itself is proved by the fact that my memory retains an impression, and
an accurate one, of virtually everything that befell me, except when
under the influence of an anaesthetic or in the unconscious hours of
undisturbed sleep. Important events, trifling conversations, and more
trifling thoughts of my own are now recalled with ease and accuracy;
whereas, prior to my illness and until a strange experience to be
recorded later, mine was an ordinary memory when it was not noticeably
poor. At school and in college I stood lowest in those studies in which
success depended largely upon this faculty. Psychiatrists inform me
that it is not unusual for those suffering as I did to retain accurate
impressions of their experiences while ill. To laymen this may seem
almost miraculous, yet it is not so; nor is it even remarkable.
Assuming that an insane person's memory is capable of recording
impressions at all, remembrance for one in the torturing grip of
delusions of persecution should be doubly easy. This deduction is in
accord with the accepted psychological law that the retention of an
impression in the memory depends largely upon the intensity of the
impression itself, and the frequency of its repetition. Fear to speak,
lest I should incriminate myself and others, gave to my impressions the
requisite intensity, and the daily recurrence of the same general line
of thought served to fix all impressions in my then supersensitive
memory.

Shortly before seven in the morning, on the way to the sanatorium, the
train passed through a manufacturing center. Many workmen were lounging
in front of a factory, most of them reading newspapers. I believed
these papers contained an account of me and my crimes, and I thought
everyone along the route knew who I was and what I was, and that I was
on that train. Few seemed to pay any attention to me, yet this very
fact looked to be a part of some well-laid plan of the detectives.