Man is predominantly a visual animal. To him seeing is believing,—a saying which in canine parlance might readily become smelling is believing. We teach by illustrations, models, and object-lessons, and reduce complex relations to the curves of the graphic method, to bring home and impress our statements. Our every-day language, as well as the imagery of poetry, abounds in metaphors and similes appealing to images which the eye has taught us to appreciate. The eye is also the medium of impressions of Æsthetic as well as of intellectual value; and one grand division of art is lost to those who cannot see. The eye, too, forms the centre of emotional expression, and reveals to our fellow-men the subtile variations in mood and passion, as it is to the physician a delicate index of our well-being. There are reasons for believing that it was the function of sight as a distance-sense that led to its supremacy in the lives of our primitive ancestors. Whatever its origin, the growth of civilization has served to develop this eye-mindedness of the race, and to increase and diversify the modes of its cultivation.
The eye, thus constantly stimulated in waking life, and attracting to its sensations the focus of attention, possessing, as it does, in the retinal fovea a special and unique aid to concentrative attention, does not yield up its supremacy in the world of dreams. The visual centres subside but slowly from their day's stimulation; and the rich stock of images which these centres have stored up is completely at the service of the fancy that guides our dreams. Indeed, the dream itself is spoken of as a vision.
Though, as a race, we are eye-minded, individually we differ much with regard to the rÔle that sight plays in our psychic life. In one direction a good index of its importance is to be found in the perfection of the visualizing faculty, of which Mr. Galton has given an interesting account. He asked various persons to describe, amongst other things, the vividness of their mental picture when calling to mind the morning's breakfast-table. To some the mental scene was as clear and as natural as reality, lacking none of the details of form or color; to others the resulting mental image was tolerably distinct, with the conspicuous features well brought out, but the rest dim and ill-defined; while a third group could only piece together a very vague, fragmentary, and unreliable series of images, with no distinct or constant picture.
Similar differences are observable with regard to memories. Some persons firmly retain what they read, while the memory forte of others is in what they hear; and pathology supports this subdivision of the sense-memories by showing, for example, that all remembrance for seen objects may be lost while that for sounds remains intact. A case, remarkable in several aspects, is recorded by M. Charcot. The subject in question could accurately call up, in full detail, all the scenes of his many travels, could repeat pages of his favorite authors from the mental picture of the printed page, and by the same means could mentally add long columns of numbers. The mere mention of a scene in a play, or of a conversation with a friend, immediately brought up a vivid picture of the entire circumstance. Through nervous prostration he lost this visual memory. An attempt to sketch a familiar scene now resulted in a childish scrawl; he remembered little of his correspondence, forgot the appearance of his wife and friends, and even failed to recognize his own image in a mirror. Yet his eyesight was intact and his intellect unimpaired. In order to remember things he had now to have them read aloud to him, and thus bring into play his undisturbed auditory centre—to him an almost new experience.
The function of vision in dreams is doubtless subject to similar individual variations, though probably to a less extent. Seeing, with rare exceptions, constitutes the typical operation in dreams; it is this sense, too, that, under the influence of drugs or of other excitement, is most readily stimulated into morbid action, and most easily furnishes the basis of delusions and hallucinations to a disordered mind. The dependence of the nature and content of dreams upon the waking experiences is so clearly proven that it would be surprising not to find in them the individual characteristics of our mental processes; and if Aristotle is right in saying that in waking life we all have a world in common but in dreams each has a world of his own, we may look to the evidence of dream-life for indications of unrestrained and distinctive psychological traits.
II
With regard to the blind, much of what has been said above is entirely irrelevant. However intimately we appreciate the function of sight in our own mental development, it is almost impossible to imagine how different our life would have been had we never seen. But here, at the outset, a fundamental distinction must be drawn between those blind from birth or early infancy, and those who lose their sight in youth or adult life.[13] "It is better to have seen and lost one's sight than never to have seen at all," is quite as true as the sentiment which this form of statement parodies. Expressed physiologically, this means, that to have begun the general brain-building process with the aid of the eye insures some further self-development of the visual centre, and thus makes possible a kind of mental possession of which those born blind are inevitably deprived.[14]
A fact of prime importance regarding the development of the sight-centre is the age at which its education is sufficiently completed to enable it to continue its function without further object-lessons on the part of the retina. If we accept as the test of the independent existence of the sight-centre its automatic excitation in dreams, the question can be answered by determining the age of the onset of blindness, which divides those who do not from those who still retain in their dream-life the images derived from the world of sight. The data that enable me to answer this question were gathered at the Institutions for the Blind in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Nearly 200 persons of both sexes were personally examined, and their answers to quite a long series of questions recorded. All dates and ages were verified by the register of the institution, and the degree of sight was tested.
