mescal: a new artificial paradise. 543 



greeu, acquired a taste in my moutli; it was sweetish and somewliat 

 metallic 5 bine again would have a taste that seemed to recall phos- 

 phorus; these are the only colors that seemed to be connected with 

 taste. (4) A feeling of delightful relief and preternatural lightness 

 about my forehead, succeeded by a growing seusation of contraction. 

 (5) Singing in one of my ears. (6) A sensation of burning heat in the 

 palm of my left hand. (7) Heat about both eyes. The last continued 

 throughout the whole period, except for a moment when I had a sensa- 

 tion of cold upon the eyelids, accompanied with a color vision of the 

 wrinkled lid, of the skin disappearing from the brow, of dead flesh, and 

 finally of a skull. 



"Throughout these sensations and visions my mind remained not 

 only perfectly clear, but enjoyed, I believe, an unusual lucidity. Cer- 

 tainly I was conscious of an odd contrast in hearing myself talk ration- 

 ally with H. E., who had entered the room a short time before, and 

 experiencing at the same moment the wild and extraordinary pranks 

 that were taking i)lace in my body. My reason appeared to be the 

 sole survivor of my being. At times I felt that this, too, would go, but 

 the sound of my own voice would establish again the communication 

 with the outer world of reality. 



" Tremors were more or less constant in my lower limbs. Persistent, 

 also, was the feeling of nausea. This, when attended by a feeling of 

 suffocation and a pain at the heart, was relieved by taking brandy, 

 coffee, or biscuit. For muscular exertion I felt neither the wish nor 

 the f>ower. My hands, however, retained their full strength. 



"It was painful for me to keep my eyes open above a few seconds; 

 the light of day seemed to fill the room with a blinding glare. Yet 

 every object, in the brief glimpse I caught, appeared normal in color 

 and shape. With my eyes closed, most of the visions, after the first 

 chaotic display, represented parts of the whole of my body undergoing 

 a variety of marvelous changes, of metamorphoses or illumination. 

 They were more often than not comic and grotesque in character, 

 though often beautiful in color. At one time I saw my right leg fill- 

 ing up with a delicate heliotrope; at another, the sleeve of my coat 

 changed into a dark green material, in which was worked a pattern in 

 red braid, and the whole bordered at the cuff" with sable. Scarcely 

 had my new sleeve taken shape than I found myself attired in a 

 complete costume of the same fashion, mediaeval in character, but 

 I could not say to what i:)recise period it belonged. I noted that a 

 chance movement — of my hand, for instance — would immediately call 

 up a color vision of the part exerted, and that this again would pass, 

 by a seemingly natural transition, into another wholly dissimilar. 

 Thus, pressing my fingers accidentally against my temples, the finger- 

 tips became elongated, and then grew into the ribs of a vaulting or of 

 a dome-shaped roof. But most of the visions were of a more personal 

 nature. I happened once to lift a spoonful of coffee to my lips, and 

 as I was in the act of raising my arm for that purpose a vision 



