Voices

To me the whole thing was very noisy and real, but no one else can have heard anything, for the bell I heard ring was not answered. It was a quiet street in town, and there was no vehicle of any kind passing at the time ; and on finding no one on the landing as I expected, I went at once to the window, and there was nothing to be seen, and no sound to be heard, which would have been the case had the cab been driven off. Now the hearing of a bell, and the hearing of a carriage driving up, are both known forms of subjective impression, even apart from expectancy, nor is there anything odd in their combination ; and if, as I suspect, slight hallucinations of such non-vocal sounds are tolerably common, it is natural to suppose that expectancy might exaggerate them. The recognised voice was, no doubt, a more distinctive feature ; but in the percipient's circumstances, and after the other sounds heard, this seems too natural an addition to warrant us in connecting it with the fact that her husband's thoughts happened to be directed to her at the time. And if this case may be dismissed, a fortiori may others of a less prolonged and complicated kind — especially those lacking the distinct timbre-element of bell and voice, and so more easily accounted for as mere misinterpretations of real sounds whose source was not evident. In the parallel visual cases, the impression is, at any rate, often of the most distinctive and unmistakeable kind ; and it is impossible not to be struck by the number of instances in which this startling 2 k 2 516 TRANSIENT HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SANE: [chap. experience — -the single visual hallucination of a person's life — has represented the figure of a friend or relative who was on his way to the place where his figure appeared, and whose mind was probably to some extent picturing his own arrival.1 None the less, I think, if expectancy existed on the percipient's part, must it be assumed to have been the sufficient cause of the hallucination. Such a case as the following, sent to us by the Rev. F. R. Harbaugh (Pastor of the Presbyterian Church), Red Bank, Monmouth Co., New Jersey, U.S.A., is very instructive. February 7th, 1884. While a resident of the city of Philadelphia, I made an appointment to meet a personal friend. At the appointed hour I was at the designated place. My friend was tardy in his appearing. After a while, however, I saw him approaching (or thought I did). So assured was I of his advance that I advanced to meet him, when presently he disappeared entirely. The locality where I thought I saw his approach was open, and unobstructed by any object behind which he could have disappeared. Only by leaping a high brick wall (an enclosure of a burying-grouncl) could he have secreted himself. The hallucination was complete — so distinct as to lead me to advance to meet him without a thought of optical illusion. I immediately went to the office of my friend, and there learned from him that he had not been away from his desk for several hours.