The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
The milder degrees of hallucination have been designated as
_pseudo-hallucinations_. Pseudo-hallucinations and hallucinations have
been sharply distinguished from each other only within a few years.
Dr. Kandinsky writes of their difference as follows:
"In carelessly questioning a patient we may confound his
pseudo-hallucinatory perceptions with hallucinations. But to the
unconfused consciousness of the patient himself, even though he be
imbecile, the identification of the two phenomena is impossible,
at least in the sphere of vision. At the moment of having a
pseudo-hallucination of sight, the patient feels himself in an
entirely different relation to this subjective sensible appearance,
from that in which he finds himself whilst subject to a true visual
hallucination. The latter is reality itself; the former, on the
contrary, remains always a subjective phenomenon which the individual
commonly regards either as sent to him as a sign of God's grace, or
as artificially induced by his secret persecutors.... If he knows by
his _own experience_ what a genuine hallucination is, it is quite
impossible for him to mistake the pseudo-hallucination for it.... A
concrete example will make the difference clear:
"Dr. N. L.... heard one day suddenly amongst the voices of his
persecutors ('coming from a hollow space in the midst of the wall') a
rather loud voice impressively saying to him: 'Change your national
allegiance.' Understanding this to mean that his only hope consisted
in ceasing to be subject to the Czar of Russia, he reflected a moment
what allegiance would be better, and resolved to become an English
subject. At the same moment he saw a pseudo-hallucinatory lion of
natural size, which appeared and quickly laid its fore-paws on his
shoulders. He had a lively feeling of these paws as a tolerably
painful local pressure (complete hallucination of touch). Then the
same voice from the wall said: 'Now you have a lion--now you will
rule,' whereupon the patient recollected that the lion was the
national emblem of England. The lion appeared to L. very distinct
and vivid, but he nevertheless remained conscious, as he afterwards
expressed it, that he saw the animal, not with his bodily but with
his mental eyes. (After his recovery he called analogous apparitions
by the name of 'expressive-plastic ideas.') Accordingly he felt no
terror, even though he felt the contact of the claws.... Had the lion
been a complete hallucination, the patient, as he himself remarked
after recovery, would have felt great fear, and very likely screamed
or taken to flight. Had it been a simple image of the fancy he would
not have connected it with the voices, of whose objective reality he
was at the time quite convinced."[123]
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