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303
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
72
So
far
Mr.
Galton
would
go,
but
mark
what
follows!
Everybody
allows
the
existence
of
dreams,
but
comparatively
few
believe
in
dream
stories
of
veracious
dreams.
So
every
scientific
man
believes
in
hallucinations,
{68}
but
few
believe
in
veracious
hallucinations.
A
veracious
hallucination
is,
for
our
purpose,
one
which
communicates
(as
veracious
dreams
do)
information
not
otherwise
known,
or,
at
least,
not
known
to
the
knower
to
be
known.
The
communication
of
the
knowledge
may
be
done
by
audible
words,
with
or
without
an
actual
apparition,
or
with
an
apparition,
by
words
or
gestures.
Again,
if
a
hallucination
of
Jones's
presence
tallies
with
a
great
crisis
in
Jones's
life,
or
with
his
death,
the
hallucination
is
so
far
veracious
in
that,
at
least,
it
does
not
seem
meaningless.
Or
if
Jones's
appearance
has
some
unwonted
feature
not
known
to
the
seer,
but
afterwards
proved
to
be
correct
in
fact,
that
is
veracious.
Next,
if
several
persons
successively
in
the
same
place,
or
simultaneously,
have
a
similar
hallucination
not
to
be
accounted
for
physically,
that
is,
if
not
a
veracious,
a
curious
hallucination.
Once
more,
if
a
hallucinatory
figure
is
afterwards
recognised
in
a
living
person
previously
unknown,
or
a
portrait
previously
unseen,
that
(if
the
recognition
be
genuine)
is
a
veracious
hallucination.
The
vulgar
call
it
a
wraith
of
the
living,
or
a
ghost
of
the
dead.
Here
follow
two
cases.
The
first,
The
Family
Coach,
{69a}
gave
no
verified
intelligence,
and
would
be
styled
a
"subjective
hallucination".
The
second
contributed
knowledge
of
facts
not
previously
known
to
the
witness,
and
so
the
vulgar
would
call
it
a
ghost.
Both
appearances
were
very
rich
and
full
of
complicated
detail.
Indeed,
any
ghost
that
wears
clothes
is
a
puzzle.
Nobody
but
savages
thinks
that
clothes
have
ghosts,
but
Tom
Sawyer
conjectures
that
ghosts'
clothes
"are
made
of
ghost
stuff".
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