(1) In the first place the predominance of imagination is marked only by the quantity of representations invading consciousness; they teem, break apart, become associated, combine easily and in various ways. All the imaginative persons who have given us their experiences either orally or in writing agree in regard to the extreme ease of the formation of associations, not in repeating past expedience, but in sketching little romances.[150] From among many examples I choose one. One of my correspondents writes that if at church, theatre, on a street, or in a railway station, his attention is attracted to a person--man or woman--he immediately makes up, from the appearance, carriage and attractiveness his or her present or past, manner of life, occupation--representing to himself the part of the city he or she must dwell in, the apartments, furniture, etc.--a construction most often erroneous; I have many proofs of it. Surely this disposition is normal; it departs from the average only by an excess of imagination that is replaced in others by an excessive tendency to observe, to analyze, or to criticise, reason, find fault. In order to take the decisive step and become abnormal one condition more is necessary--intensity of the representations. 2. Next, the interchange of place, indicated above, occurs. Weak states (images) become strong; strong states (perceptions) become weak. The impressions from without are powerless to fulfill their regular function of inhibition. We find the simplest example of this state in the exceptional persistence of certain dreams. Ordinarily, our nocturnal imaginings vanish as empty phantasmagorias at the inrush of the perceptions and habits of daily life--they seem like faraway phantoms, without objective value. But, in the struggle occurring, on waking, between images and perceptions, the latter are not always victorious. There are dreams--i.e., imaginary creations--that remain firm in face of reality, and for some time go along parallel with it. Taine was perhaps the first to see the importance of this fact. He reports that his relative, Dr. Baillarger, having dreamt that one of his friends had been appointed editor of a journal, announced the news seriously to several persons, and doubt arose in his mind only toward the end of the afternoon. Since then contemporary psychologists have gathered various observations of this kind.[151] The emotional persistence of certain dreams is known. So-and-so, one of our neighbors, plays in a dream an odious role; we may have a feeling of repulsion or spite toward him persisting throughout the day. But this triumph of the image, accidental and ephemeral in normal man, is frequent and stable in the imaginers of the second class. Many among them have asserted that this internal world is the only reality. Gerard de Nerval "had very early the conviction that the majority is mistaken, that the material universe in which it