Part 24
Ibid., p. 152. It is interesting to note that statistics show that traumatic psychoses following railway accidents are comparatively rare among trainmen, while exceedingly common among passengers. The reason is to be found in the difference in the settings of ideas of accidents in the two classes of persons. It is the same psychological difference that distinguishes the seasoned veteran soldier from the raw recruit in the presence of the enemy.
LECTURE XI MEANING, SETTING, AND THE FRINGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
=The content of the fringe of consciousness considered as a subconscious zone.=—It is obvious that all the past experiences which originate the meaning of an idea cannot be in consciousness at a given moment. If I carefully introspect my imaginal perception or idea of an object, say of a politician, I do not find in my consciousness all the elements which have given me my viewpoint or attitude of mind toward him—the meaning of my idea of him as a great statesman or a demagogue, whichever it be—and yet it may not be difficult, by referring to my memory, to find the past experiences which have furnished the setting which gives this viewpoint. Very little of all these past experiences can be in the content of consciousness, and much less in the focus of attention, at any given moment, nevertheless I cannot doubt that these experiences really determined the meaning of my idea, for if challenged I proceed to recite this conserved knowledge. And so it is with everyone who defends the validity of the meaning of his ideas.
The question at once comes to mind in the case of any given perception, how much of past experience (associated ideas) is in consciousness at any given moment as the setting which provides the meaning?
That the meaning must be in consciousness is obvious; else the term “meaning” would have no meaning—it would be sheer nonsense to talk of ideas having meaning. As I have said, the meaning may be in the focus of attention or it may be in the fringe or background according to the point of interest. If in the focus of attention, meaning plainly may, synchronously or successively, include ideas of quite a large number of past experiences, but if in the background it may be another matter. In this case it may be held, and probably in many instances quite rightly, that meaning is a short summary of past experiences, or summing up in the form of a symbol, and that this summary or symbol is in the focus of attention or in the fringe of awareness, i. e., is clearly or dimly conscious. Thus, in one of the examples above given, the industrial meaning of the owner’s idea of the building might be a short summing up of his past cogitations on the business value of the property; in the case of my idea of the politician, the symbol “statesman” or “demagogue”—as the case might be—might be in consciousness and be the meaning. All the rest of the past associative experiences in either case would furnish the origin of the setting but would not be the actual functioning setting itself.
It must be confessed, however, that the content of meaning, when it is not in the focus of attention, often becomes very elusive when we try to clearly revive it retrospectively and differentiate the particular states of consciousness present at any given moment. It is probably because of this elusiveness, as of something that seems to evade analysis, that it was so long overlooked as an object of psychological study. Yet if meaning is not something more than an abstract term, and is really a component of a moment’s consciousness, we ought to be able to analyze it in any given instance provided our methods of investigation are adequate. The difficulty, I think, largely arises from the fact that the minute we direct attention to such elements of the content of consciousness of any given moment as are not in the focus of attention they at once become shifted into the focus and the composition of the content also becomes altered. Consequently we are never _immediately_ vividly or fully aware of the whole content. The only method of learning what is the whole content at any given moment is by _retrospection_—the recovery of it as memory. Further, special technical methods are required. Then, too, image and meaning are constantly shifting their relative positions, at one time the one being in the focus of attention, the other in the fringe, and _vice versa_.
When speaking colloquially of the content of consciousness we have in mind those ideas or components of ideas—elements of thought—which are in the focus of attention, and therefore that of which we are more or less vividly aware. If you were asked to state what was in your mind at a given moment it is the vivid elements, upon which your attention was focused, that you would describe. But, as everyone knows, these do not constitute the whole field of consciousness at any given moment. Besides these there is in the background of the mind, outside the focus, _a conscious margin or fringe_ of varying extent (_consisting of sensations, perceptions, and even thoughts_) _of which you are only dimly aware_. It is a sort of twilight zone in which the contents are so slightly illuminated by awareness as to be scarcely recognizable. The contents of this zone are readily forgotten owing to their having been outside the focus of attention; but much can be recalled if an effort to do so (retrospection) is made immediately after any given moment’s experience. Much can only be recalled by the use of special technical methods of investigation. I believe that the more thoroughly this wonderful region is explored the richer it will be found to be in conscious elements.
