Knocking

I had no notion where L.'s room was that night, but afterwards 1 I have two other cases where a subjective hallucination seen on waking was accompanied by inability to speak or move. See also the telepathic case No. 210, below. 2 K 514 TRANSIENT HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SANE: [chap. found that it was separated from mine by a passage. I don't think the sleep-walking theory is possible ; and he is quite clear as to my vanishing. The auditory examples are commoner and clearer. As might be expected, they are specially connected with sounds which occur in an isolated way, such as those of bells and clocks. Thus a lady tells me that more than once, in her student days, when wondering what time it was, she distinctly heard the college clock strike, and then ascertained that the impression had been a delusion. She has also heard an imaginary Come in, after knocking at a door. Another lady not unfrequently had a similar clock-hallucination when she was afraid of being late in the morning. A gentleman tells me that he has had the hallucination of hearing billiard-balls, when in bed near a billiard-room. That the habit of half-unconsciously looking out for any particular sound has a tendency to produce a phantasm of it is also shown by the experience of domestic servants. I have cases from two members of this class who occasionally, when at their household work, have heard the voice of their mistress calling them in tones as unmistakeable as if they were real. And another informant tells me that she distinctly heard her father's voice call to her one morning, Come, Sissy, it's past 8, you're late, and ascertained that he had said nothing. No one will doubt that such experiences as these are purely subjective. Cases occur, however, where the other explanation seems less ■clearly excluded. Mr. Charles Ede, of Wonersh Lodge, Guildford, a doctor by profession, who describes himself as a very unlikely person to be deceived by morbid fancies, sends us the following example. Some ladies who lived about half-a-mile from him had a large alarmbell outside their house, and one night he seemed distinctly to hear the sound of this bell. He learnt afterwards that there had been an alarm of thieves that night, and that at the very time, 1.30 a.m., when he was startled by the sound, his friends had been on the point of ringing the bell in the hope that it would bring him ; but they had not actually rung it. The hallucination may have been due to the sub-conscious idea of a possible summons in Mr. Ede's mind ; and the coincidence