404 ON SENSORIAL VISION. 



for the most part unpleasing, though not hideous ; ex- 

 pressive of no violent emotions, and succeeding one 

 another at short intervals of time, as if melting into each 

 other. Sometimes ten or a dozen appear in succession, 

 and have always, on each separate occasion, something of 

 a general resemblance of expression or some peculiarity 

 of feature common to all, though very various in individual 

 aspect and physiognomy. Landscapes present themselves 

 much more rarely but more distinctly, and on the few 

 occasions I remember, have been highly picturesque and 

 pleasing, with a certain but very limited power of vary- 

 ing them by an effort of the will, which is not the case 

 with the other sort of impressions. Of course I now 

 speak of waking impressions, in health, and under no 

 kind of excitement. "When the two latter conditions are 

 absent, numerous instances are on record of both volun- 

 tary and involuntary impressions of this kind, and singular 

 as some of the facts related may appear, I am quite pre- 

 pared, from my own experience on two several occasions, 

 to receive such accounts with much indulgence. 



(6.) A great many years ago, when recovering from 

 fever, my chief amusement for two or three days 

 consisted in the exercise of a power of calling up 

 representations both of scenes and persons, which 

 appeared with almost the distinctness of reality. One 

 of these scenes I perfectly recollect. A crowd was 

 assembled round a hole in the ice, into which a youth 

 had fallen. His mother was standing in agony on the 

 brink, and there were the floating fragments and some- 

 thing of a shadowy form under the blue transparent ice. 



