Part 25

Much attention has recently been paid to automatic writing, or the unconscious indication of the _nature_, not merely the _direction_ of one's thoughts, while the attention is elsewhere engaged. I attempted this upon the automatograph by asking the subject to view or think of some letter or geometric figure, and then searching the record for some trace of the letter or figure; but always with a negative result. While unsuccessful in this sense, the records prove of value in furnishing a salient contrast to the experiments in which the attention was fixed in a definite direction. For example, the subject is thinking of the letter O; he does not think of it as in any special place, and the record (Fig. 26) likewise reveals no movement in any one direction. Two records are shown quite similar in significance, and illustrating as well the difference between the movements while standing and while sitting.

VI

There have thus been passed in review a variety of involuntary movements obtained in different ways, and with bearings upon many points of importance to the psychologist. They by no means exhaust the possibilities of research, or the deduction of conclusions in this field of study; but they may serve to illustrate how subtle and intricate are the expressions of the thoughts that lie within. That involuntary movements are by no means limited to the type here illustrated is easily shown. In the exhibitions of muscle-reading, the changes in breathing, the flushing, the tremor of the subject when the reader approaches the hiding-place, and the relative relaxation when he is on the wrong scent, serve as valuable clues; to borrow the apt expression of "hide and seek," the performer grows "hot" and "cold" with his subject. Then, too, the tentative excursions in one direction and another, to determine in which the subject follows with least resistance, present another variation of the same process. The hushed calm of the audience when success is near, the restlessness and whispering during a false scent, are equally welcome suggestions which a clever performer freely utilizes, thereby adding to the éclat of his exhibition. When a combination of numbers or of letters in a word is to be guessed, the operator passes over with the subject the several digits or the alphabet, and notes at which the tell-tale tremor or mark of excitement occurs, and so again performs the feat on the basis of the involuntary contractions that express the slight changes of attention or interest when the correct number or letter is indicated. In much the same way we unwittingly betray our feelings and emotions, our interest or distraction or ennui; the correct interpretation of these in others and their suppression in one's self form part of the artificial complexity of social intercourse. But in the line of experimental demonstration also, another form of involuntary movement has been brought forward in recent years by the investigation of Hansen and Lehmann upon "involuntary whispering." This investigation brings out the fact that many of us, when we think intently of a number, tend to innervate the mechanism appropriate to its utterance. We do not actually speak or whisper the word or sound, but we initiate the process. If one person thinks of a number,--say from one to ten, or from one to one hundred,--and the other records any number which at the same moment suggests itself to him, it may result that the proportion of correct or partially correct guesses exceeds that which chance would produce; and arguments for telepathy have been based on such results. In the series of experiments in question these "involuntary whisperings" were not severely suppressed,--much as in the automatograph tests one might determine to let the glass move if it would. It must be understood that there was no true whispering nor any movement of the speaking mechanism which a bystander could detect; and yet it seems likely that the one participant was influenced in his guessing by the vague but yet real, subconscious, embryonic articulation of the other. The proof of this lies mainly in the analysis of the successes and errors; for the confusions are strikingly between numerals of somewhat similar sound,--as between fourteen and forty, or sixty and thirty, or six and seven. If the two persons are seated in the respective foci of two concave surfaces which collect the sound (thus in a measure paralleling the exalted sensibility of specially gifted or hypnotized subjects), the chances of success seem to be increased. While the investigation is both complex and incomplete, yet the general trend of it is sufficiently clear to make it probable that "involuntary whispering" serves more or less frequently as a subconscious and involuntary indication of thought. It shows again that below the threshold of conscious acquisition and intentional expression lie a considerable range of activities, which though they blossom unseen do not quite waste their fragrance, but come wafted over in vague and subtle essence. The falling of a drop of water is unheard, but the sound of the roaring torrent is but the sound of myriads of drops. The boundary between the conscious and the unconscious is broad and indefinite; and vague influences, if not direct messages, pass from one side to the other.

The general bearing of the study of involuntary movements I have indicated at the outset; and no elaborate comment on the practical significance of the results described seems necessary. They certainly facilitate the appreciation of the reality of the subconscious and the involuntary; and in connection with explanations of muscle-reading or telepathy, they illustrate how naturally a neglect of this realm of psychological activity may lead to false conclusions. They bring a striking corroboration of the view that thought is but more or less successfully suppressed action, and as a well-known muscle-reader expresses it, all willing is either pushing or pulling.

