A common form of vision is a phantasmagoria, or the appearance of a crowd of phantoms, sometimes hurrying past like men in a street.  It is occasionally seen in broad daylight, much more often in the dark; it may be at the instant of putting out the candle, but it generally comes on when the person is in bed, preparing to sleep, but by no means yet asleep.  I know no less than three men, eminent in the scientific world, who have these phantasmagoria in one form or another.  It will seem curious, but it is a fact that I know of no less than five editors 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.