It must not be thought that because we are only dimly aware of the contents of this twilight zone therefore the individual elements lack definiteness and positive reality. To do so is to confuse the awareness of a certain something with that something itself. To so think would be like thinking that, because we do not distinctly recognize objects in the darkness, therefore they are but shadowy forms without substance. When, in states of abstraction or hypnosis, the ideas of this fringe of attention are recalled, as often is easily done, they are remembered as _very definite, real, conscious elements_, and the memory of them is as vivid as that of most thoughts. That these marginal ideas are not “vivid” at the time of their occurrence means simply that they are not in such dynamic relations with the whole content of consciousness as to be the focus of awareness or attention. What sort of relations are requisite for “awareness” is an unsolved problem. It seems to be a matter not only of synthesis but of dynamic relations within the synthesis.
However that may be, outside that dynamic synthesis which we distinguish as the focus of attention we can at certain moments recognize or recall to memory (whether through technical devices or not) a number of different conscious states. These may be roughly classified as follows:
1: Visual, auditory, and other sensory impressions to which we are not giving attention—(e. g., the striking of a clock; the sound of horses passing in the street; voices from the next room; coenæsthetic and other sensations of the body.
2: The secondary sensory images of which I spoke in the last lecture as taking part in perception.
3: Associative memories and thoughts pertaining to the ideas in the focus of attention.
4: Secondary independent trains of thought not related to those in the focus of attention. (As when we are doing one thing or listening to conversation and thinking of something else. Very likely, however, what appear to be secondary trains of thought are often only alternating trains. I have, however, a considerable collection of data showing such concomitant secondary trains in certain subjects (cf. Lecture VI). Such a train can be demonstrated to be a precisely differentiated “stream” of consciousness in absent-minded conditions, where it may constitute a veritable doubling of consciousness.
Some of these marginal elements may be so distinctly within the field of awareness that we are conscious of them, but dimly so.[165] Others, in particular cases at least, may be so far outside and hidden in the twilight obscurity that the subject is not even dimly aware of them. In more technical parlance, we may say, they are so far dissociated that they belong to _an ultra-marginal zone and are really subconscious_. Evidence of their having been present can only be obtained through memories recovered in hypnosis, abstraction, and by other methods. These may be properly termed coconscious. Undoubtedly the degree of awareness for marginal elements, i.e., the degree of dissociation between the elements of the content of consciousness, varies at different moments in the same individual according to the degree of concentration of attention and the character of the fixation, e. g., whether upon the environment or upon inner thoughts. It also varies much in different individuals. Therefore some persons lend themselves as more favorable subjects for the detection of marginal and ultra-marginal states than others. Furthermore, according to certain evidence at hand, there is, in some persons at least, a constant shifting or interchange of elements going on between the field of attention and the marginal and the ultra-marginal zone—what is within the first at one moment is in the second, or is entirely subconscious, the next, and _vice versa_.
Amnesia develops very rapidly for the contents of the twilight region, as I have already stated, and this renders their recognition difficult.[166]
In favorable subjects memory of that portion of the content of consciousness which is commonly called the fringe can be recovered in abstraction and hypnosis. In these states valuable information can be obtained regarding the content of consciousness at any given previous moment,[167] and this information reveals that there were present in the fringe conscious states of which the subject was never aware, or of which he is later ignorant owing to amnesia. I have studied the fringe of consciousness by this method in a number of subjects. A number of years ago _a systematic study_ of the field of the content of consciousness outside the focus of awareness, including not only the fringe but what may be called the ultra-marginal (subconscious) zone, was made in a very favorable subject (Miss B.), and the general results were given in an address on the “Problems of Abnormal Psychology”[168] at the Congress of Arts and Sciences held in St. Louis (1904). I may be permitted to quote that summary here. The term “secondary consciousness” is used in this passage to designate the fringe and ultra-marginal (subconscious) zone.
"A systematic examination was made of the personal consciousness in hypnosis regarding the perceptions and content of the secondary consciousness during definite moments, of which the events were prearranged or otherwise known, the subject not being in absent-mindedness. It is not within the scope of an address of this sort to give the details of these observations, but in this connection I may state briefly a summary of the evidence, reserving the complete observation for future publication. It was found that—
"1. A large number of perceptions—visual, auditory, tactile, and thermal images, and sometimes emotional states—occurred outside of the personal consciousness and, therefore, the subject was not conscious of them when awake. The visual images were particularly those of peripheral vision, such as the extra-conscious [marginal or ultra-marginal] perception of a person in the street who was not recognized by the personal waking consciousness; and the perception of objects intentionally placed in the field of peripheral vision and not perceived by the subject, whose attention was held in conversation. Auditory images of passing carriages, of voices, footsteps, etc., thermal images of heat and cold from the body were similarly found to exist extra-consciously, and to be entirely unknown to the personal waking consciousness.