Beginning with cases of total blindness (including under this head those upon whom light has simply a general subjective "heat-effect," enabling them to distinguish between night and day, between shade and sunshine, but inducing little or no tendency to project the cause of the sensation into the external world), I find on my list fifty-eight such cases. Of these, thirty-two became blind before the completion of their fifth year, and not one of this group of thirty-two sees in dreams. Six became blind between the fifth and the seventh year: of these, four have dreams of seeing, but two of them do so seldom and with some vagueness; while two never dream of seeing at all. Of twenty persons who became blind after their seventh year all have "dream-vision"—as I shall term the faculty of seeing in dreams. The period from the fifth to the seventh year is thus indicated as the critical one. Before this age the visual centre is undergoing its elementary education; its life is closely dependent upon the constant food-supply of sensations; and when these are cut off by blindness, it degenerates and decays. If blindness occurs between the fifth and the seventh years, the preservation of the visualizing power depends on the degree of development of the individual. If the faculty is retained, it is neither stable nor pronounced. If sight is lost after the seventh year, the sight-centre can, in spite of the loss, maintain its function; and the dreams of such an individual may be hardly distinguishable from those of a seeing person.
It was a very unexpected discovery, to find, after I had planned and partly completed this investigation, that I had a predecessor. So long ago as 1838, Dr. G. Heermann studied the dreams of the blind with the view of determining this same question, the physiological significance of which, however, was not then clearly understood. He records the answers of fourteen totally blind persons who lost their sight previous to their fifth year, and none of these has dream-vision. Of four who lost their sight between the fifth and the seventh year, one has dream-vision; one has it dimly and occasionally; and two do not definitely know. Of thirty-five who became blind after their seventh year all have dream-vision. The two independent researches thus yield the very same conclusion. Dr. Heermann includes in his list many aged persons, and from their answers is able to conclude that, generally speaking, those who become blind in mature life retain the power of dream-vision longer than those who become blind nearer the critical age of five to seven years. He records twelve cases where dream-vision still continues after a blindness of from ten to fifteen years, four of from fifteen to twenty years, four of from twenty to twenty-five years, and one of thirty-five years. In one case dream-vision was maintained for fifty-two, and in another for fifty-four years, but then faded out.[15]
With regard to the partially blind, the question most analogous to the persistence of dream-vision after total blindness, is whether or not the dream-vision is brighter and clearer than that of waking life; whether the sight-centre maintains the full normal power to which it was educated, or whether the partial loss of sight has essentially altered and replaced it. To this rather difficult question I have fewer and less satisfactory answers than to the former inquiry; but the evidence is perfectly in accord with the previous conclusions. Of twenty-three who describe their dream-vision as only as clear as waking sight, all became blind not later than the close of their fifth year; while of twenty-four whose dream-vision is more or less markedly clearer than their partial sight, all lost their full sight not earlier than their sixth year.[16] The age that marks off those to whom total blindness carries with it the loss of dream-vision from those whose dream-vision continues, is thus the age at which the sight-centre has reached a sufficient stage of development to enable it to maintain its full function, when partially or totally deprived of retinal stimulation. The same age is also assigned by some authorities as the limiting age at which deafness will cause muteness (unless special pains be taken to prevent it); while later the vocal organs, though trained to action by the ear, can perform their duties without the teacher's aid. This, too, is assigned as the earliest age at which we have a remembrance of ourselves. This last statement I am able to test by one hundred answers, collected among these blind persons, to the question, "What is your earliest remembrance of yourself?" The average age to which these memories go back is 5.2 years; seventy-nine instances being included between the third and the sixth years. At this period of child development—the centre of which is at about the close of the fifth year—there seems to be a general declaration of independence of the sense-centres from their food-supply of sensations. Mr. Sully finds sense, imagination, and abstraction to be the order in which the precocity of great men reveals itself; and the critical period which we are now considering seems to mark the point at which imagination and abstraction as permanent mental powers ordinarily come into play. M. Perez likewise recognizes the distinctive character of this era of childhood by making the second part of his "Child Psychology" embrace the period from the third to the seventh year.
III
The general fact thus brought to light—that the mode in which a brain-centre will function depends so largely upon its initial education, but that, this education once completed, the centre can maintain its function, though deprived of sense-stimulation—is sufficiently important to merit further illustration.[17] This fact, though very clear and evident when stated from a modern point of view, has not always been recognized. So ingenious a thinker as Erasmus Darwin inferred from two cases (the one of a blind man, the other of a deaf-mute) in which the wanting senses were also absent in dreams, that the peripheral sense-organ was necessary for all perception, subjective as well as objective; and entirely neglected the age at which the sense was lost. Such noted physiologists as Reil, Rudolphi, Hartman, Wardrop (who says, "when an organ of sense is totally destroyed, the ideas which were received by that organ seem to perish along with it as well as the power of perception"), more or less distinctly favored this view; while some teachers of the blind and the physiologists Nasse and Autentreith rightly drew the distinction between those born, and those who became, blind. An experimental demonstration of the original dependence of the perceptive and emotional powers upon sense-impressions was furnished by Boffi and Schiff, who found that young dogs whose olfactory bulbs had been removed failed to develop any affection for man.
