The Kennewick courier. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1905-1914, 1905-07-21
LIVING PICTURES IN THE EYE


O0Aoreo Images that Appear On Lying
Down After an Exciting Day.
There are many who will not read
lily understand what Is meant by pic
lures IN the eye, unless It be the imag-
ination, or minds eye," Of Hamlet,
for the power of seeing them is not
conferred on all alike. Even those
who have seen them from time to
time, and probably given them little
heed, may not feel altogether sure
about the matter without a word of
explanation.
Lying in bed, after a firing or ex.
citing day, with your eyes closed, and
about to fall asleep, have you never
seen. apparently In the eyeball, spots
and streaks Of colored light, changing
their forms and shifting their places?
Have you never watched them pass
Ing into complicated patterns, like
those of the kaleidoscope, or into pref
ty landscapes quite unknown to you,
OF Into strange faces, now and again
very beautiful or angelic, but often as
ugly and h1deous as COLLINS from the
Internal regions, or, haply, into scenes
OF action reminding you Of the
drama, but such as you never saw in
real life or upon any stage? These
pictures are more alive than the lily
Ing pictures" Of the music halls
They have the hues Of life or art, and
rival the quick change artist in their
Frotean transformations. The AMI
matograph that can initiate their
ceaseless evolution. without q hitch or
tremor, will be a novelty and make
the fortune Of its inventor.
What are they7 It is one Of the
mysteries Of that marvellous, nay,
miraculous, organ, the brain. We
must distinguish them from other
mysteries of the "borderland" which
lies between the adjoining states Of
wideawake and sound asleep.
They are not the images of a reverie
or day dream. Whether we recall
the past in our waking hours, or in
vent new incidents like a novelist, we
can govern them to some extent, and
are quite aware Of their fanciful or
mental character. They are not al
hallucinaton, in the proper sense OF
the term. We feel they are sub
jective, or within US; we suppose
them in the eye itself, whereas we
believe an hauucination is objective,
or without US. An apparition or spec
ter that we take for a reality is an
hallucination. The ghost Of Hamlet's
father, witnessed BY several persons,
and the spook Of his distant brother,
seen by Lord Broughan,. were prob
ably hallucinaHons Of a ''telepathic"
order. The picture Of Millais, where
a man starts up and sees a luminous
lady at the foot Of his bed, is a case
Of hallucinaton. The dream image"
Of the undergraduate, who dreamed
that he was chased by a green figure,
and awaking, saw it in hts room, was
also an hallucination.
Pictures in the eye are more akin
to what are called latter images" A
gentleman "a doctor, If we are not
mistakenly, after a fatigutng day, was
chesred by the sight Of q beefsteak
for his dinner, as he very we'll might,
but seemingly the steak made a deep
impression on his mind or his diges-
ton, for while he was browsing, with
his eyes closed, after eating 1t, he saw
it again as wildly as before, and OH
dropping asleep he saw It third time
in hts dream. It was doubtless a sub
stantial steak, not a ghost, and yet 1t
haunted him.
There Is, Of course, more than ono
theory Of these living pictures in tbs
eye, or, as they are called in science.
"hypnogog1c images" One 1s that
they are formed on the retina Of the
eye and confined to it. Another is
that they are purely mental and
formed in the cortex, or bark, 80 to
speak, Of the cerebrum. AS often
happens, the truth appears to lie in q
combination Of both views. Recent OBJ
servations Of M. Yves Delage have
put the question to experimental
proof. When We look at bright
body, for example, the sun, and shut
our eyes, we see a colored spot Of
light, and II we move the eye up Or
down. to right or left, the spot moves
with It The spot, in fact. is left by
the image Of the sun upon the retna,
and therefore moves with it. Now, If
the hypnogogic images are on the
retina, they also will move with the
eye, and this Is what M. Delage has
found. Nevertheless, the brain also
comes into play in forming them.
Merely a Suggestion.
"And now" said Mrs. Chatterton,
q fter handing her husband q One-sided