the chest of drawers in my mother's bed-room, and putting my face close to
the mirror, I would gaze and gaze into the eyes I saw there, and repeat
over and over the name which seemed to me not to belong to that 'other
self' hidden behind those eyes. On one occasion I became quite entranced
and fell from the chair, after which I refrained from looking into the
mirror, although I did not for many years get over the feeling of
wonderment at the sound of my own name, and many times, on repeating the
name aloud, I would feel myself being lifted up into what seemed to me the
clouds above my head, until I felt myself being 'melted,' as I termed it,
into the moving cloud of soft transparent light.

"At this time I was between seven and eight years of age, and although I
was far beyond children of my age, in my school studies, I was frequently
admonished for being 'stupid,' owing to the fact that I could not remember
the names of objects, nor could I be trusted on an errand.

"While walking from our house to the grocer's, scarcely a block away, I
would feel that sudden wonderment and awe of my name steal over me, and
again I would be transported to some unknown, yet immanent region, utterly
losing consciousness of my surroundings. I would sometimes awake to find
myself standing before the counter of the grocery store, struggling to
remember who and where I was, and what it was that I had been sent to that
strange place for."

This lady relates that she never dared to tell of her strange experiences,
although she did not "outgrow" them until early womanhood, when she dropped
the abbreviation of her name, and assumed her full baptismal name. Whether
this latter fact had anything to do with the cessation of the experience is
doubtful. At the same time, she declares that she can even now induce the
same sensations, and transport herself into childhood again by repeating
her childhood name.

The following extract from a paper published in London, England, in 1890,
gives a description of an experience of a young man who had fallen into a
condition which the physicians pronounced "catalepsy." This young man was
at the time a medical student, and had always exhibited a tendency to
entrancement, or catalepsy. On recovering from one of these cataleptic
attacks, and being asked to give a description of his sensations or
experiences, the young man said:

"I felt a kind of soothing slumber stealing over me. I became aware that I
was fl