CHAPTER VIII.

OF DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HALLUCINATIONS, DELIRIUM, AND MADNESS—­CONCLUSION.

In the preceding chapters, I have shown, as I believe, the genesis of myth, the fundamental faculty in which it necessarily originates, and its evolution in man, particularly in the Aryan and Semitic races.  We have seen that the primitive and universal fact consists in the immediate and spontaneous entification of natural phenomena and of the ideas themselves; and we have resolved this fact into its elements, from which all the generating sources of myth issue, that is, from the immediate effects of the perception.  Putting man out of the question, we ascertained that the same innate necessity was common to the animal kingdom.

In order to complete the theory, we must consider some other facts and psychical phenomena, both normal and abnormal, so as to ascertain whether these are not due to the same cause, as far as respects their intrinsic forms; namely, the belief in the reality of images seen in dreams, as well as in those which appear in illusions, in normal hallucinations of the senses, and in those which are abnormal, in ecstasy, in delirium, in madness, in idiocy, and dementia.  In all these mental conditions, we ascribe a body and material existence to images which for various causes appear to be really presented to our senses.

If we are able to show that all such appearances are believed to have a real existence in virtue of the same law and faculty of perception which generated myth in its earliest manifestation, we shall have succeeded in establishing a common genesis for all these various psychical phenomena, thus affording no contemptible contribution to psychology in general, and to the science of human thought.

To dream is not merely a normal act of man, but, as it appears from many witnesses, it is common to all animals.  In dreams the ordinary laws of time and space are strangely modified, and images of all kinds appear, sometimes confusedly, sometimes in a rational order, often in accordance with the laws of association, while the voluntary exercise of thought may be said to be dormant.  This is, speaking generally, the condition and nature of dreams, which we must presently consider adequately with more subtle and exact analysis.

Before we trace the cause of the apparent reality of these images, and the laws which govern it, let us consider man in his waking condition, so as to ascertain at once the likeness and the difference between these two states.  We must first inquire whether the waking is absolutely distinct from the dreaming state as far as the appearance of the images, their nature, and mode of action are concerned.  It has been observed by many psychologists and physiologists that in the waking state, when images do not arise from the immediate presence of objects, or are not directed by the will to a definite aim, they appear, group themselves, and disperse by the immediate association of ideas, and the measurements of time and space are modified just as they are in dreams.  These observations are correct, and the phenomena may be verified by every one for himself.