THE DREAMS OF THE BLIND

I

Man is predominantly a visual animal. To him seeing is believing,--a saying which in canine parlance might readily become smelling is believing. We teach by illustrations, models, and object-lessons, and reduce complex relations to the curves of the graphic method, to bring home and impress our statements. Our every-day language, as well as the imagery of poetry, abounds in metaphors and similes appealing to images which the eye has taught us to appreciate. The eye is also the medium of impressions of æsthetic as well as of intellectual value; and one grand division of art is lost to those who cannot see. The eye, too, forms the centre of emotional expression, and reveals to our fellow-men the subtile variations in mood and passion, as it is to the physician a delicate index of our well-being. There are reasons for believing that it was the function of sight as a distance-sense that led to its supremacy in the lives of our primitive ancestors. Whatever its origin, the growth of civilization has served to develop this eye-mindedness of the race, and to increase and diversify the modes of its cultivation.

The eye, thus constantly stimulated in waking life, and attracting to its sensations the focus of attention, possessing, as it does, in the retinal fovea a special and unique aid to concentrative attention, does not yield up its supremacy in the world of dreams. The visual centres subside but slowly from their day's stimulation; and the rich stock of images which these centres have stored up is completely at the service of the fancy that guides our dreams. Indeed, the dream itself is spoken of as a vision.

Though, as a race, we are eye-minded, individually we differ much with regard to the rôle that sight plays in our psychic life. In one direction a good index of its importance is to be found in the perfection of the visualizing faculty, of which Mr. Galton has given an interesting account. He asked various persons to describe, amongst other things, the vividness of their mental picture when calling to mind the morning's breakfast-table. To some the mental scene was as clear and as natural as reality, lacking none of the details of form or color; to others the resulting mental image was tolerably distinct, with the conspicuous features well brought out, but the rest dim and ill-defined; while a third group could only piece together a very vague, fragmentary, and unreliable series of images, with no distinct or constant picture.

Similar differences are observable with regard to memories. Some persons firmly retain what they read, while the memory forte of others is in what they hear; and pathology supports this subdivision of the sense-memories by showing, for example, that all remembrance for seen objects may be lost while that for sounds remains intact. A case, remarkable in several aspects, is recorded by M. Charcot. The subject in question could accurately call up, in full detail, all the scenes of his many travels, could repeat pages of his favorite authors from the mental picture of the printed page, and by the same means could mentally add long columns of numbers. The mere mention of a scene in a play, or of a conversation with a friend, immediately brought up a vivid picture of the entire circumstance. Through nervous prostration he lost this visual memory. An attempt to sketch a familiar scene now resulted in a childish scrawl; he remembered little of his correspondence, forgot the appearance of his wife and friends, and even failed to recognize his own image in a mirror. Yet his eyesight was intact and his intellect unimpaired. In order to remember things he had now to have them read aloud to him, and thus bring into play his undisturbed auditory centre--to him an almost new experience.

The function of vision in dreams is doubtless subject to similar individual variations, though probably to a less extent. Seeing, with rare exceptions, constitutes the typical operation in dreams; it is this sense, too, that, under the influence of drugs or of other excitement, is most readily stimulated into morbid action, and most easily furnishes the basis of delusions and hallucinations to a disordered mind. The dependence of the nature and content of dreams upon the waking experiences is so clearly proven that it would be surprising not to find in them the individual characteristics of our mental processes; and if Aristotle is right in saying that in waking life we all have a world in common but in dreams each has a world of his own, we may look to the evidence of dream-life for indications of unrestrained and distinctive psychological traits.

II

With regard to the blind, much of what has been said above is entirely irrelevant. However intimately we appreciate the function of sight in our own mental development, it is almost impossible to imagine how different our life would have been had we never seen. But here, at the outset, a fundamental distinction must be drawn between those blind from birth or early infancy, and those who lose their sight in youth or adult life.[13] "It is better to have seen and lost one's sight than never to have seen at all," is quite as true as the sentiment which this form of statement parodies. Expressed physiologically, this means, that to have begun the general brain-building process with the aid of the eye insures some further self-development of the visual centre, and thus makes possible a kind of mental possession of which those born blind are inevitably deprived.[14]

A fact of prime importance regarding the development of the sight-centre is the age at which its education is sufficiently completed to enable it to continue its function without further object-lessons on the part of the retina. If we accept as the test of the independent existence of the sight-centre its automatic excitation in dreams, the question can be answered by determining the age of the onset of blindness, which divides those who do not from those who still retain in their dream-life the images derived from the world of sight. The data that enable me to answer this question were gathered at the Institutions for the Blind in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Nearly 200 persons of both sexes were personally examined, and their answers to quite a long series of questions recorded. All dates and ages were verified by the register of the institution, and the degree of sight was tested.

