484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But there are other phenomena that are still more characteristic of 

 hasheesh, especially its effects on our notions of time and space. Under 

 its influence, time seems to be of interminable length. Between two 

 clearly-conceived ideas the patient descries a host of others that are 

 indeterminate and incomplete, and of which he is only dimly conscious ; 

 but he is filled with admiration at their number and vastness. Now we 

 measure time by the memory of the ideas that have passed through the 

 mind, and hence an instant appears immensely long to one under the 

 hasheesh influence. Suppose, as is common enough in the use of this 

 drug, that in the space of one second fifty different thoughts enter the 

 brain ; now, since in the normal state it requires several minutes to 

 conceive fifty different thoughts, the inference will be that many min- 

 utes have gone by. Seconds become years, and minutes become ages. 



This illusion has no parallel ; yet in dreaming, or rather in that inter- 

 mediate state which is neither sleeping nor waking, we experience some- 

 thing similar. I recollect having been at work one da\' with a friend, 

 and, as I felt drowsy, asking him to let me sleep for a few minutes. On 

 awaking, I was assured by him that I had slept hardly a second ; and 

 yet in that brief time I had had a very complicated dream, and, in con- 

 sequence of the multiplicity of my thoughts, the time had appeared to 

 be of considerable length. So, if a person be awakened by some sud- 

 den, loud noise, he will oftentimes, in the fraction of a second, pass in 

 imagination through scenes and adventures of a very complicated na- 

 ture. A like illusion may be procured at will by shutting the eyes 

 while one is riding in a carriage : under such circumstances the journey 

 will appear to have no end ; on opening the eyes from time to time, and 

 observing the landmarks, the progress will seem to be extremely slow. 



But in dreaming and in sleep this illusion as to the lapse of time is 

 vague and ill-defined. Under the influence of hasheesh, on the contrary, 

 it becomes singularly definite. Nor is the illusion of the sight less as- 

 tonishing, which causes inconsiderable distances to appear enormously 

 great. I do not know whether this illusion has been observed under 

 any other conditions than those of hasheesh -poisoning, nor can I offer 

 any rational explanation of it. It is difficult even to describe it. It 

 causes a bridge, an avenue, to stretch out to unheard-of lengths. On 

 going up a ladder, the rounds appear to reach up to the sky. A river 

 whose opposite bank is in sight becomes an arm of the sea. And, be- 

 sides these two illusions of space and time, which by-the-way often per- 

 sist twenty-four hours or more, there are other illusions of the strangest 

 kind imaginable. Hallucinations, on the contrary, are infrequent, though 

 one remarkable instance has been observed by Dr. Moreau, of Tours. 



It is oftentimes very hard to draw the distinction between illusion 

 and hallucination, but nevertheless there is a difference between these 

 two manifestations of morbid psychic activity. When an insane patient 

 sees at his elbow a walking, talking spectre, he has an hallucination. 

 But if in a dark forest, at night, one takes some deformed trunk for a 