"2. As to the content of the concomittant (dissociated) ideas, it appeared, by the testimony of the hypnotic self, that as compared with those of the waking consciousness the secondary ideas were quite limited. They were, as is always the experience of the subject, made up for the most part of emotions (e. g., annoyances), and sensations (visual, auditory, and tactile images of a room, of particular persons, people’s voices, etc). They were not combined into a logical proposition, though in using words to describe them it is necessary to so combine them and therefore give them a rather artificial character as ‘thoughts.’ It is questionable whether the word ‘thoughts’ may be used to describe mental states of this kind, and the word was used by the hypnotic self subject to this qualification. Commonly, I should infer, a succession of such ‘thoughts’ may arise, but each is for the most part limited to isolated emotions and sensorial images and lacks the complexity and synthesis of the waking mentation.
"3. The memories, emotions, and perceptions of which the subject is not conscious when awake are remembered in hypnosis and described. The thoughts of which the subject is conscious when awake are those which are concentrated on what she is doing. The others, of which she is not conscious, are a sort of side-thoughts. These are not logically connected among themselves, are weak, and have little influence on the personal (chief) train of thought. Now, although when awake the subject is conscious of some thoughts and not of others, both kinds keep running into one another and therefore the conscious and the subconscious are constantly uniting, disuniting, and interchanging. _There is no hard and fast line between the conscious and the subconscious, for at times what belongs to one passes into the other, and vice versa._ The waking self is varying the grouping of its thoughts all the time in such a way as to be continually including and excluding the subconscious thoughts. The personal pronoun ‘I,’ or, when spoken to, ‘you,’ applied equally to her waking self and to her hypnotic self, _but these terms were not applicable to her unconscious thoughts, which were not self-conscious_. For convenience of terminology it was agreed to arbitrarily call the thoughts of which the subject is conscious when awake the _waking consciousness_, and the thoughts of which when awake she is not conscious the _secondary consciousness_. In making this division the hypnotic self insisted most positively on one distinction, namely that the secondary consciousness was in no sense a _personality_. The pronoun _I_ could not be applied to it. In speaking of the thoughts of this second group of mental states alone, she could not say ‘I felt this,’ ‘I saw that.’ These thoughts were better described as, for the most part, unconnected, discrete sensations, impressions, and emotions, and were not synthesized into a personality. They were not, therefore, self-conscious. When the waking self was hypnotized, the resulting hypnotic self acquired the subconscious perceptions of the second consciousness; she then could say ‘_I_,’ and the hypnotic ‘_I_’ included what were formerly ‘subconscious’ perceptions. In speaking of the secondary personality by itself, then, it is to be understood that self-consciousness and personality are always excluded. This testimony was verified by test instances of subconscious perception of visual and auditory images of experiences occurring in my presence.
"4. Part played by the secondary consciousness in (a) normal mentation. The hypnotic self testified that the thoughts of the secondary consciousness do not form a logical chain. They do not have volition. They are entirely passive and have no direct control over the subject’s voluntary actions.
"(b) Part played by the secondary consciousness in absent-mindedness. (1) Some apparently absent-minded acts are only examples of amnesia. There is no doubling of consciousness at the time. It is a sort of continuous amnesia brought about by lack of attention. (2) In true absent-mindedness there does occur a division of consciousness along lines which allow a large field to, and relatively wide synthesis of the dissociated states. The personal consciousness is proportionately restricted. The subconscious thoughts may involve a certain amount of volition and judgment, as when the subject subconsciously took a book from the table, carried it to the bookcase, started to place it on the shelf, found that particular location unsuitable, arranged a place on another shelf where the book was finally placed. No evidence, however, was obtained to show that the dissociated consciousness is capable of wider and more original synthesis than is involved in adapting habitual acts to the circumstances of the moment.
"(c) Solving problems by the secondary consciousness. [The statement of the hypnotic self regarding the part played by the ‘secondary consciousness’ has already been given in Lecture VI, p. 167.]
“The subject of these observations was at the time in good mental and physical condition. Criticism may be made that, the subject being one who had exhibited for a long time previously the phenomena of mental dissociation, she now, though for the time being recovered, tended to a greater dissociation and formation of subconscious states than does a normal person, and that the subconscious phenomena were therefore exaggerated. This is true. It is probable that the subconscious flora of ideas in this subject are richer than in the ordinary individual. These phenomena probably represent the extreme degree of dissociation compatible with normality. And yet, curiously enough, the evidence tended to show that the more robust the health of the individual, the more stable her mind, the richer the field of these ideas.”
