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Speaking of head noises and imaginary voices, I have an idea that there are deaf men who took these things too seriously and came to think that such noises appear to all. This led to a condition which made it something of a trial to live with them. They have been railroaded off to some “sanitarium” or asylum, even though they may be entirely sane. I have met deaf men who realize all this, and therefore, as they express it, they “will not tell all they know.” I am convinced that for this reason much that might be valuable to the psychologist is lost to the world.

Another strangely interesting point in this connection is that the deaf hear perfectly in dreams. Even considering dream psychology, this is to me the most curious phenomenon of the condition. In dreams I seem to meet my friends just as in waking hours, and I hear their conversation, even to a whisper. I also hear music, but it is entirely of the old style which I heard as a young man, before my hearing failed. Unfortunately (or otherwise) the modern “jazz” and rag-time tunes mean nothing to me; I have never heard a note of them. In dreams I hear grand operas and songs of the Civil War and the following decade; these last are plaintive melodies for the most part, for New England, when I was a young man, was full of “war orphans,” who largely dictated the music of the period. But even in sleep, listening as easily as anyone to this old music or to the voices of friends, the thought comes to me constantly that I am really deaf, and that all this riot of music and conversation is abnormal. The psychological explanation that here is a dream struggle between a great desire and the fact which thwarts it in real life sounds plausible enough, but the deaf man still must ponder on the profound mystery of his dream-life. I do not know just how common this dream music or sleep conversation may be among the deaf. I am told that some deaf people rarely, if ever, have this experience, while others tell very remarkable stories of what comes to them in sleep. It must be understood that I am merely giving my own personal experience, without trying to record the general habit of the deaf.