The Kendrick gazette. [volume] (Kendrick, Idaho) 1892-1968, 1905-07-21

>o1ored Images that Appear On Lying
Down After an Exciting Day.
There are many who will not read
.ly understand what is meant by pic
lures in the eye, unless 1t be the iinag-
lnation, or minds eye" Of Hamlet, 4
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
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 placesf
Have You newr watched them pass
ing into complicated patterns, like
those of the kaleidoscope, or into pref
y landscapes quite unknown to you,
or into strange faces, now and again
very beautiful or angelic, but often as
ugly and hideous 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 stagef These
pictures are more alive than the civ
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
ccaseless evolution, without hitch or
tremor, will be a novelty and make
the fortune of its inventor.
What are they7 1t 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 reverie
or day dream. Whether we recall
the past In our waking hours, or in
vent new incidents like a novelist, VIC
can govern them to some extent, and
are quite aware Of their fanciful or
mental character. They are not Oh
hallucination, in the proper sense of
the term. We feel they are SUBJ
jective. or within us; we suppose
them in the eye itself, whereas we
believe an hallucination is objective,
OF without us. An apparition or spec
ter that we take for reality Is an
hallucination. The ghost of Hamlets
father, witnessed by several persons,
and the spook Of his distant brother,
seen by Lord Broughanl. were prob
ably Authorizations Of "telepathic''
order. The picture Of Mlllais, where
man starts up and sees a luminous
lady at the foot of his bed, is a case
Of hallucination. The dream image
of the undergraduate, who dreamed
, that he was chased by a green figure,
= and awaking, saw 1t in his room, was
also an hallucination.
Pictures in the eye are more akin
q to what are called "after images" A
a gentleman "a doctor, II we are MOI
y mistakenly, after a fatiguang day, was
a cheered by the sight Of . beefsteah
Z for his dinner, az he very well might
|. but seemingly the steak made q deeI
K impression on his mind or his diges
o ton, for while he was browsing, witt
j. his eyes closed, after eating 1t, he saw
10 It again as wildly as before, and OF
dropping asleep he saw 1t third tim
20 in his dream. It was doubtless sub
!, stantial steak, not ghost, and yet
n haunted him.
N There is, of course, more than on
s. theory of these living pictures in tn
le eye, or, as they are called in science
80 "hypnogogic images" One is tina
Of they are formed on the retina of tn
is eye and confined to it. Another
OF that they are purely mental an
1e formed in the cortex, or bark, SO I
y. speak, of the cerebrum. AS ofte
al happens, the truth appears to lie in
ID combination Of both views. Recent 81
ei servations Of M. Yves Delage hav
10 put the question to experiment;
proof. When we look at brigt
u. body, for example, the sun, and shr
U. our eyes, we see colored spot {
VI light, and If we move the eye up
100 down, to right or left, the spot move
rs with 1t. The spot, in fact. is left :
o. the image Of the sun upon the retin
~ and therefore moves with 1t. Now,
IN the hypnogogic images are on Il
,or retina, they also will move with Il
10 eve, and this is what M. Delage hi
found. Nevertheless, the brain all
comes into play in forming them.