The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-05-24
PSUEDO MEMORY.
IT'S MANIFESTATIONS AND CAUSES
THAT ARE ASSIGNED.

An Irishman once referred to what has
been called pseudo memory as the memory
that he had of things that never happened
to him, but more exact definition tells
us that it consists in the belief that a new
state has been previously experienced, so
that when the state Is produced for the
first time it seems familiar. Or, as Wen
dell Holmes says, "All at once conviction
flashes upon us that we have been in the
same precise circumstances as at the pres
ent instant once or many times before"
sort of feeling that makes some people
think they are ghosts. He adds jocularly
that the feeling cannot be the memory of
previous state of existence, for he gives
the case of student who, when backing
his shoes, had the conviction that he had
often done so before, and he mentions as
an explanation the fact of the brain being
a double organ. One side of the brain re-
ceives the impression before the other, and
in the second case there is the memory of
the first impression. But to this view 1t
may be objected that there is a conviction
that the former state was experienced a
long time before, sometimes too, with the
belief that it occurred in n remote and 9TH
erwise forgotten past. Sometimes, no
NpNpVi iiNlO an VI
dreams. The latter is most often the case
when some incident during the day recalls
q dream of the previous night that had
been forgotten on awakening in the morn
ing. Another explanation founded on the
theory of hereditary memory is not impos-
sible. This would include the case of the
student who blacked his shoes. From a
scientific point of view this explanation is
perfectly rational.
A memory of things that our ancestors
have done is consistent with strict reason
ing and we have something almost
amounting to memory of this kind in the
case of animals Darwin tells of dogs that
were taken to Central America and taught
to hunt deer in n particular way, and the
progeny of these dogs, when they were
taken out without their parents, hunted
at once according to the particular method
without being trained
This kind of memory occurs in different
forms A sudden turn of the road in %
strange country brings us face to face
with landscape that seems familiar
Meeting a person for the first time, we
feel as if we had already seen him. Read
ing "a book that we have never seen before,
the thoughts or the language, or both,
seem as if they had already been presented
to the mind. Again, a funeral service, a
procession or some pageant, all at once the
whole scene seems familiar.
Many remarkable cases of this kind o.
memory are told. An inhabitant of New
| England, when on visit to England.
went to see the home of his ancestors. he
| thought he recognized the village church
and the landscape, but he believed he must
| have seen picture of them before. How
ever on passing through the churchyard
his attention was especially attracted by a
tombstone on which the name inscribed
seemed familiar. On inquiry he discovered
| that the young girl who was buried there
| had been engaged to one of his ancestors,
| who, according to an account given in q
book written on the family, used often tc
nav visits to the tomb of his loved one
Hereditary memory is the only clew N
this case, if we except a vivid imagina
! ton. A similar story Is told OF York
shireman who went on visit to Somerset
! and there recognized and remembered wei
J hunting the red deer. He had never done
so himself before, but his father had hunt
ed the red deer in Somerset for severa
years in the early part of his life.
A celebrated artist tells "a story OF how
when he was playing with pencil and pa
! per, he suddenly began to draw portrai
of a face that he seemed to remember. Blu
he never discovered the original untl
when, on visit to country house, IN
discovered the face among the portraits q
the ancestors of the family. On inquiry h
found that his grandfather had once beef
| engaged to be married TO the girl, but ha'
been obliged to give her up on the pressur
of her relatives
DIR. Arnold Pick tells of a man who hat
chronic attacks of pseudo memory. Wheu
eyer he was present at social gathering
or visited any place that was new to him
the incident, with all it's familiar circum
stances. appeared so familiar that he wa
convinced of having received the same I'm
pressions before or having been surround
ed with the same objects under the sam
conditions of weather, etc. If he under
took any new occupation, he seemed Z
have gone through 1t at some previou
time and under similar conditions. I'M
feeling sometimes appeared at the time
sometimes at the end of few hours, an
sometimes not until the next day, but al
ways with great distinctness. In this cas-
an explanation may perhaps he found L
the mans possession of very powerful
imagination, which, being constantly eS
ercised on q number Of possible situa
tions, led to the recognition afterward
similarities in actual experience.
As an examination in other cases 1t ma
be that there is an actual memory of event
that occurred in early childhood and n
manned for long time forgotten by On
individual himself and his friends. Cal
penter tells of clergyman who went VIII
a party of friends to visit castle that n
did not remember he had ever seen before
AS he approached the gateway he becam
conscious of very vivid impression
: having seen it previously, and he SCENE
70 himself to see not only the gateway Il
: self. but also donkeys beneath the arc
and people on the top of 1t, and 1t was &c
some time in the belief that he was tf
victim of delusion or prank OF memor!
until, on inquiring of his mother, she II II
formed him that when he was IL montf
old she had gone to the castle with iare
party and taken him In the pannier OF
donkey, and that the elders of the part!
having brought luncheon with them' o.
It on the roof of the gateway.
Child study.