out of them, as one does out of clouds, certain known figures. The power of reasoning, fading as one falls asleep, leaves phantasy free play to construct very vivid figures. In the place of the light spots, haziness and changing colours of the dark visual field, there arise definite outlines of objects.”[1]
In this way hypnagogic hallucinations arise. The chief role naturally belongs to the imagination, hence imaginative people in particular are subject to hypnagogic hallucinations.[2] The hypnopompic hallucinations described by Myers arise in the same way.
It is highly probable that hypnagogic pictures are identical with the dream-pictures of normal sleep—forming their visual foundation. Maury[3] has proved from self-observation that the pictures which hovered around him hypnagogically were also the objects of the dreams that followed. G. Trumbull Ladd[4] has shown this even more convincingly. By practice he succeeded in waking himself suddenly two to five minutes after falling asleep. He then observed that the figures dancing before the retina at times represented the same contours as the pictures just dreamed of. He even states that nearly every visual dream is shaped by the retina’s own light figures. In our case the fantastic rendering of these pictures was favoured by the situation. We must not underrate the influence of the over-excited expectation which allowed the dull retina-light to appear with increased intensity.[5] The further formation of the retinal
- ↑ J. Müller, quoted Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXV. 41.
- ↑ Spinoza hypnopompically saw a “nigrum et scabiosum Brasilianum.”—J. Müller, l.c.
In Goethe’s “The Elective Affinities,” at times in the half darkness Ottilie saw the figure of Edward in a dimly-lit spot. Compare also Cardanus, “imagines videbam ab imo lecti, quasi e parvulis annulis arcisque constantes, arborum, belluarum, hominum, oppidorum, instructarum acierum, bellicorum et musicorum instrumentorum aliorumque huius generis adscendentes, vicissimque descendentes, aliis atque aliis succedentibus” (Hieronymus Cardanus, “De subtilitate rerum”). - ↑ “Le sommeil et les rêves,” p. 134.
- ↑ G. Trumbull Ladd, “Contribution to the Psychology of Visual Dreams,” Mind, April, 1892.
- ↑ Hecker says of the same condition, “There is a simple elemental vision
