THE VISIONS OF SANE PERSONS. 525 



All mj life long I Lave bad 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 upward : 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 ray call, sometimes by surprise, but they are always equally pleas- 

 ing. 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 toach 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 

 tbe roses at once, and every effort to retain tbe 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 realize 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, perhaps 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 

 is 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. A near relative of my own had them in a marked degree. 

 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 so. No two faces were ever alike, 

 and they never resembled that of any acquaintance. When she was 

 not well the faces usually came nearer to her, sometimes almost suffo- 

 catingly 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. 



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 con- 

 tributed by my personal friends, besides a large number communicated 