What is true of the visual, is doubtless equally true of the other perceptive centres. The dreams of the deaf-mute offer an attractive and untouched field for such study.[18] The few accounts of such dreams that I have met with, fail to give the age at which deafness set in; in one case, however, in which deafness occurred at thirty years, the pantomimic had replaced the spoken language in the dreams of thirty years later. Similarly, cripples dream of their lost limbs for many years after their loss; in such cases, however, stimulation of the cut nerves may be the suggestive cause of such dreams. A man of forty, who lost his right arm seventeen years before, still dreams of having the arm. The earliest age of losing and dreaming about a lost limb, of which I find a record, is of a boy of thirteen years who lost a leg at the age of ten; this boy still dreams of walking on his feet. Those who are born cripples must necessarily have their defects represented in their dream consciousness. Heermann cites the case of a man born without hands, forearms, feet, or lower legs. He always dreamt of walking on his knees; and all the peculiarities of his movements were present in his dream-life.
The dreams of those both blind and deaf are especially instructive. Many of Laura Bridgman's dreams have been recorded; and an unpublished manuscript by Dr. G. Stanley Hall places at my service a valuable account of her sleep and dreams. Sight and hearing were as absent from her dreams as they were from the dark and silent world which alone she knew. The tactual-motor sensations, by which she communicated with her fellow-beings, and through which almost all her intellectual food reached her, also formed her mainstay in dreams. This accounts for the suddenness and fright with which she often waked from her dreams; she is perchance dreaming of an animal, which to us would first make itself seen or heard, but to her is present only when it touches and startles her—for she lacks any anticipatory sense. Language has become so all-important a factor in civilized life, that it naturally is frequently represented in dreams. We not only dream of speaking and being spoken to, but we actually innervate the appropriate muscles and talk in our sleep; this Laura Bridgman also did. "Her sleep seemed almost never undisturbed by dreams. Again and again she would suddenly talk a few words or letters with her fingers, too rapidly and too imperfectly to be intelligible (just as other people utter incoherent words and inarticulate sounds in sleep), but apparently never making a sentence."[19] So, too, all the people who enter into her dreams talk with their fingers. This habit had already presented itself at the age of twelve, four years after her first lesson in the alphabet. "I do not dream to talk with mouth; I dream to talk with fingers." No prettier illustration could be given of the way in which her fancy built upon her real experiences, than the fact recorded by Charles Dickens, that on picking up her doll he found across its eyes a green band such as she herself wore. The organic sensations originating in the viscera, though often prominently represented in dreams of normal persons, seemed especially prominent in her dreams. She tells of feeling her blood rush about, and of her heart beating fast when suddenly waking, much frightened, from a distressing dream. One such dream she describes as "hard, heavy, and thick;" terms which, though to us glaringly inappropriate in reference to so fairy-like a structure as a dream, form an accurate description in the language of her own realistic senses. In short, her dreams are accurately modeled upon the experiences of her waking life, reproducing in detail all the peculiarities of thought and action which a very special education had impressed upon her curious mind.
I have had the opportunity of questioning a blind and deaf young man whose life-history offers a striking contrast to that of Laura Bridgman, and illustrates with all the force of an experimental demonstration the critical educational importance of the early years of life. He was, at the time of my questioning him, twenty-three years of age, and was earning a comfortable living as a broom-maker. He had an active interest in the affairs of the world, and disliked to be considered in any way peculiar. His eyesight began to fail him in early childhood; and in his fifth year the sight of one eye was entirely lost, while that of the other was very poor. After a less gradual loss of hearing, he became completely deaf in his ninth year. At the age of twelve he was (practically) totally blind, deaf, and nearly mute. The small remnant of articulating power has been cultivated; and those who are accustomed to it can understand his spoken language. He also communicates as Laura Bridgman did, and has a further advantage over her in possessing a very acute sense of smell. He remembers the world of sight and hearing perfectly, and in a little sketch of his life which he wrote for me vividly describes the sights and sounds of his play-days. He usually dreams of seeing and hearing, though the experiences of his present existence also enter into his dreams. Some of his dreams relate to flowers which he smelled and saw; he dreamt of being upset in a boat; shortly after his confirmation he dreamt of seeing God. When he dreams of making brooms, his dream is entirely in terms of motion and feeling, not of sight. His history thus strongly emphasizes the importance which a variety of evidence attributes to the period of childhood, and perhaps especially to that from the third to the seventh year.
