332 LOSS OF PERCEPTION OF TIME. 



of course, an impossibility, is very instructive. But the difficulty in the 

 way of his hypothesis lies in the fact that it offers us no explanation of 

 those cases in which we are perfectly persuaded that we have witnessed 

 the thing more than once before, though it may answer in the particular 

 Loss of a true i ns * ance here cited. Perhaps we may appropriately recall the 

 perception of well-known fact offered to us in dreaming, and to which at- 

 tention hereafter will be more particularly directed, that there 

 are circumstances under which our mental operations are carried forward 

 with the most marvelous speed. Thus a sudden sound, which awakes 

 us, or even a flash of lightning, which is over in a moment, may be in- 

 corporated or expanded into a long dream, diversified with a various 

 multitude of incidents, all appearing to follow one another in an appro- 

 priate order, and occupying, as we judge, quite a long time, yet all nec- 

 essarily arising in an instantaneous manner, for we awake at the moment 

 of the disturbance. Of the same kind is that remarkable deception, 

 which is authentically related by those who have recovered from death 

 by drowning, that in the last moment of their agony all the various 

 events of their past life, even those of a trivial kind, have come rushing 

 before them with miraculous clearness. Mental operations, therefore, 

 both as regards old recollections and new suggestions, may take effect 

 with wonderful rapidity, and if the sentiment of pre-existence is to be 

 explained on the principle of the double action of the brain, it must like- 

 wise be dependent upon the fact here presented. 



