DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 281 



permitted not from vanity, but from a desire that 

 my o\vn imperfections may serve the cause of science 

 however slightly to relate some facts, personal to 

 myself, which bear upon the question, facts of very 

 general experience. From my childhood I have had, 

 both by day and night, various subjective sensations 

 of light which I was, as a person of perfectly sane 

 mind, able to observe dispassionately. After read- 

 ing for a long while, or when fatigued by sleepless- 

 ness, mental excitement, or some temporary gastric 

 derangement, I see clear flames circling before 

 my eyes. These are in a small, oblong form, 

 arranged at brief intervals in concentric curves, and 

 composing a moving garland projected upon space, 

 tinged with a yellowish light, shading into vivid blue. 

 Sometimes this figure is changed for stars, twinkling 

 in a vast and remote space, as in a firmament. In 

 addition to this phenomenon, I have about twenty 

 times in the course of my life experienced other 

 subjective and more extraordinary sensations of light, 

 not unknown to others. This phenomenon occurs 

 when I am in a normal condition of health, and 

 always begins with a confusion of sight, so that I am 

 unable to see objects and the faces of people dis- 

 tinctly; after which everything within the range of 

 vision becomes mobile and tremulous. This state 

 continues for ten minutes, and then clear and distinct 

 vision returns. Next a lucid circle, zig-zagged in 

 acute angles, appears close to the eyes, now on the 