The remarkable powers which Helen Keller has exhibited throughout her phenomenal education give to an account of her dream life an especial interest. I am fortunate in being able to present her own account as she prepared it at my solicitation. The wealth and brilliancy of her imagination frequently lead to modes of expression which seem to brusquely contradict her sightless and soundless condition. But a careful observation of her mental activities brings out the verbal or literary character of such allusions, in certain cases essentially aided by associations with impressions of the senses that remain to her. In such cases her familiarity, through literature and through intercourse, with the experiences of the hearing and seeing and with the emotional and intellectual associations that ordinary persons might have with definite scenes or occasions, enables her to realize, and her vivid imagination to construct, a somewhat idealized account of her vicarious experiences, though perhaps real emotions. Her dream life seems in complete concordance with her waking condition; but this imaginative factor must be constantly borne in mind in reading her report of her dream life. The intrinsic interest of this human document, and the charm of the narrative, present so lifelike and almost confidential a portrayal of her world of dreams, that any elaborate comment would be unnecessary. It should be remembered that Helen Keller became totally blind and deaf at nineteen months; that her instruction began at the age of seven years; that she learned to speak orally from her eleventh year; that at present she speaks orally almost exclusively, although very proficient in the use of the finger alphabet; that she is able to understand what is said to her by placing her fingers upon the lips and throat of the speaker, but that the more expeditious and certain mode of communicating with her is by making the letters of the finger-alphabet in the palm of her hand. This latter method she uses entirely with her teacher and with all who are conversant with it. This account of her dreams was prepared in August, 1900, when she was twenty years of age; it was written off-hand by her on a type-writer, and is presented in its original form.
My Dreams
"It is no exaggeration to say that I live two distinct lives,—one in the everyday world and the other in the Land of Nod! Like most people I generally forget my dreams as soon as I wake up in the morning; but I know that when I dream I am just as active and as much interested in everything—trees, books and events—as when I am awake.
"My dreams have strangely changed during the past twelve years. Before and after my teacher first came to me, they were devoid of sound, or thought or emotion of any kind, except fear, and only came in the form of sensations. I would often dream that I ran into a still, dark room, and that, while I stood there, I felt something fall heavily without any noise, causing the floor to shake up and down violently; and each time I woke up with a jump. As I learned more and more about the objects around me, this strange dream ceased to haunt me; but I was in a high state of excitement and received impressions very easily. It is not strange then that I dreamed at that time of a wolf, which seemed to rush towards me and put his cruel teeth deep into my body! I could not speak (the fact was, I could only spell with my fingers), and I tried to scream; but no sound escaped from my lips. It is very likely that I had heard the story of Red Riding Hood, and was deeply impressed by it. This dream, however, passed away in time, and I began to dream of objects outside of myself.
"I never spelled with my fingers in my sleep; but I have often spoken, and one night I actually laughed. I was dreaming of a great frolic with my schoolmates at the Perkins Institution. But, if I do not use the manual alphabet in my dreams, my friends sometimes spell to me. Their sentences are always brief and vague. I obtain information in a very curious manner, which it is difficult to describe. My mind acts as a sort of mirror, in which faces and landscapes are reflected, and thoughts, which throng unbidden in my brain, describe the conversation and the events going on around me.
"I remember a beautiful and striking illustration of the peculiar mode of communication I have just mentioned. One night I dreamed that I was in a lovely mansion, all built of leaves and flowers. My thoughts declared the floor was of green twigs, and the ceiling of pink and white roses. The walls were of roses, pinks, hyacinths, and many other flowers, loosely arranged so as to make the whole structure wavy and graceful. Here and there I saw an opening between the leaves, which admitted the purest air. I learned that the flowers were imperishable, and with such a wonderful discovery thrilling my spirit I awoke.
"I do not think I have seen or heard more than once in my sleep. Then the sunlight flashed suddenly on my eyes, and I was so dazzled I could not think or distinguish anything. When I looked up, some one spelled hastily to me, 'Why, you are looking back upon your babyhood!' As to the sound I heard, it was like the rushing of a mighty cataract, and reminded me forcibly of my visit to Niagara Falls. I remembered as if it were yesterday how I had come very close to the water and felt the great roar by placing my hand on a soft pillow. Now, however, I knew I was far away from the place whence the sound came, and the vibration fell clear, though not loud, upon my eardrums; so I concluded in my sleep that I really heard. What happened next I have entirely forgotten; but in the morning I was deeply impressed by the only instance in which I had dreamed of hearing, and I wished I could go back to Dreamland, just to hear that far-off, inspiring sound.
