Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/299

IX. NOTES. A NOTE ON HYPNAGOGIC PARAMNESIA. The phenomenon which I am about to record is a simple one, and may be familiar to many. My own experience of it has, however, sug- gested various points concerning the connexion between sleeping con- sciousness and abnormal waking consciousness dreams and paramnesia or " false memory " which have seemed to me new. That is my ex- cuse for this Note. I. About the middle of the night I had a very vivid dream, in which I imagined that two friends a gentleman and his daughter with a certain Lord Chesterfield (I had lately been reading the Letters of the famous Lord Chesterfield) were together at an hotel, that they were playing with weapons, that the lady accidentally killed or wounded Lord Chesterfield, and that she then changed clothes with him with the object of escaping, and avoiding discovery which would somehow be dangerous. I was informed of the matter, however, and was much concerned. I awoke, and my first thought was that I had just had a curious dream which I must not forget in the morning. But then I seemed to remember that it was a real and familiar event. This second thought lulled my mental activity, and I went to sleep again. In the morning I was able to recall the main points in my dream, and my thoughts on awaking from it. Since then I have given attention to the point, and I have found on recalling my half -waking consciousness after dreams that, while it is doubtless rare to catch the assertion, " That really occurred," it is less rare to catch the vague assertion, " That is the kind of thing that does occur ". I find that this latter impression appears like the former after vivid dreams which contain no physical impossibility but which the full waking consciousness refuses to recognise as among the things that are probable. This phenomenon has long been known, though I am not aware that it has attracted much attention. Brierre de Boismont pointed out that certain vivid dreams are not recognised as dreams, but are taken for reality even after waking. Moll compares such dreams, thus continued into waking life, to continuative post-hypnotic suggestions. In a recent " Study of the Dream Consciousness," by Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam (American Journal of Psychology, April, 1896), one of the subjects found that probable dreams are sometimes " mistaken during a short time for the actual ". In insanity, as many alienists have shown, this mistake is sometimes permanent, and the dream becomes an integral and persistent part of waking life.