Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Cox, Edward W. (Edward William), 1809-1879.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The physical process is very interesting. The two branches of the nerves of vision which run to the eyes unite and a single nerve thread (which, however, is pro- bably not one but the two sheathed together) joins the ganglion at the base of the brain in which all the nerves of the senses converge. Upon this ganglion rest ^ the two brain hemispheres and thus it is that this ganglion com- municates with and as it were unites the action of the two brains. Thus the impression made on the nerves of the senses are communicated to both brains and impart to the Conscious Self the sensation which we call, as the case may be, a sight, a sound, a feeling, a smell, a taste, all of which, although we are accustomed to attribute them to external objects as their cause, are only sensations in ourselves produced by the presence of those objects. Thus it is that, although when an object of sight is presented to the two organs of vision the sensations as of two pictures are brought by the nerve to the brain, the impres- sion made upon the Conscious Self is of one impression only. So admirably are the double organs adjusted to each other. That so it is we discover unpleasantly when disease or accident destroys this nice adjustment. You can find it for yourselves in a moment, as I have already said, by closing one eye at a time when looking at one object. The loss, temporary or permanent, of one eye does not destroy the sight; but we see less perfectly—less roundly, as it were; the difference being precisely that of a picture seen through the spectroscope and the same picture seen without the aid of the adjusting glass. Precisely thus it is with our two brains. They act together as do the two eyes. In health, their relationship is so perfectly adjusted that the Conscious Self is unconscious of the double action. But in abnormal conditions the two [168]