Beginning with cases of _total_ blindness (including under this head those upon whom light has simply a general subjective "heat-effect," enabling them to distinguish between night and day, between shade and sunshine, but inducing little or no tendency to project the cause of the sensation into the external world), I find on my list fifty-eight such cases. Of these, thirty-two became blind before the completion of their fifth year, and _not one_ of this group of thirty-two sees in dreams. Six became blind between the fifth and the seventh year: of these, four have dreams of seeing, but two of them do so seldom and with some vagueness; while two never dream of seeing at all. Of twenty persons who became blind after their seventh year _all_ have "dream-vision"--as I shall term the faculty of seeing in dreams. _The period from the fifth to the seventh year is thus indicated as the critical one._ Before this age the visual centre is undergoing its elementary education; its life is closely dependent upon the constant food-supply of sensations; and when these are cut off by blindness, it degenerates and decays. If blindness occurs between the fifth and the seventh years, the preservation of the visualizing power depends on the degree of development of the individual. If the faculty is retained, it is neither stable nor pronounced. If sight is lost after the seventh year, the sight-centre can, in spite of the loss, maintain its function; and the dreams of such an individual may be hardly distinguishable from those of a seeing person.

It was a very unexpected discovery, to find, after I had planned and partly completed this investigation, that I had a predecessor. So long ago as 1838, Dr. G. Heermann studied the dreams of the blind with the view of determining this same question, the physiological significance of which, however, was not then clearly understood. He records the answers of fourteen totally blind persons who lost their sight previous to their fifth year, and _none_ of these has dream-vision. Of four who lost their sight between the fifth and the seventh year, one has dream-vision; one has it dimly and occasionally; and two do not definitely know. Of thirty-five who became blind after their seventh year _all_ have dream-vision. The two independent researches thus yield the very same conclusion. Dr. Heermann includes in his list many aged persons, and from their answers is able to conclude that, generally speaking, those who become blind in mature life retain the power of dream-vision longer than those who become blind nearer the critical age of five to seven years. He records twelve cases where dream-vision still continues after a blindness of from ten to fifteen years, four of from fifteen to twenty years, four of from twenty to twenty-five years, and one of thirty-five years. In one case dream-vision was maintained for fifty-two, and in another for fifty-four years, but then faded out.[15]

With regard to the _partially_ blind, the question most analogous to the persistence of dream-vision after total blindness, is whether or not the dream-vision is brighter and clearer than that of waking life; whether the sight-centre maintains the full normal power to which it was educated, or whether the partial loss of sight has essentially altered and replaced it. To this rather difficult question I have fewer and less satisfactory answers than to the former inquiry; but the evidence is perfectly in accord with the previous conclusions. Of twenty-three who describe their dream-vision as _only as clear_ as waking sight, _all_ became blind _not later_ than the close of their _fifth year_; while of twenty-four whose dream-vision is more or less markedly _clearer_ than their partial sight, _all_ lost their full sight _not earlier_ than their _sixth year_.[16] The age that marks off those to whom total blindness carries with it the loss of dream-vision from those whose dream-vision continues, is thus the age at which the sight-centre has reached a sufficient stage of development to enable it to maintain its full function, when partially or totally deprived of retinal stimulation. The same age is also assigned by some authorities as the limiting age at which deafness will cause muteness (unless special pains be taken to prevent it); while later the vocal organs, though trained to action by the ear, can perform their duties without the teacher's aid. This, too, is assigned as the earliest age at which we have a remembrance of ourselves. This last statement I am able to test by one hundred answers, collected among these blind persons, to the question, "What is your earliest remembrance of yourself?" The average age to which these memories go back is 5.2 years; seventy-nine instances being included between the third and the sixth years. At this period of child development--the centre of which is at about the close of the fifth year--there seems to be a general declaration of independence of the sense-centres from their food-supply of sensations. Mr. Sully finds sense, imagination, and abstraction to be the order in which the precocity of great men reveals itself; and the critical period which we are now considering seems to mark the point at which imagination and abstraction as permanent mental powers ordinarily come into play. M. Perez likewise recognizes the distinctive character of this era of childhood by making the second part of his "Child Psychology" embrace the period from the third to the seventh year.

