad for the study of abnormal psychology or mental influence came in. His discussion of the subject is sufficient of itself to make any patient understand his hallucinations and keep them from bothering him better than anything else I know:
The subjective images of which we are speaking have sometimes, however, both color and light; different particles of the retina, of the optic nerve, and of its prolongations to the brain, being conceived as existing in special states of action. This happens rarely in the state of health, but frequently in disease. These are the true phantasms which may occur to the sense of hearing and other senses as well as to that of vision. The process by which "phantasms" are produced, is the reverse of that to which the vision of actual external objects is due. In the latter case particles of the retina thrown into an active state by external impressions, are conceived in that condition by the sensorium; in the former case, the idea of the sensorium excites the active state of corresponding particles of the retina or optic nerve. The action of the material organ of vision, which has extension in space, upon the mind, so as to produce the idea of an object having extension, form and relation of parts, and the action of such an idea upon the organ of vision so as to produce a corresponding sensation, are both equally wonderful; and hence the spectral phenomena or visions are not more extraordinary than the ordinary function of sight. (Vol. II, p. 1393, Eng. transl., 1842.)
Apparitions and their Explanation.—In spite of suggested explanations on physical grounds, some of these apparitions that appear to people seriously disturb them. They cannot get them out of their minds. They are sure that they portend evil. Hence worries, and the more nervous the people are and the more worried already, the more likely is such a thing to recur and then to be made much of. Only through their minds can these people be treated, and it must be made clear to them not only how common are hallucinations, but that there is an easy psychic explanation of most of them. Sir Arthur Mitchell, K. C. B., in his book "About Dreaming, Laughing and Blushing," [Footnote 47] tells a story and then gives his explanation of it in such a way as to illuminate many of these occurrences:
[Footnote 47: Longmans, London, 1900, page 21.]
Perhaps I should illustrate how I think that apparitions may be nothing more than dream hallucinations. A. B., a gentleman of culture and strong character, called one hot day, after a hearty lunch, on an ecclesiastic in a high position, who happened to be engaged in his library at the time of the call. A. B. was shown into a room opening off the library, and requested to wait. He sat down beside a table, and with his elbow resting on it, he leant his head on his hand. While in this position he saw a man in clerical costume come through the door communicating with the library, without any opening of the door. A. B. was absolutely certain that he had seen an apparition, and was surprised and hurt when I expressed a doubt. He called on me to explain, and I said that it was at least possible that he had been asleep for some moments, that if he had slept at all, however short the dream of the sleep, he must have had a dream, if I am right in thinking that there is no dreamless sleep, and that thus what he regarded as an apparition might be nothing more than a dream hallucination. He assured me persistently that he was continuously wide-awake, but I assured him that these moments of sleep often occurred without any consciousness that they had occurred. He refused to be deprived of his ghost, and I refused to believe in the supernormal when the normal was sufficient.
Such wraith-like appearances are supposed to occur especially in connection with the deaths of persons at a distance. Startling stories are told, particularly of those who are very near relatives, husbands and wives, mothers and sons, and, above all, twins, who have been very closely associated with one another during life. There are a large number of stories of this kind, however, that have been collected by the Psychic Research Society and other agents with strong evidence in their favor, in which the appearances have had no ulterior significance at all and have evidently been mere figments of the imagination, the externation of images from memory so vividly that they seem to be the reseen. Reassurances in this matter are the best possible source of relief from the sense of impending ill for many patients. The physician who wishes to relieve such symptoms must familiarize himself with some of the many stories that have been investigated and that serve to prove that these and like appearances must not be taken as significant of anything more than a definite tendency, that exists in human nature at moments of day dreaming or when one's attention is suddenly turned from a book in which one has been absorbed, to see externally what is really passing through the imaginative memory.
A Disappearance.—A very interesting commentary on some of these appearances is to be found in Mark Twain's story of a disappearance, which could probably be duplicated many times if experiences in this line were collected and collated. Mr. Clemens, sitting on the porch of his residence one day, saw a stranger of rather peculiar appearance come up the walk toward the front door and he expected to hear him ring the bell and have the servant come to the door and usher him in, and then perhaps be called to see him. About the middle of the walk, however, the stranger disappeared and Mr. Clemens was quite surprised to come to himself, rub his eyes and conclude that he had had one of these curious visions or hallucinations, in which the Psychic Research Society would surely be interested. He had plainly seen the stranger enter the gate, come up the walk, and then disappear. He was so impressed by the disappearance that he roused himself to go into the house to get his notebook, so as to make notes of what had happened before the details escaped him. To his surprise he found the stranger in conversation [{609}] with the servant in the house. There had simply been a lapse in Mr. Clemen's vision of him. He had had a disappearance phenomenon instead of an appearance. The story will be found to amuse patients who complain of appearances disturbing them, though Mr. Clemens always told his disappearance story very seriously, and it is as interesting a psychic phenomenon as any told of the wraith-like appearances.