ors of very influential newspapers who experience
these night visitations in a vivid form. Two of them have described
the phenomena very forcibly in print, but anonymously, and two
others have written on cognate experiences.

A near relative of my own saw phantasmagoria very frequently. She
was eminently sane, and of such good constitution that her faculties
were hardly impaired until near her death at ninety. She frequently
described them to me. It gave her amusement during an idle hour to
watch these faces, for their expression was always pleasing, though
never strikingly beautiful. No two faces were ever alike, and no
face ever resembled that of any acquaintance. When she was not well
the faces usually came nearer to her, sometimes almost suffocatingly
close. She never mistook them for reality, although they were very
distinct. This is quite a typical case, similar in most respects to
many others that I have.[1]

A notable proportion of sane persons have had not only visions, but
actual hallucinations of sight, sound, or other sense, at one or
more periods of their lives. I have a considerable packet of
instances contributed by my personal friends, besides a large number
communicated to me by other correspondents. One lady, a
distinguished authoress, who was at the time a little fidgeted, but
in no way overwrought or ill, assured me that she once saw the
principal character of one of her novels glide through the door
straight up to her. It was about the size of a large doll, and it
disappeared as suddenly as it came. Another lady, the daughter of an
eminent musician, often imagines she hears her father playing. The
day she told me of it the incident had again occurred. She was
sitting in her room with her maid, and she asked the maid to open
the door that she might hear the music better. The moment the maid
got up the hallucination disappeared. Again, another lady,
apparently in vigorous health, and belonging to a vigorous family,
told me that during some past months she had been plagued by voices.
The words were at first simple nonsense; then the word "pray" was
frequently repeated; this was followed by some more or less coherent
sentences of little import, and finally the voices left her. In short,
the familiar hallucinations of the insane are to be met with far
more frequently than is commonly supposed, among people moving in
society and in good working health.

I have now nearly done with my summary of facts;