III

The general fact thus brought to light--that the mode in which a brain-centre will function depends so largely upon its initial education, but that, this education once completed, the centre can maintain its function, though deprived of sense-stimulation--is sufficiently important to merit further illustration.[17] This fact, though very clear and evident when stated from a modern point of view, has not always been recognized. So ingenious a thinker as Erasmus Darwin inferred from two cases (the one of a blind man, the other of a deaf-mute) in which the wanting senses were also absent in dreams, that the peripheral sense-organ was necessary for all perception, subjective as well as objective; and entirely neglected the age at which the sense was lost. Such noted physiologists as Reil, Rudolphi, Hartman, Wardrop (who says, "when an organ of sense is totally destroyed, the ideas which were received by that organ seem to perish along with it as well as the power of perception"), more or less distinctly favored this view; while some teachers of the blind and the physiologists Nasse and Autentreith rightly drew the distinction between those born, and those who became, blind. An experimental demonstration of the original dependence of the perceptive and emotional powers upon sense-impressions was furnished by Boffi and Schiff, who found that young dogs whose olfactory bulbs had been removed failed to develop any affection for man.

What is true of the visual, is doubtless equally true of the other perceptive centres. The dreams of the deaf-mute offer an attractive and untouched field for such study.[18] The few accounts of such dreams that I have met with, fail to give the age at which deafness set in; in one case, however, in which deafness occurred at thirty years, the pantomimic had replaced the spoken language in the dreams of thirty years later. Similarly, cripples dream of their lost limbs for many years after their loss; in such cases, however, stimulation of the cut nerves may be the suggestive cause of such dreams. A man of forty, who lost his right arm seventeen years before, still dreams of having the arm. The earliest age of losing and dreaming about a lost limb, of which I find a record, is of a boy of thirteen years who lost a leg at the age of ten; this boy still dreams of walking on his feet. Those who are born cripples must necessarily have their defects represented in their dream consciousness. Heermann cites the case of a man born without hands, forearms, feet, or lower legs. He always dreamt of walking on his knees; and all the peculiarities of his movements were present in his dream-life.

The dreams of those both blind and deaf are especially instructive. Many of Laura Bridgman's dreams have been recorded; and an unpublished manuscript by Dr. G. Stanley Hall places at my service a valuable account of her sleep and dreams. Sight and hearing were as absent from her dreams as they were from the dark and silent world which alone she knew. The tactual-motor sensations, by which she communicated with her fellow-beings, and through which almost all her intellectual food reached her, also formed her mainstay in dreams. This accounts for the suddenness and fright with which she often waked from her dreams; she is perchance dreaming of an animal, which to us would first make itself seen or heard, but to her is present only when it touches and startles her--for she lacks any anticipatory sense. Language has become so all-important a factor in civilized life, that it naturally is frequently represented in dreams. We not only dream of speaking and being spoken to, but we actually innervate the appropriate muscles and talk in our sleep; this Laura Bridgman also did. "Her sleep seemed almost never undisturbed by dreams. Again and again she would suddenly talk a few words or letters with her fingers, too rapidly and too imperfectly to be intelligible (just as other people utter incoherent words and inarticulate sounds in sleep), but apparently never making a sentence."[19] So, too, all the people who enter into her dreams talk with their fingers. This habit had already presented itself at the age of twelve, four years after her first lesson in the alphabet. "I do not dream to talk with mouth; I dream to talk with fingers." No prettier illustration could be given of the way in which her fancy built upon her real experiences, than the fact recorded by Charles Dickens, that on picking up her doll he found across its eyes a green band such as she herself wore. The organic sensations originating in the viscera, though often prominently represented in dreams of normal persons, seemed especially prominent in her dreams. She tells of feeling her blood rush about, and of her heart beating fast when suddenly waking, much frightened, from a distressing dream. One such dream she describes as "hard, heavy, and thick;" terms which, though to us glaringly inappropriate in reference to so fairy-like a structure as a dream, form an accurate description in the language of her own realistic senses. In short, her dreams are accurately modeled upon the experiences of her waking life, reproducing in detail all the peculiarities of thought and action which a very special education had impressed upon her curious mind.