perception ofbodily realities is set up, when it occurs in the body. lf, you see, it is
Book XII 487 ones that are held up to it; and if it throws them up itself, they are imaginative fancies, while if it is gazing at ones held up to it they are showings.
Finally, when the eyes are sightless or have been put out, visions of this sort do not occur, because the cause is not in the base of the brain which governs attention to sense perceptions, although in this case too an obstacle to the obser vation of bodily realities is put there by the body. The blind, in fact, see things more when asleep than when awake; when they are asleep, after all, the sensory channel in the brain which leads the attention to the eyes is stilled, and for that reason the attention is turned away to something else and observes the things seen in dreams as if specific kinds of bodies were actually present, so that the sleeper seems to himself to be awake, and thinks that he is seeing actual bodies, not just bodily likenesses. But when the blind are awake, the intention of seeing is led along those routes, and on coming to the place of the eyes is unable to reach out to the world outside, but has to stop there; so while knowing they are awake they feel they are in greater darkness by staying awake even in the daytime, than by going to sleep whether in the day or at night.
I mean, even those of us who are not blind frequently sleep with our eyes open, seeing nothing through them—but not thereby simply seeing nothing, since we are observing the stuff of dreams in the spirit. lf on the other hand we have our eyes closed while awake, we are not receiving the visions of either the sleeping or the waking state. However, the fact that the sensory channel from the brain, being neither stilled nor disturbed nor blocked off, reaches our eyes and conducts the soul's intention as far as these doors of the body, closed though they be, means that we can indeed think about the images of bodies without in any way mistaking them for real bodies that are perceived through the eyes.
43. The only thing that makes a difference is where the hindrance to the perception ofbodily realities is set up, when it occurs in the body. lf, you see, it is set up in the actual outlets and so to say doorways of the senses, like the eyes, the ears and the other senses of the body, only the perception of bodily realities is hindered, while the soul's attention is not diverted elsewhere in such a way that it will take the images of bodies for the bodies themselves.
But ifthe cause is inside, in the brain, from which the channels are directed to the perception of things outside, then this means the stilling or disturbing or blocking off of the very agencies with which the soul is striving to observe or perceive things in the world outside. But since it does not just abandon its yearning for them, it proceeds to fashion their likenesses with such accuracy and vividness that it is incapable of telling the difference between them and these images of them, and so does not know whether it is among these or those; and when it does know, it is in a way quite other than when it is mulling over the like nesses of bodies that occur in its thoughts, a way that can only be grasped by those who have experienced it. Thus it was, you see, that once in my sleep l knew l was seeing things in a dream, and yet did not distinguish those likenesses of