Of course it is a question how far the findings in a particular and apparently specially favorable subject are applicable to people in general. I would say, however, that I have substantially confirmed these observations in another subject, B. C. A., when in apparent health. In this latter subject the richness of the fringe and what may be called the ultra-marginal region in conscious states is very striking. The same is true of O. N. (cf. Lecture VI, p. 174). Again in psychasthenics, suffering from attacks of phobia, association, or habit psycho-neuroses, etc., I have been able to recover, after the attack has passed off, memories of conscious states which during and preliminary to the attack were outside the focus of attention. Of some of these the subject had been dimly aware, and of some apparently entirely unaware (i.e., they were coconscious). For the former as well as the latter there followed complete amnesia, so that the subject was ignorant of their previous presence, and believed that the whole content of consciousness was included in the anxiety or other state which occupied the focus of attention. Consequently I am in the habit, when investigating a pathological case, like an obsession, of inquiring (by technical methods) into the fringe of attention and even the ultra-marginal region, and reviving the ideas contained therein, particularly those for which there is amnesia. My purpose has been to discover the presence of ideas or thoughts which as a setting would explain the meaning of the idea which was the object of fear (a phobia), the exciting cause of psycho-neurotic attacks, etc. To this I shall presently return.
If all that I have said is true, it follows that the _whole content or field of consciousness at any given moment includes not only considerably more than that which is within the field of attention but more than is within the field of awareness_. The field of conscious states as a whole comprises the focus of attention plus the marginal fringe; and besides this there may be a true subconscious ultra-marginal field comprising conscious states of which the personal consciousness is not even dimly aware. We may schematically represent the relations of the different fields by a diagram (Fig. 1).
It will be noted that the field of conscious states includes A., B., and C. and is larger than that of awareness, which includes A. and B. The field of awareness is larger than that of attention (A.), but the focus of awareness coincides with the field of attention, or, as it is ordinarily termed, the focus of attention. Of course there is no sharp line of demarcation between any of these fields, but a gradual shading from A. to D. Any such diagrammatic representation, although of help to those who like to visualize concepts, must give a false viewpoint; as in reality the relations are dynamic or functional, and the different fields more properly should be viewed as different but inter-related participants in a large dynamic mechanism.
=The meaning of ideas may be found in the fringe of consciousness.=—Let us now return from this general survey of the fringe of consciousness to our theme—the setting which gives meaning to ideas.
It is obvious that, theoretically, when I attend to the perceptive images of an idea, the meaning of that idea, not being in the focus of awareness, may be found among the conscious states that make up the fringe of the dynamic field. For instance, if my idea of a certain politician, my knowledge of whom, we will say, has been gained entirely from the newspapers, is that of a bad man—a “crook”—this meaning may be dimly in the fringe of my awareness. It is not necessary that any large part of this knowledge should be in the marginal zone of the content of consciousness but only a summary of all the knowledge I have acquired regarding him. The _origin_ of this meaning—a crook—I can easily find in my associative memories of what I have read. But there would seem to be no need of all these to persist as a functioning setting—a short summary in the form of an idea, secondary image, a word or symbol of a bad man would seem to be sufficient. The same principle is applicable to a large number of the simple images of objects in my environment—a book, an electric lamp, a horse, etc.
It is not easy with such normal ideas of everyday life to analyze the fringe and determine precisely its contents. There is no sharp dividing line between the various zones—the whole being a dynamic system. _The moment attention is directed to the marginal zones they become the focus and vice versa._ To obtain accurate knowledge of the marginal zones we require individuals suitable for a special technique by which the constituents of these zones can be brought back as memory.
For such purposes certain persons with pathological ideas (e. g., phobias)[169] are very favorable subjects for various reasons not necessary to go into.
Now, as respects the simple normal ideas of everyday life, such as I have just cited, a person can give very clearly his viewpoint. He has a very definite notion of the meaning of his perceptions and can give his reasons for them based on his associative memories of past experiences which he can recall. But in the conditions to which I am now referring _a person can give no explanation_ of a particular viewpoint which may be of a very definite but unusual (abnormal) character. Nor can he recall any experiences which would explain the origin of it. I have in mind particularly the obsessions.