"Occasionally I think I am reading with my fingers, either Braille or line print, and even translating a little Latin, but always with an odd feeling that I am touching forbidden fruit. Somehow I feel that the spirits of sleep are displeased if any thoughts of literature cross my mind. Still I am free to enjoy everything else—I can wander among flowers and trees and be with my friends, especially those who live at a distance from where I happen to be. Sometimes I am with my mother, and at other times with my sister Mildred. My teacher scarcely ever appears in my dreams; but I know she would very often if a cruel fate should tear her away from me. I shall never forget the morning seven or eight years ago, when I dreamed that my dear friend, Bishop Brooks, was dying. A few hours later I found that my dream was a terrible reality. It is probable that I thought of him at the very moment when he was passing away, and I certainly wept in the same manner and in the same place while I dreamed, that I did afterwards!
"I hardly ever dream of anything that has happened the day before, although I sometimes have several different dreams on the same night; nor do I dream of the same things often. However, I dream oftenest of the unpleasant and horrible, no matter how happy and successful the day may have been. Indeed, I have found it unadvisable to read terrible stories or tragedies often, or in the evening. They impress me so painfully, and retain so firm a hold of my imagination that they sooner or later force themselves into my dreams. About two years ago I read 'Sixty Years a Queen' the story of the awful massacre at Cawnpore, which took place during the Indian Mutiny. It filled me with a horror that haunted me persistently for several days. At last I managed to banish these disagreeable feelings; but one night a frightful distortion of the selfsame story appeared before my mind. I thought I was in a small prison. At first I only noticed a skeleton hanging up on one of the walls; then I felt a strange, awful sound, like heavy iron being cast down, and the most heartrending cries ensued. I was informed that twenty men were being put to death with the utmost cruelty. I rushed madly from one room to another, and, as each ruffian came out, I locked the door behind him, in the hope that some of the victims might thereby be saved. All my efforts were futile, and I awoke with a sickening horror weighing down on my heart. I have also fancied that I saw cities on fire, and brave, innocent men dragged to a fiery martyrdom. One instant I would stand in speechless bewilderment, as the flames leaped up, dark and glaring, into a black sky. The next moment I would be in the midst of the conflagration, trying to save some of the sufferers, and seeing in dismay how they slipped away beyond my power. At such times I have thought myself the most wretched person in the world; but in the morning the bright sunshine and fresh air of our own dear, beautiful world would chase away those horrible phantoms.
"On the whole, my dreams are consistent with my feelings and sympathies; but once I thought I was engaged in a great boat-race between Yale and Harvard. Now, in reality I am always on Harvard's side in the great games; but at that time I dreamed that I was a thorough Yale man! Perhaps this inconsistency arose from the fact that a long time ago I had declared how glad I was of Harvard's failure to win a certain boat-race, because the Yale men rowed with the American stroke and the Harvard men had learned the English stroke. At any rate, sleeping or waking, I love my friends, and never think they change or grow unkind. From time to time I make friends in my dreams; but usually I am too busy running around and watching other people to have any long conversations or 'reveries.'
"I am often led into pretty fantasies, of which I will give an illustration. Consternation was spread everywhere because the news had been received of King Winter's determination to establish his rule permanently in the temperate zones. The stern monarch fulfilled his threat all too soon; for, although it was mid-summer, yet the whole ocean was suddenly frozen, and all the boats and steamers were stuck fast in the ice. Commerce was ruined, and starvation was unavoidable. The flowers and trees shared in the universal sorrow, and bravely strove to keep alive through the summer. Finally, overcome by the intense cold, they dropped their leaves and blossoms, which they had kept fresh and spotless to the last. Slowly the flowers fluttered down and lay at King Winter's feet, silently supplicating him to show mercy, but all in vain. They froze unheeded, and were changed into pearls, diamonds, and turquoises.
"Another time I took it into my head to climb to the stars. I sprang up into the air, and was borne upward by a strong impulse. I could not see or hear; but my mind was my guide as well as my interpreter. Higher and higher I rose, until I was very close to the stars. Their intense light prevented me from coming any nearer; so I hung on invisible wings, fascinated by the rolling spheres and the constant play of light and shadow, which my thoughts reflected. All at once I lost my balance, I knew not how, and down, down I rushed through empty space, till I struck violently against a tree, and my body sank to the ground. The shock waked me up, and for a moment I thought all my bones were broken to atoms.
"I have said all that I can remember concerning my dreams; but what really surprises me is this; sometimes, in the midst of a nightmare, I am conscious of a desire to wake up, and I make a vigorous effort to break the spell. Something seems to hold my senses tightly, and it is only with a spasmodic movement that I can open my eyes. Even then I feel, or I think I feel, a rapid motion shaking my bed and a sound of light, swift footsteps. It seems strange to me that I should make such an effort to wake up, instead of doing it automatically."
