[Footnote 22: G. E. Partridge, however ('Reverie,' _Pedagogical Seminary_,
April 1898), has investigated hypnagogic phenomena in 826 children. They
were asked to describe what they saw at night with closed eyes before
falling asleep. Among these children 58·5 per cent. of those aged from
thirteen to sixteen saw things at night in this way; of those aged six
the proportion was higher, 64·2 per cent. There seemed to be a maximum at
about the age of ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age.
Stars were most frequently mentioned, being spoken of by 151 children,
colours by 145, people and faces 77, animals 31, scenes of the day 21,
flowers and fruit 18, pictures 15, God and angels 13. Partridge calls
these phenomena hypnagogic; while, however, the hypnagogic visions of
adults may well be a relic of children's visions, the latter have much
greater range and vitality, for they are not confined to the moment before
sleep, and the child sometimes has a certain amount of control over them.
E. Guyon has studied hypnagogic and allied visions in children in his
Paris thesis, _Sur les Hallucinations Hypnagogiques_, 1903. He believes
that children always find them terrifying. That, however, is far from
being the case and is merely due to a pre-occupation with morbid cases,
which naturally attract most attention. (This is also illustrated by the
examples given by Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Fears,' _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1897, pp. 186 _et seq._) The visions of the healthy child
are not terrifying, and he accepts them in a completely matter-of-course
way. He is no more puzzled or troubled by his waking dreams than by his
sleeping dreams.]
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