§ 2. And first very briefly to exhibit these types among purely subjective experiences - the following case, which most of my readers will probably refer to that class, is one where the phantasm was only recognised in the instant of or after disappearance. The narrator is Mr. R. Gibson, of Mulgrave Cottage, Limerick.

"February 25th, 1884.

"As well as I can remember, it was in the year 1862. I know it was in the early part of my courting days, so that it must have been 1862 or 1863. I was walking home one night about 10 p.m. - the night was not dark, I could see clearly for many yards ahead - when I met face to face a man in the by-road which leads from the high road to my father's house. I felt that sort of start one does when you feel you are coming against something in the dark, without actually striking against it. Then the thought came, ' Confound his impudence, why does he not move out of my way?' and I stepped straight forward, intending to walk bang into him, but as I stepped right up to him, with my chest up to him, he was gone, and the instant as he vanished I thought, 'Oh, Lord, that is my Grandfather Gibson.' I felt rather queer, I can tell you, but I looked well round, and there was no one near. I carefully went to that place night after night again, and watched the spot often other nights over our wall, and I could never either see or think I saw anything again.

My grandfather was dead about 11 years at the time, and was never much in my thoughts, as I had never been much with him; and at the time I was thinking only of the events of the evening, as I suppose most young men madly in love, as I was, would have been. I was about as happy and as full of health and life as I suppose any fellow could possibly be. It was quite a puzzle to me for many years what it could have been for; but I think I know now." [This last sentence merely refers to the fact that Mr. Gibson was at that time becoming involved in an affair that turned out unfortunately].

The gradual formation of the phantasm is a decidedly rare phenomenon. M. Marillier, in one of the most interesting accounts of subjective hallucination ever published,1 says of his own experiences, "C'est un fait inter-essant a noter que les hallucinations n'apparaissent pas d'ordinaire d'em-blee, mais qu'elles se developpent et grandissent, se rapprochent peu a peu tandis qu'elles disparaissent toujours brusquement." On the whole, I think that it is less uncommon for the disappearance to be gradual - a fading away, occasionally accompanied by an expansion of the figure.2

1 Revue Philosophique for Feb., 1886, p. 212.

2 For example, Mr. I. Nicholl, of 32, Lancaster Gate, W., describes to me a waking hallucination representing a child of his, whom he "saw in his night-gown, coming from the window. It increased in size and gradually vanished".

Other cases do not get beyond the stage of indefinite cloudy forms. But I have very few subjective cases where a definite object took shape out of a vague mass. One of these belongs to the "swarming" class - the faces, sometimes hideous and sometimes beautiful, being described by my informant as developing out of mist. Another informant tells me that during fainting-fits, to which in boyhood he was rather liable, he always saw white cloudy masses pass in front of him, which gradually assumed a general resemblance to human forms. A third case is from Mr. Robert Collings, of 118, Earl's Court Road, S.W. When a boy, he awoke one night, and found the moon brightly illuminating the side of the room facing the bed.

"While gazing, I distinctly saw - rising in the moonlit space between the curtains at the foot of the bed - what appeared to be vapour or cloud, and as this grew higher, it gradually assumed the shape of a draped female figure, holding towards me in one hand a lamp and in the other a basin, from which steam seemed to rise. The form vanished slowly, and I afterwards fell asleep without experiencing either fear or horror".

Mr. Collings' brother, who was sharing his room at the time, writes, from the Royal Naval Club, Portsmouth, that he distinctly remembers hearing of this vision immediately afterwards.

This experience may probably be accounted for as a recrudescence of what the boy's eyes had shortly before beheld on several occasions during a trifling illness. The case, however, ought strictly to rank as ambiguous, because the relative who had tended him in this illness had just died (see pp. 331-2). It will be seen that the disappearance, as well the appearance, was gradual.

The occurrence of subjective hallucinations in several stages is, on the other hand, common enough. I have mentioned the occasional development of an undefined impression of a presence into definite visible or audible form (pp. 308-9 and case 320). In another case, as to the subjective character of which I myself entertain little doubt, my informant describes seeing an unusual light on the staircase, looking up, and then perceiving a deceased relative standing with a candle on the stairs. Dr. Jessopp (p. 321, note) saw a large white hand, before he turned round and beheld the complete form of his nocturnal visitor. But the more usual type is where two or more senses are concerned. So marked an instance as the incident of the servant and the message, quoted above (p. 321, note), is no doubt, exceptional; but a figure which speaks, or which shakes the percipient's arm; the sound of footsteps or of an opening door, followed by an entrance; a voice and a kiss - such incidents, though far less frequent than hallucinations of the single senses, are yet well represented among the subjective delusions of the sane.