ften happened, she heard
herself accompanied by an imaginary violin or piano, and would take up
and continue the accompaniment upon an instrument herself. She sewed,
did knitting, and the like. But on the other hand, she imagined on one
occasion that she wrote a letter upon a napkin, which she folded with
the intention of sending it to the post. Upon waking, she had not the
least recollection of her dreams, or of what she had been doing. After a
few months she recovered.
I come now to the exemplification of full-waking in trance, as it is
very perfectly manifested in the cases which have been termed double
consciousness. These are in their principle very simple; but it is not
easy in a few words to convey a distinct idea of the condition of the
patient. The case consists of a series of fits of trance, in which the
step from ordinary waking to full trance-waking is sudden and immediate,
or nearly so, and either was so originally, or through use has become
so. Generally for some hours on each day, occasionally for days
together, the patient continues in the state of trance; then suddenly
reverts to that of ordinary waking. In the perfectest instances of
double consciousness, there is nothing in the bearing or behaviour of
the entranced person which would lead a stranger to suppose her (for it
is an affection far commoner in young women than in boys or men) to be
other than ordinarily awaked. But her friends observe that she does
every thing with more spirit and better--sings better, plays better, has
more readiness, moves even more gracefully, than in her natural state.
She has an innocent boldness and disregard of little conventionalisms,
which imparts a peculiar charm to her behaviour. In the mean time, she
has two complete existences separate and apart, which alternate but
never mingle. On the day of her first fit, her life split into a double
series of thoughts and recollections. She remembers in her ordinary
state nothing of her trance existence. In her trances, she remembers
nothing of the intervening hours of ordinary waking. Her recollections
of what she had experienced or learned before the fits began is
singularly capricious, differing extraordinarily in its extent in
different cases. In general, the positive recollection of prior events
is annulled; but her prior affections and habits either remain, and her
general acquirements, or they are quickly by association rekindled or
brought into the circle of her tra
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