This faithful and dramatic sketch is replete with specific as well as with generic corroborations of the distinctive results of the present inquiry. The differences between the dream experiences of Helen Keller before and after education are quite consistent with comparable results in the cases of other defectives—although dreams of her uneducated period seem to occur rarely if at all, and it is not possible to determine how soon after she began to speak, such speech-communication made its appearance in her dreams. It is interesting to note that oral speech, when once acquired, speedily superseded manual talking, and that automatic talking aloud in her sleep appeared; the finger alphabet became almost obsolete in her waking life, and likewise in her dreams. Yet the persistence of early acquired habits is strikingly shown in her occasional unconscious tendency to talk to herself by forming the letters with one hand against the palm of the other. These processes she seems to utilize quite automatically and unconsciously as aids to composition or to "thinking aloud."
In regard to the source and content of her dreams, the more realistic episodes reflect their perceptional origin in tactile and motor experiences; such are the attack of the wolf, the fall from a height, the reception of information through the palm, reading the raised print,—while dreams of flying naturally present the same elaboration of sensory elements as in normally equipped individuals. The dreams of seeing and hearing probably reflect far more of conceptual interpretation and imaginative inference than of true sensation; yet they are in part built up upon a sensory basis,—in the former case, that of the heat sensations radiating from a brilliant illumination (witness the flames of the conflagration, the "intense light" of the stars), in the latter of vibrational or jarring sensations communicated to the body (as in the torrent of Niagara). But, on the whole, the direct sensory tone of her dream life is weak; while for this very reason, possibly, the imaginative and "transferred" components are unusually dominant. The associative elaboration of fancies in dream life is rarely capable of simple analysis, and commonly reveals results, and not the processes or stages by which the results were reached. Dependent, as Helen Keller is so largely, upon the communication of others for her knowledge of what is going on about her, it is natural that this transferred communication should be important in her dream knowledge. That her consciousness of the process of such acquisition should be vague and difficult to express is natural; and the phrases "my thoughts declared," "my mind acts as a sort of mirror," "I was informed," are as satisfactory psychologically as could be expected. It is, however, in dreams not of external incidents involving vaguely transferred or directly communicated information, but in the free roamings of creative imagination, that the dream life of Helen Keller finds its most suitable mÉtier; it is in this direction that this dream narrative, reflecting, as it does, her rich emotional nature and enthusiastically sympathetic temperament, presents its most distinctive and attractive aspect.
IV
Returning to the general data regarding the dreams of the blind, the question that next suggests itself is whether and how, in cases where blindness ensued after a remembered period of vision, the pre-blindness period is distinguished from the post-blindness period in dream-imagery. It was noticed, for instance, that the blind and deaf young man mentioned above, though seeing in his dreams, never thus saw the shop in which he worked. It is easy to imagine that the more or less sudden loss of sight, the immersion into a strange and dark world, would for a time leave the individual living entirely upon the past. His remembered experiences are richer and more vivid (we are supposing his blindness to occur after childhood) than those he now has; he is learning a new language and translates everything back into the old. His dreams will naturally continue to be those of his seeing life. As his experiences in his new surroundings increase, and the memory of the old begins to fade, the tendency of recent impressions to arise in the automatism of dreaming will bring the events of the post-blindness period as factors into his dreams. I find in my list only seven who do not have such dreams; and in these the blindness has been on the average of only 2.8 years standing. The average age of "blinding" of the seven is fifteen years, making it probable that the adaptation to the new environment has here been a slow one, and that such dreams will occur later on. On the other hand, cases occur in which, after three, two, or even one year's blindness, when the persons so afflicted were young, events happening within that period have been dreamed of. Heermann cites a case of a man of seventy who never dreamed of the hospital in which he had been living for eighteen years, and to which he was brought shortly after his blindness. This and other cases suggest that the more mature and settled the brain-tissue, the more difficult is it to impress upon it new conditions sufficiently deeply to have them appear in the automatic life of dreams.
Whether there is a difference in the vividness, or any other characteristic which sight would lend, in the dreams of events before and after blindness, is a question to which I could obtain few intelligent and satisfactory answers; but, as far as they go, the tendency of these replies is to show that when blindness ensues close upon the critical period of five to seven years of age, the power of vivid dream-vision is more exclusively limited to the events of the years of full sight; and, as Heermann pointed out, this power is often subject to a comparatively early decay. Similarly, I find that those who lose their sight near the critical age are not nearly so apt to retain color in their dream-vision as those who become blind later on. The average age of "blinding" of twenty-four persons who have colored dream-vision, is 16.6 years, including one case in which blindness set in as early as the seventh year. All who see enough to see color, have colored dream-vision.
