are the "Number-Forms" to which I have just drawn attention. They
are in each case absolutely unchangable, except through a gradual
development in complexity. Their diversity is endless, and the
Number-Forms of different persons are mutually unintelligible. These
strange "visions," for such they must be called, are extremely vivid
in some cases, but are almost incredible to the vast majority of
mankind, who would set them down as fantastic nonsense; nevertheless,
they are familiar parts of the mental furniture of the rest, in
whose imaginations they have been unconsciously formed, and where
they remain unmodified and unmodifiable by teaching. I have received
many touching accounts of their childish experiences from persons
who see the Number-Forms, and other curious visions of which I have
spoken or shall speak. As is the case with the colour-blind, so with
these seers. They imagined at first that everybody else had the same
way of regarding things as themselves. Then they betrayed their
peculiarities by some chance remark that called forth a stare of
surprise, followed by ridicule and a sharp scolding for their
silliness, so that the poor little things shrank back into themselves,
and never ventured again to allude to their inner world. I will
quote just one of many similar letters as a sample. I received it,
together with much interesting information, immediately after a
lecture I gave to the British Association at Swansea, in which I had
occasion to speak of the Number-Forms. The writer says:--
"I had no idea for many years that every one did not imagine numbers
in the same positions as those in which they appear to me. One
unfortunate day I spoke of it, and was sharply rebuked for my
absurdity. Being a very sensitive child I felt this acutely, but
nothing ever shook my belief that, absurd or not, I always saw
numbers in this particular way. I began to be ashamed of what I
considered a peculiarity, and to imagine myself, from this and
various other mental beliefs and states, as somewhat isolated and
peculiar. At your lecture the other night, though I am now over
twenty-nine, the memory of my childish misery at the dread of being
peculiar came over me so strongly that I felt I must thank you for
proving that, in this particular at any rate, my case is most common."
The next sort of vision that flashes unaccountably into existence is
the instant association in some persons of colour with sound, which
was spoken of in the last chapter, and on which I need not say more
now.
A third curious and abiding fantasy of certain persons is invariably
to connect visualised pictures with words, the same picture to the
same word. These are perceived by many in a vague, fleeting, and
variable way, but to a few they appear strangely vivid and permanent.
I have collected many cases of this peculiarity, and am much
indebted to the authoress, Mrs. Haweis, who sees these pictures, for
her kindness in sketching some of them for me, and for permitting me
to use her name in guarantee of their genuineness. She says:--
"Printed words have always had faces to me; they had definite
expressions, and certain faces made me think of certain words. The
words had _no_ connection with these except sometimes by accident.
The instances I give are few and ridiculous. When I think of the
word Beast, it has a face something like a gargoyle. The word Green
has also a gargoyle face, with the addition of big teeth. The word
Blue blinks and looks silly, and turns to the right. The word
Attention has the eyes greatly turned to the left. It is difficult
to draw them properly because, like Alice's 'Cheshire cat,' which at
times became a grin without a cat, these faces have expression
without features. The expression of course" [note the _naïve_ phrase
"of course."--F.G.] "depends greatly on those of the letters, which
have likewise their faces and figures. All the little a's turn their
eyes to the left, this determines the eyes of Attention. Ant, however,
looks a little down. Of course these faces are endless as words are,
and it makes my head ache to retain them long enough to draw."
Some of the figures are very quaint. Thus the interrogation
"what?" always excites the idea of a fat man cracking a long whip.
They are not the capricious creations of the fancy of the moment,
but are the regular concomitants of the words, and have been so as
far back as the memory is able to recall.
When in perfect darkness, if the field of view be carefully watched,
many persons will find a perpetual series of changes to be going on
automatically and wastefully in it. I have much evidence of this. I
will give my own experience the first, which is striking to me,
because I am very unimpressionable in these matters. I visualise
with effort; I am peculiarly inapt to see "after-images," "phosphenes,"
"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 passage, 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 illustrations 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 pronounced 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 space. 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 knob (5), while the stalk
changed into a stick. A slight bend in it seems to have suggested a
centre-bit (6); this passed into a sort of pin passing 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 glass (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 passing, 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 illustrated. 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 knob 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 illustrations 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 mass from left to right,
and this cloud or mass 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 space. 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 quantity 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 constitution that her faculties
were hardly impaired until near her death at ninety. She frequently
described them to me. It gave her amusement 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 authoress, who was at the time a little fidgeted, but
in no way overwrought or ill, assured me that she once saw the
principal 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 circumstances, 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 analogies,
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.