I should hesitate to admit the spontaneous or voluntary revival of almost all odours, if this fact had not been affirmed to me, in perfect good faith, by educated and competent witnesses. I give some extracts from these declarations: “I can perceive nearly all characteristic odours, and can call them up at will; at this moment I am thinking of the country of the Rhine, and am fully conscious of its odour.” “I can recall the greater number of odours (but not all) either spontaneously or voluntarily. (In the latter case time is required.)—Can you perceive, here and now, the scent of roses, and, if so, of what kind?—I perceive it in genere; but, on further persevering, I find it to be the scent of withered roses. The visual representation occurs afterwards.” The only person who has told me that he finds all odours perceptible at will always finds a preliminary visual representation necessary.[[99]]
As to the recollections of tastes, by themselves, the answers are very vague. One remembers “easily, and at will, the taste of salt, with a very clear visual impression,” but less easily the other three fundamental tastes. Another, who uses for his throat three different kinds of lozenges, “feels the taste of them beforehand, as soon as he needs them, on either seeing or touching them.” In general, the revivability of tastes appears to me especially connected with that of ordinary food, and with the state of the alimentary canal (hunger).
2. Internal sensations.—My inquiry does not include the whole of these, but only the commonest and most easily observed.[[100]]
As regards hunger, I have received 51 definite answers, 24 persons saying they can distinctly recall it, 27 that they cannot. (The question has always been put at an hour when the real sensation did not exist, and some have told me that in their normal condition they never feel either hunger or thirst.) It is usually described as a tactile sensation in the œsophagus, or a twitching pain in the stomach, etc. One person only affirms that he can, “at will, feel hunger and thirst, even after having eaten and drunk.”
Thirst is imagined much more frequently than hunger, and, as it seems, more clearly (36 affirmative to 15 negative answers). It is described as dryness in the throat, heat, etc.
As regards the representation of fatigue, the answers have without exception been affirmative. The modes of representation are various. Some feel it (ideally) in the muscles; others under a cerebral form. Here are some examples: “muscular twitchings in the calves of the legs, the back, and the shoulders; the eyes feeling swollen, but no heaviness in the head;” “a feeling of relaxation, of a weight, localised in the shoulders, because, in a normal state, I find stooping very difficult;” “slowness of movement, with a feeling of weight in the head;” “general[“general] lassitude, of a diffused kind, especially a feeling of weight in the head, and mental weariness;” “pains in the joints, and a heavy feeling in the brain.” Although all my correspondents can revive the feeling of fatigue, three or four can only succeed in doing so “with difficulty and to a slight extent.”
We find the same results with regard to the representation of disgust. I find only three negative answers, all accompanied by the remark, “I have a good digestion.” One of these cases is the more singular because the subject has suffered from sea-sickness. In its acute form the representation is described as “like the beginning of nausea.” For others, it is “a pain in the stomach, with a retractile movement, connected with the idea of cod-liver oil, or of tainted meat.” Among those who have experienced the sensation of sea-sickness, I have not met with one who cannot easily revive it (giddiness, feelings of a rocking motion, which disinclines them to persist in reviving the impression). M. X—— (a very competent observer in psychological questions) says: “I have a pretty good visual memory, but no auditive, either musical or linguistic; I cannot spell a foreign language. Except for muscular memory, which in me is nil (so that I have never succeeded in acquiring any physical exercise, or playing on any instrument), I can revive all internal sensations: hunger, thirst, disgust, fatigue, giddiness, difficulty in breathing; I prefer not to insist upon this last state, as were I to think of it any longer I should actually bring it on.”[[101]]
3. Pains and Pleasures.—To the question, “Can you revive in yourself the memory of a given physical pain, a sorrow, a pleasure, or a pity?” the answer is nearly always in the affirmative. But, put in this bald way, it teaches us nothing. We require more detailed information. We here return to the main point of our subject, and I am obliged slightly to anticipate my conclusions. The observations, carefully taken, show that there are two distinct forms of emotional memory, one abstract, the other concrete. Later on, I shall insist on their differences; for the moment, I shall confine myself to the enumeration of facts.
Painful States.—Toothache, being very common, has supplied me with many answers. I note in nearly all of these the predominance of the motor elements: shooting and throbbing pains, contortions of the jaw, etc. When the extraction of a tooth is recalled there is a jarring of the whole head, a feeling of twisting, snapping, noises, etc. In many cases the painful element seems to be scarcely revived, or not at all; in many others it reappears with the utmost clearness.
Case 3. “I send you a personal observation made during the last few days. I had suffered from toothache, which was very acute, and certainly intenser than the unpleasant feeling experienced when the dentist operates on your teeth with his revolving machine. Yet when I think of it now, and try to recall, on the one hand the pain, on the other the rubbing of the teeth by the machine, it is the latter which seems to me, in my recollection, the most disagreeable. I explain this by the fact that this rubbing is accompanied by a noise which I can recall most vividly, and this auditive representation is by itself sufficient to evoke a disagreeable feeling. The pain in the teeth is also connected with different accessories: inclination of the head, closing of the eye on the side affected, movement of the hand to the corresponding cheek, etc., but these accessories have no great influence on me; they are not so characteristic of toothache as the peculiar noise of the machine. This last representation is very vivid; when I think of it I feel a chill run down my back and a slight trembling in the arms. The representation of the actual pain is, in my case, much more vague; it is diffused, I have to eke it out with verbal descriptions, and it does not act on me so disagreeably as the first.”