DUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 281 



tion itself of these causes of change lies the explanation of 

 the characteristic peculiarity of cases of dual consciousness, 

 the circumstances, namely, that either the two states of con- 

 sciousness are absolutely distinct one from the other, or that 

 in one state only are events remembered which happened in 

 the other, no recollection whatever remaining in this latter 

 state of what happened in the other, or, lastly, that only faint 

 impressions excited by some intense emotion experienced in 

 one state remain in the other state. 



It seems possible, also, that some cases of another kind 

 may find their explanation in this direction, as, for instance, 

 cases in which, through some strange sympathy, the brain of 

 one person so responds to the thoughts of another that for 

 the time being the personality of the person thus influenced 

 may be regarded as in effect changed into that of the 

 person producing the influence. Thus, in one singular case 

 cited by Dr. Carpenter, a lady was ' metamorphosed into 

 the worthy clergyman on whose ministry she attended, 

 and with whom she was personally intimate. I shall never 

 forget,' he says, ' the intensity of the lackadaisical tone in 

 which she replied to the matrimonial counsels of the phy- 

 sician to whom he (she) had been led to give a long detail 

 of his (her) hypochondriacal symptoms : " A wife for a dying 

 man, doctor." No intentional simulation could have ap- 

 proached the exactness of the imitation alike in tone, 

 manners, .and language, which spontaneously proceeded 

 from the idea with which the fair subject was possessed, 

 that she herself experienced all the discomforts whose 

 detail she had doubtless frequently heard from the real 

 sufferer.' The same lady, at Dr. Carpenter's request, 

 mentally 'ascended in a balloon and proceded to the North 

 Pole in search of Sir John Franklin, whom she found alive , 

 and her description of his appearance and that of his com- 

 panions was given with an inimitable expression of sorrow 

 and pity.' 



It appears to us that very great interest attaches to the 

 researches made by Prof. Barrett into cases of this kind, and 



