And here I may mention an experience of Lady de Vesci's, who described to me in conversation a feeling of _malaise_, defining itself into the urgent need of definite action--namely, the despatch of a telegram to a friend who was in fact then dying at the other side of the world.[174] Such an impulse had one only parallel in her experience, which also was telepathic in a similar way. Similar sensory disturbances are sometimes reported in connection with an important form of motor automatism,--that of "dowsing" or discovering water by means of the movement of a rod held in the hands of the automatist,--already treated of in Appendix V. A. A small group of cases may naturally be mentioned here. From two different points of view they stand for the most part at the entrance of our subject. I speak of motor inhibitions, prompted at first by subliminal memory, or by subliminal hyperæsthesia, but merging into telæsthesia or telepathy. Inhibitions--sudden arrests or incapacities of action--(more or less of the Socratic type)--form a simple, almost rudimentary, type of motor automatisms. And an inhibition--a sudden check on action of this kind--will be a natural way in which a strong but obscure impression will work itself out. Such an impression, for instance, is that of _alarm_, suggested by some vague sound or odour which is only subliminally perceived. And thus in this series of motor automatisms, just as in our series of dreams, or in our series of sensory automatisms, we find ourselves beginning with cases where the subliminal self merely shows some slight extension of memory or of sensory perception,--and thence pass insensibly to cases where no "cryptomnesia" will explain the facts known in the past, and no hyperæsthesia will explain the facts discerned in the present. We may most of us have observed that if we perform any small action to which there are objections, which we have once known but which have altogether passed from our minds, we are apt to perform it in a hesitating, inefficient way. Similarly there are cases where some sudden muscular impulse or inhibition has probably depended on a subliminal perception or interpretation of a sound which had not reached the supraliminal attention. For instance, two friends walking together along a street in a storm just evade by sudden movements a falling mass of masonry. Each thinks that he has received some _monition_ of the fall; each asserting that he heard no noise whatever to warn him. Here is an instance where subliminal perception may have been slightly quicker and more delicate than supraliminal, and may have warned them just in time. In the case which I now quote (from _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 416) there may have been some subliminal hyperæsthesia of hearing which dimly warned Mr. Wyman of the approach of the extra train.[175] Mr. Wm. H. Wyman writes to the Editor of the _Arena_ as follows:-- DUNKIRK, N. Y., _June 26th, 1891_.