Phenomena of Memory. 1 7 7 



glanced across my mind in retrograde succession, not in 

 mere outline, as here stated, but with the picture filled 

 up with every collateral detail. In short, my whole life 

 seemed placed before me in a sort of panoramic review, 

 and each act of it was accompanied by a consciousness 

 of right and wrong, or by a reflection on its causes and 

 its consequences ; indeed, many trifling affairs which had 

 long been forgotten then crowded into my mind with a 

 sort of recent familiarity. 



" It is remarkable that the innumerable ideas which 

 thus crowded into my mind with one exception at the 

 outset about the feelings of my family were all retro- 

 spective. Yet I had been religiously brought up ; my 

 hopes or fears of the next world had lost nothing of 

 their early strength, and at any other period the most 

 intense interest, or the most awful anticipation, would 

 have been excited by the mere probability that I was 

 standing on the threshold of eternity. Yet in that 

 inexplicable moment, when I had a full conviction that 

 I had crossed this threshold, not a single thought wan- 

 dered into the future. I was wrapped entirely in the 

 past 



" Whilst life was returning my feelings were pain- 

 fully the reverse of those which immediately preceded 

 .the loss of consciousness. A single, miserable, confused 

 belief that I was still drowning dwelt upon my mind 

 a hopeless and doubting anxiety, a kind of horrid night- 

 mare, pressed heavily on every faculty and prevented 

 the formation of a single distinct thought, and it was 

 with extreme difficulty that I could at length convince 

 myself that I was really alive. Instead of being free 

 from bodily suffering, I was also tortured by dull, but 

 deep pains; and though I have since been seriously 

 wounded in all parts of my body, and subjected to 



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