8 14 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deavored to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, how- 

 ever, at its utmost height when the funeral hymns began to be 

 sung, and when the lid of the coffin began to be nailed on. The 

 thought that she was to be buried alive was the first one that 

 gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate upon her cor- 

 poreal frame." 



This account, being anonymous, is not as well authenticated 

 as one could wish, but to me it seems credible because I have not 

 only known several persons who have had analogous experiences, 

 but I have had one or two myself. My experiences belonged 

 however to the third type, in which both movement and sensation 

 are dissociated from thought. The first was in March of 1892. 

 I was staying at a pension in Florence. I had arrived the pre- 

 ceding evening and was in excellent health. I came to con- 

 sciousness after a dreamless sleep, to find myself paralyzed, I 

 think anaesthetic also, but am not sure of that, and I felt as if I 

 were struggling with an alien and hostile personality for the pos- 

 session of my own body. With a violent effort I regained control 

 of myself, turned over with the thought, "What a horrible 

 dream!" and tried to go to sleep. The same thing recurred. 

 Again I shook it off. This happened three or four times, and the 

 last time it was only with the greatest difficulty and after the 

 most desperate struggles that I expelled, as it seemed to me, my 

 enemy, got out of bed, and opened the shutters. I was somewhat 

 frightened, but knew enough of such phenomena to interpret it 

 much as I have here done. Four or five times in the next four 

 months I had similar experiences. The last was in July. I was 

 at a hotel in Liverpool, and awoke to find myself absolutely para- 

 lyzed and absolutely anaesthetic, but with no consciousness of the 

 alien personality. I was vividly conscious; a little alarmed, I 

 remembered the previous occurrences of the same state, remem- 

 bered writing to a friend about it, speculated about its cause, 

 tried frequently in vain to break it. Finally, as I thought, I suc- 

 ceeded. With a great effort I sat upright in bed, still in total 

 darkness, and at that moment the spell was broken. I was lying 

 flat on my back. It was a bright summer morning and the sun- 

 light was streaming in through the windows. Two of my friends 

 one an artist and the other a professor of law in a well-known 

 university have told me of the same experience, and both had 

 noted that the execution of the least movement, as of the little 

 finger, would break the spell. 



We must conceive of such states as due to an imperfect 

 awakening. The normal co-ordination of waking life is not yet 

 fully restored. Very often in cases of this sort the patient's con- 

 sciousness seems to be separated from his body, sometimes ap- 

 pears to visit distant parts of the earth and at others to go into 



