Hallucination : A false perception of sensory vividness arising witnout tne stimulus of a corresponding sense-impression. In this it differs from illusion, which is merely the misinterpretation of an actual sense-perception. Visual and auditory hallucinations are the most common, and especially the former; but hallucination of the other senses may also be experienced, though it is not so readily distinguishable. Human figures and voices most frequently form the subject of a hallucination, but in certain types other classes of objects may be seen—as, for instance, the rats and insects of delirium tremens. Though hallucination is often associated with various mental and physical diseases, it may, nevertheless occur spontaneously while the agent shows no departure from full vigour of body and mind, and may be induced—i.e., in hypnotism—in about go per cent, of all subjects. The essential difference between sane and insane Hallucinations is that in the former case the agent can, by reflection, recognise the subjective nature of the impression, even when it has every appearance of objectivity ; whereas in the latter case the patient cannot be made to understand that the vision is not real.

Until comparatively recently Hallucinatory percepts were regarded merely as intensified memory-images, but as the most intense of ordinary representations do not possess that sensory vividness which is yet a feature of the smallest sensation received from the external world, it follows that other conditions must be present besides the excitement of the brain-elements which is the correlate of representation. It is true that the seat of excitement is the same both in actual sense-perceptions and in memory images but in the former case the stimulas is peripherally originated in the sensory nerve, whereas in the latter it takes its rise in the brain itself. Now if any neural system becomes highly excited—a state which may be brought about by emotion, ill-health, drugs, or a number of causes—it may serve to divert from their proper paths any set of impulses arising from the sense organs, and as any impulse ascending through the sensory nerves produces an effect of sensory vividness—normally, a true perception—the impulses thus diverted give to the memory images an appearance of actuality, not distinguishable from that produced by a corresponding sense-impression. In hypnosis a state of cerebal dissociation is induced, whereby any one neural system may be abnormally excited, and hallucination thus very readily engendered. Drugs which excite the brain also induce hallucinations.
The question or whether there is any relation between the hallucination and the person it represents is, and has long been, a vexed one. Countless well-authenticated stories of apparitions coinciding with a death or some other crisis are on record, and would seem to establish some causal connection between them. In former times apparitions were considered to be the " doubles" or " ethereal bodies " of the originals, and modern spiritualists believe that they are the spirits of the dead—or, mayhap, of the living, temporarily forsaking the physical organism. But the main theory among those who believe in such a causal connection between agent and hallucination—and in view of the statistics collected by Professor Sidgwick and others (See " Psychic Research "), it is difficult not to believe—is that of telepathy, or thought-transference. That the cerebral machinery for the transmission of thought should be specially stimulated in moments of intense excitement, or at the approach of dissolution, is not to be wondered at; and thus it is sought to account for the appearance of hallucinatory images coinciding with death or other crises. Moreover, the dress and appearance of the apparition does not necessarily correspond with the actual dress and appearance of its original. Thus a man at the point of death, in bed and wasted by disease, may appear to a friend as if in his ordinary health, and wearing his ordinary garb. Nevertheless there are notable instances where some remarkable detail of dress is reproduced in the apparition. It seems clear, however, that it is the agent's general personality which is, as a rule, conveyed to the percipient, and not, except in special cases, the actual matter of his surface-consciousness.
A similar explanation has been offered for the hallucinatory images which many people can induce by gazing in a crystal, or even in a pool of water, or a drop of ink, and which are often declared to give information, and reproduce scenes and people of whom the agent has no knowledge. It is suggested that those images which do not arise in the subliminal consciousness of the agent may have been telepathically received by him from other minds. (See " Crystal-gazing.")
Collective Hallucination is a term applied to hallucinations which are shared by a number of people. There is no evidence, however, of the operation of any other agency than suggestion (q.v.) or at the most, telepathy.



 

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