Meyer, op.cit.pp.238-41.
That of Dr.Ch.
Féré in the Revue Philosophique, xx.364.Johannes Müller's account of hypnagogic hallucinations floating before the eyes for a few moments after these had been opened, seems to belong more to the category of spontaneous hallucinations (see his Physiology, London, 1842, p.1894).
It is impossible to tell whether the words in Wundt's Vorlesungen, i.387, refer to a personal experience of his own or not; probably not.Il va sans dire that an inferior visualizer like myself can get no such after-images.
Nor have I as yet succeeded in getting report of any from my students.
Senses and Intellect, p.338.
See above, Vol.
ii.p.50, note.
V.Kandinsky (Kritische u.klinische Betrachtungen im Gebiete der Sinnestauschungen (Berlin, 1885), p.135 fi.) insists that in even the liveliest pseudo-hallucinations (see below, Chapter XX), which may be regarded as the intensest possible results of the imaginative process, there is no outward objectivity perceived in the thing represented, and that a ganter Abgrund separates these 'ideas' from true hallucination acid objective perception.
It seems to also flow backwards in certain hypnotic hallucinations.Suggest to a 'Subject'
in the hypnotic trance that a sheet of paper has a red cross upon it, then pretend to remove the imaginary cross, whilst you tell the Subject to look fixedly at a dot upon the paper, and he will presently tell you that he sees a 'bluish-green' cross.The genuineness of the result has been doubted, but there seems no good reason for rejecting M.Binet's account (Le Magnétisme Animal, 1887, p.188).M.Binet, following M.Parinaud, and on the faith of a certain experiment, at one time believed, the optical brain-centres and not the retina to be the seat of ordinary negative after-images.The experiment is this: Look fixedly, with one eye open, at a colored spot on a white background.Then close that eye and look fixedly with the other eye at a plain surface.A negative after-image of the colored spot will presently appear.(Psychologie du Raisonnment, 1886, p.45.) But Mr.
Delabarre has proved (American Journal of Psychology, ii.326) that this after-image is due, not to a higher cerebral process, but to the fact that the retinal process in the closed eye affects consciousness at certain moments, and that its object is then projected into the field seen by the eye which is open.M.Binet informs me that he is converted by the proofs given by Mr.Delabarre.
The fact remains, however, that the negative after-images of Herr-Meyer, M.Féré, and the hypnotic subjects, form aria exception to all that we know of nerve-currents, if they are due to a refluent centrifugal current to the retina.It may be that they will hereafter be explained in some other way.Meanwhile we can only write them down as a paradox.Sig.Sergi's theory that there is always a refluent wave in perception hardly merits serious consideration (Psychologie Physiologique, pp.99, 189).Sergi's theory has recently been reaffirmed with almost incredible crudity by Lombroso and Ottolenghi in the Revue Philosophique, xxix.70 (Jan.1890).
Lotze, Med.Psych.
p.509.
See an important article by Binet in the Revue Philosophique, xxvi.481 (1888); also Dufour, in Revue Méd, de la Suisse Romande, 1889, No.8, cited in the Neurologisches Centralblatt, 1890, p.48.
Die Willenshandlung (1888), pp.129-40.
