The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
From ordinary images of memory and fancy, pseudo-hallucinations
differ in being much more vivid, minute, detailed, steady, abrupt,
and spontaneous, in the sense that all feeling of our own activity
in producing them is lacking. Dr. Kandinsky had a patient who, after
taking opium or haschisch, had abundant pseudo-hallucinations and
hallucinations. As he also had strong visualizing power and was an
educated physician, the three sorts of phenomena could be easily
compared. Although projected outwards (usually not farther than the
limit of distinctest vision, a foot or so) the pseudo-hallucinations
_lacked the character of objective reality_ which the hallucinations
possessed, but, unlike the pictures of imagination, it was almost
impossible to produce them at will. Most of the 'voices' which
people hear (whether they give rise to delusions or not) are
pseudo-hallucinations. They are described as '_inner_' voices, although
their character is entirely unlike the inner speech of the subject
with himself. I know two persons who hear such inner voices making
unforeseen remarks whenever they grow quiet and listen for them. They
are a very common incident of delusional insanity, and at last grow
into vivid hallucinations. The latter are comparatively frequent
occurrences in sporadic form; and certain individuals are liable to
have them often. From the results of the 'Census of Hallucinations,'
which was begun by Edmund Gurney, it would appear that, roughly
speaking, one person at least in every ten is likely to have had a
vivid hallucination at some time in his life.[124] The following cases
from healthy people will give an idea of what these hallucinations are:
"When a girl of eighteen, I was one evening engaged in a very
painful discussion with an elderly person. My distress was so great
that I took up a thick ivory knitting-needle that was lying on the
mantelpiece of the parlor and broke it into small pieces as I talked.
In the midst of the discussion I was very wishful to know the opinion
of a brother with whom I had an unusually close relationship. I turned
round and saw him sitting at the further side of a centre-table, with
his arms folded (an unusual position with him), but, to my dismay, I
perceived from the sarcastic expression of his mouth that he was not
in sympathy with me, was not 'taking my side,' as I should then have
expressed it. The surprise cooled me, and the discussion was dropped.
"Some minutes after, having occasion to speak to my brother, I turned
towards him, but he was gone. I inquired when he left the room,
and was told that he had not been in it, which I did not believe,
thinking that he had come in for a minute and had gone out without
being noticed. About an hour and a half afterwards he appeared, and
convinced me, with some trouble, that he had never been near the house
that evening. He is still alive and well."
Here is another case:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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