Greek and Roman Hallucinations

W.V. Harris, in W.V. Harris (ed.), Mental Disorders in the Classical World (Brill, 2013).

Excerpt: One possible approach to studying mental disorders in antiquity is to take relatively familiar symptoms and consider how the ancients understood them (without any assumptions that the symptoms were completely identical). Hallucinations are an obvious case to choose, since the evidence, though not voluminous, is fairly extensive. A major aim should be to see how much ancient understanding of hallucinatory experiences evolved — or at least changed. Another aim should be to trace the connections and disconnections between co-existing ancient viewpoints, those of physicians versus lay-people, those of the educated versus those of the uneducated, those of the ultra-religious versus those of the more skeptical. An added dividend is that such an investigation will necessarily take us on a tour of some interestingly thorny historical problems such as Socrates’ experience of a disembodied voice, and the resurrection of Jesus. …