The patient who has hyperaesthesia fears to touch a perfectly smooth surface, or he takes a knock at the door to be a clap of thunder.

The hypochondriac may, through an increase of organic sensibility, translate organic sensations as the effect of some living creature gnawing at his vitals.

Again, states of anaesthesia lead to odd illusions among the insane.

The common supposition that the body is dead, or made of wood or of glass, is clearly referable in part to lowered sensibility of the organism.[32] It is worth adding, perhaps, that these variations in sensibility give rise not only to sensory but also to motor illusions.

To take a homely instance, the last miles of a long walk seem much longer than the first, not only because the sense of fatigue leading us to dwell on the transition of time tends to magnify the apparent duration, but because the fatigued muscles and connected nerves yield a new set of sensations which constitute an exaggerated standard of measurement.