This paper deals briefly with a few clinical observations made in the course of studies of changes in subjective experience reported by young patients in the early stages of schizophrenia. These studies aimed at delineating the early schizophrenic clinical picture in as specific a manner as possible with a view to later experimental validation, and the clinical findings concerning a group of forty young schizophrenics have been reported elsewhere (Chapman, 1966). The observations on which this paper is based were obtained by the same method of examination and interview technique as previously reported, the observer deliberately identifying with the patient, adopting his particular style of communication and encouraging him in the direct projection of his experiences. Thus these observations have been taken out of a matrix of abnormalities in cognitive function found in schizophrenic patients, and have to do chiefly with their visual imagery and motility. Before proceeding to present and discuss these observations it may be worth while to provide a background against which to view them, by referring first to what we know of normal imagery, and second to the breakdown in perception and cognition found in the patients from whom these observations were derived.