Note 62 — Chapter VI

Griesinger remarks that the forms of the hallucinations of the insane rarely depend on sense-disturbances alone. Though these are often the starting-point, it is the whole mental complexion of the time which gives the direction to the imagination. The common experience of seeing rats and mice running about during a fit of delirium tremens very well illustrates the co-operation of peripheral impressions not usually attended to, and possibly magnified by the morbid state of sensibility of the time (in this case flying spots, muscæ volitantes), with emotional conditions. (See Griesinger, loc. cit., p. 96.)