Abnormal visual impressions are common when death is near at hand. In many the sight fails,--there is complaint of commencing or of actual darkness, and a desire is expressed for more light; while more rarely, the dying one perceives a blaze of light, in the contemplation of which, or immediately afterwards, he calmly expires. “It happens not unfrequently,” writes Dr. Symonds in his admirable essay on Death,[34] “that the spectra of the dying owe their origin to contemplations of future existence, and consequently that the good man’s last hours are cheered with beatific visions and communion with heavenly visitors. Dreadfully contrasted with such visions are those which haunt the dying fancies of others.”[35] The testimony of many of those who have the largest experience, and have watched _continuously and attentively_ at the dying bed, is in support of Dr. Symonds’ statement. If some physicians are incredulous, and place little reliance on testimony and inferences of this kind, I am inclined with Dr. Conolly[36] to attribute it, to their being seldom engaged long enough in watching by the bedside, where the senses and thoughts naturally become concentrated on the events of the sick chamber alone. My own observation in cases, where circumstances have made my attendance on the dying close and protracted, goes to corroborate the evidence there is on these points--points which are certainly not of a nature to be made familiar to those, whose chief knowledge of the dying is acquired in formal consultations, or in short daily visits to the wards of hospitals. Hearing is, probably in most cases, the last of our senses to leave us. “An elderly lady had a stroke of apoplexy; she lay motionless, and in what is called a state of stupor, and no one doubted that she was dying. But after the lapse of three or four days, there were signs of amendment, and she ultimately recovered. After her recovery she explained that she did not believe that she had been unconscious, or even insensible, during any part of the attack. She knew her situation, and heard much of what was said by those around her. Especially she recollected observations intimating that she would very soon be no more, but that at the same time she had felt satisfied that she would recover; that she had no power of expressing what she felt, but that nevertheless _her feelings, instead of being painful or in any way distressing, had been agreeable rather than otherwise_. She described them as very peculiar--as if she were constantly mounting upwards, and as something very different from what she had ever before experienced.”[37]