I also asked those who became blind in youth, or later, whether they were in the habit of giving imaginary faces to the persons they met after their blindness, and whether they ever saw such in their dreams. Some answered in very vague terms, but several undoubtedly make good use of this power, probably somewhat on the same basis as we imagine the appearance of eminent men of whom we have read or heard, but whose features we have never seen. When we remember how erroneous such impressions often are, we can understand how easily it may mislead the blind. Such imaginary faces and scenes also enter into their dreams, but to a less extent than into those of the sighted. Dr. Kitto[20] quotes a letter from a musician who lost his sight when eighteen years old, but who retains a very strong visualizing power both in waking life and in dreams. The mention of a famous man, of a friend, or of a scene, always carries with it a visual picture, complete and vivid. Moreover, these images of his friends are reported to change as the friends grow old; and he feels himself intellectually in no way different from the seeing.
This leads naturally to the consideration of the power of the imagination in the blind. It is not difficult to understand that they are deprived of one powerful means of cultivating this faculty, that the eye is in one sense the organ of the ideal. Their knowledge is more realistic and tangible, and so their dreams often, though by no means always, lack all poetical characteristics, and are very commonplace. Ghosts, elves, fairies, monsters, and all the host of strange romance that commonly people dreams, are not nearly so well represented as in the dreams of the sighted. What is almost typical in the dreams of the latter is unusual in the dreams of the blind, especially of those early blind. Many observe that such dreams grow rare as they outgrow their youth,[21] which is probably true of the sighted. When the blind dream of ghosts they either hear them, and that usually not until they are close at hand, or they are actually touched by them. A blind man, describing a dream in which his friend appeared to him, said: "Then I dreamt that he tried to frighten me, and make believe he was a ghost, by pushing me down sideways," etc. By some the ghost is heard only; it has a rough voice, and its bones rattle; or it pursues the victim, humming and groaning as it runs.
Contrary to the opinions of some writers, I find hearing, and not the group of tactual-motor sensations, to be the chief sense with the blind, both in waking and in dreams. That hearing owes very much of this supremacy to its being the vehicle of conversation, goes without saying. Many of the blind dream almost exclusively in this sense, and it is quite generally spoken of as the most important. Even those who see a little, often regard hearing as their most useful sense; those who see well enough to see color, almost invariably claim for their partial sight an importance exceeding that of hearing. Next in importance to hearing is the group of sensations accompanying motion. An important item in the dreams of the sighted is furnished by this complex of sensations, and the same is true of the blind; almost all remember such dreams, and some make this their most important avenue of sensation. Yet such a purely artificial movement as reading the raised type with the finger almost never occurs in dreams. The boys dream of playing, running, jumping, and so on; the men of broom-making, piano-tuning, teaching, and similar work; the girls of sewing, fancy work, household work, and the like.
There is often ascribed to the blind a somewhat mystical sense, by which they can tell the presence and even the nature of objects, and can feel their way. As far as such a power exists, it depends upon a complex group of sensations, and includes the cultivation of the irradiation sense, which we all possess. It is not at all difficult to tell whether a large object is within a few inches of the hand, by the fact that it modifies the air currents and heat radiations reaching the hand. This is especially the case if the temperature of the object be somewhat different from that of the room, or if it be an object like metal, which rapidly exchanges its heat. In sunlight the shadows of stones and posts can be thus detected; and the illumination of a room, both as to its source and extent, can be judged. This sense the blind carefully, though often unconsciously, cultivate, and I have heard it spoken of by them as "facial perception," because the face seems to be most sensitive to this kind of change. Many mention that the power fails them under the influence of a headache or similar nervousness. The question whether the position of a door, whether opened or closed, could be told at a distance was variously answered; about half testified that they could do so mainly by the aid of this facial perception. This enters in a vague way into their dreams, but seldom plays an important rÔle.
The stories attributing to the blind rather wonderful notions of color have, on careful examination, been readily explained by natural means; the use of words referring to color is often merely verbal (of this both Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller furnish many excellent examples), while the knowledge of the colors of special objects is obtained by inference, based upon texture, appropriateness, and similar characteristics. The analogies between color and sound have been frequently described within recent years. Mr. Galton has recorded many cases in which the sounds of the vowels, of words, of musical notes, and the like, immediately summon to the mental eye an appropriate color, often with a peculiar outline and shading. One person could actually read sounds out of a wall-paper pattern, or write the sounds in the name Francis Galton in colors. It seemed possible that the blind might obtain or receive some dim notions of color by a similar process; and Dr. Kitto and the blind teacher, Friedrich Scherer, mention that such is the case, though to a very slight extent. The latter calls musical instruments the bridge across which color comes to him. (He became blind when two years old.) The flute is his symbol of green, the swelling organ tones of blue. The trumpet is red, the hunter's horn dark green and violet, a general confusion of tones is gray, while pink and crimson are associated with the feeling of velvet. In my list occurs the record of a young man twenty years old, and blind for three years. He saw colors on hearing certain sounds soon after his blindness, and claims that he is thus able to keep alive his notions of color. To him an alto voice is gray; a soprano, white; a tenor, yellow; a bass, black. My own voice suggested a dark background. A few words are also colored to him; the sound of Smith seems yellow. These analogies, however, are fanciful and rare. They belong to a region of mental phenomena, of great complexity, in which associations and idiosyncracies have free play, and seem as little capable of definite explanation as much of the stuff that dreams are made of.
