The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1893-09-21
r. L. sTEvENsoN's DREAMS.
A Remarkable Letter - Experience
Of Psychological Interest"

In the June volume of the journal
of the Proceedings of the Societ.i
for the Psychical Research there j:
an interesting article Of Mr.. F. ".
H. Myers which contains a remark
able letter from Mr.. Robert Louis
Stevenson, as follows:
Vailima Plantation, Upopo, ST.
moan Islands, July IA, 1892. Dear
Mr.. Myers,-I am tempted to COM
municate to you some experiences
of mine which seem to me Ignorant
as 1 ann of high psychological il
terest.
had infamous health when 4
child and suffered much from night
fears; but from the age of about }
till | was past 80, | did not know
what it was to have high fever CT
to wander in my mind. So that
these experiences, when they were
renewed. came upon me with entil G
freshness; and l am a peculiar sul-
ject, or l was thus enabled to ol-
serve them with unusual closenes ).
Experience A. During an illness
at Nice lay awake whole night in
extreme pain. From the beginnin g
of the evening one part Of my min d
became possessed OF notion so
grotesque and shapeless that it may
best be described as form of words.
! thought the pain was, or connecte !
with, wsp or coil of some sort; l
knew not of what it consisted, nor
yet where it was, and cared not; only
/ thought if the two ends We're
brought together the pain would
cease. Now all the time with anothea
part of mind, which l venture to
think was myself / was fully alive tc
the absurdity of this idea, knew ii
to be a mark of impaired sanity, and
was engaged with my other self in {;
perpetual conflict. Myself had moth
ing more at heart than to keep from
my wife, who was nursing me, any
hint OF this ridiculous hallucination
the other was bound that she should
be told of it and ordered to effec
the cure. / believe it must have
been well on in the morning before
the fever Tor the other teilow) tri
umphed, and / called my wife to IN,
bedside, seized her savagely by The
wrist, and, looking on her with ;
face of fury, cried, "Why do you no
put the two ends together and pu
me out OF paint"
Experience b. The other day il
Sydney | was seized on a Saturd;,,
with high fever. Early in the al
ternoon | began to repeat mechani
cally the sound usually writer
"mhn," caught myself in the act, in
stantly stopped it, and explained t.
my mother, who was in the room
my reasons for so doing. "That i
the beginning of the mind to wan
DER" | said, "and has to be resisto'
at the outset" fell asleep an'
woke, and for the rest OF the nigh
repeated to myself mentally a non
sense word, which I could not recuI
next morning. | had been readini
the day before the life OF Swift, ali,
all night long one part of my min,
(ths other Jello'O) kept informing nj
that / was not repeating the woi'
myself, but was only reading in
book that Swift had so repeated j
in his last sickness. The temptatiol
to communicate this nonsense wa
again strongly felt by myself, bu
was on this occasion triumphant /,
resisted, and my watcher heard iron
me all night nothing Of Dean Swif
or the word, nothing but what wa
rational, and to the point, So mucl
for the two consciousness when
can disentangle them; but there is
part OF my thoughts that hag