An account

I fear that at this distance of time, 1 7 years, I shall not be able to find anyone who remembers my mentioning my vision of my brother, unless it might be the maid, who was with me for more than 15 years, and I will write to her and find out if she recollects it. I have never had any 'hallucination of the senses,' on any other occasion than that you know of. [In this other case what seemed to be seen was the unaccountable opening of a locked door — which, as I have before remarked, is a known form of hallucination. See p. 102, note.] In a personal interview with Mrs. Brooke, Professor Sidgwick obtained the following additional details : — She was 13 years old. She was quite sure it was not a dream. It was quite impossible that it could have been some one else, mistaken for her brother. The room seemed to be full of a peculiar scent which her brother was fond of. She had written to the maid who, however, said, in reply, that she had only a vague recollection of the incident. We must not forget that borderland impressions, or rather, perhaps I should say, dreams which the dreamer mistakes for waking percepts, are probably commoner in early youth than in later years : and in such a case as Mrs. Brooke's, therefore, the evidential superiority which I have pointed out as distinguishing waking from sleeping experiences could not rightly be insisted on. At the same time, whatever name we give them, we have no grounds for thinking that imaginary percepts so vivid and convincing as those here described fall to the lot of any considerable proportion of children.