A brief selection of instances from the collection of dreams and parts of dreams which these blind people have put at my command, may serve to reinforce the several factors of the dream-life of the blind which have been commented upon. Many of the dreams present no special differentiation from those of the seeing, but the most carefully recorded ones usually reveal some traces of a defective or peculiar apperception. A blind boy with more than usual imagination dreamed that he was in a battle in which Alexander the Great put the Gauls to flight; he heard the thunder of the cannon, but saw no flash. A young man dreamed that his mother was dead; this he knew by the cold touch of her body. He next heard the chanting of the Mass at her funeral. This young man at times improvises airs in his dreams. A partially-sighted girl dreams repeatedly of a wide river, and is afraid of being dashed across it, while anxious to secure the flowers on the opposite bank, which she dimly sees. A boy dreamed of being picked up by some mysterious agency, and then suddenly allowed to fall from a tremendous height. Here he awoke, and found his head at the foot of the bed. Another dreamed of the Judgment Day, mainly in terms of hearing. He was drawn to heaven by a rope, clinging to a pole used for exercising; he heard the trumpets sounding, and the voices singing, and so on. One dreamed that he was on a steamboat which suddenly sank, whereupon he quietly walked ashore. Another, that his father saw some wild people in the water, and swam out and rescued them; another, of a large conflagration, of which he saw nothing, but was constantly receiving reports from the bystanders. A girl dreamed that she was sent by her aunt to get a loaf of bread from the cellar, and was cautioned not to step too far down in the cellar, because there was water there; upon arriving at the dangerous place she stood still, and called for her aunt. Another dreamed of chivalry, as the result of reading "Ivanhoe;" another of visiting Lincoln and being much impressed with the strangeness of the place; another of her examination in physics—she placed a piece of glass on her finger, and showed its centre of gravity, when the glass fell and broke with a crash; on another occasion she dreamed that she was sick, went to the doctor, and recovered her full sight, and things looked strange and unfamiliar when compared with the knowledge she had derived from touch.
V
The study of the dreams of the blind thus emphasizes many points of interest in the nature and development of the cortical centres of the human brain; it graphically illustrates the explanatory power of the modern view of their functions; and it presents in a new aspect certain characteristics of their constitution. It shows beyond a question that the power of apperceiving sight-images is in no true sense innate, but is the product of slow development and long training. That the same holds true of other centres is proved by a mass of evidence gathered from many quarters; with regard to the motor centres, it is even experimentally determined by the observation that stimulation of the central convolutions of the brains of puppies fails to excite the appropriate movements of the legs, unless the puppies are already nine or ten days old. These facts will be utilized in the formulation of an important developmental law applicable alike to physiological and to psychological processes.
The "critical period," revealed by the above research, must not be understood as marking the point at which the visual centre begins its life; this indeed occurs at a much earlier age, and this centre from the outset and continuously increases in complexity and stability. Nor was the statement made that there was no difference here relevant, between the loss of vision at different ages before the critical period. That a child who has seen up to the fourth, or the third, or even the second year of life, probably retains some traces of visualizing not attainable by those who attended the school of vision for a shorter time or not at all, is believed on evidence of a general, but not as yet of a specific nature. Among other facts it is indicated by the influence of the age of blinding on the future development of noted blind persons. Similarly, after the critical period, the same processes of growth and assimilation continue, as is evidenced by the vague character and comparatively early decay of the dream-vision of those becoming blind close upon the end of the seventh year. The more time spent in gathering in the provisions, the longer do they hold out. The significance of the critical period lies in its demonstrating a point in the growth of the higher sense-centres, at which a divorce from sense-impression is no longer followed by a loss of their psychical meaning; a point at which imagination and abstraction find a sufficiently extended and firmly knit collection of experiences to enable them to build up and keep alive their important functions; a point where the scholar dispenses with the object-lesson and lives off his capital; a point at which the scaffolding may be torn down and the edifice will stand.
The indication of such a period in the development of the human mind brings clearly into view the dependence of the higher mental processes upon the basis furnished them by the experiences of sensation; it strongly suggests a rational order and proportion in the training of the several faculties of the child's mind; and finally, it prevents the formation and survival of false notions, by substituting certain definite though incomplete knowledge for much indefinite though very systematic speculation.
