Part 8

=Similar residual processes underlying post-hypnotic phenomena.=—Conserved experiences which give rise to more complicated secondary elaboration may be observed in suggested post-hypnotic phenomena. Experiments of this kind may be varied in many ways. The phenomenon may be an hallucination similar to the one I have just described in hysterics, or a so-called subconscious calculation. You suggest in hypnosis to a suitable subject that he shall multiply certain numbers, or calculate the number of seconds intervening between certain hours—let us say between 10:43 and 5:13 o’clock—the answer to be given in writing on a certain day. The subject is then awakened immediately, before he has time to do the calculation while in hypnosis. Later, if the experiment is successful, at the time designated the subject will absent-mindedly or automatically write the figures giving the answer.

There are two modes in which these calculations may be accomplished. In a special and limited class of cases, where there is a large split-off subconscious personality, or doubling of consciousness, the calculation may be made entirely by this secondary subconscious self, in the same fashion as it would be made by the principal personality if the problem were given in the waking state. The subconscious personality will go through each conscious step in the calculation in the same way.[47] In a second class of cases the _calculations are worked out, apparently, unconsciously_, without participation in the process by a subconscious personality even when such exists. At most it would seem that isolated numbers representing different steps in the calculation arise from time to time coconsciously as a limited secondary consciousness (of which the personal consciousness is unaware) until finally the figures of the completed answer appear therein. The calculation itself appears to be still another process outside both the personal and the secondary consciousness. When the problem has been finished the answer is finally given automatically. The whole process is too complicated to go into at this time before we have studied the problems of the coconscious.[48] It is enough to say that it is plain that the hypnotic experience—the suggested problem—must be considered as some kind of specific residuum, psychological or neural, and that this residuum must be one capable of quite elaborate independent and subconscious intellectual activity before finally becoming transformed into the final answer.

=Residual processes underlying dreams.=—When citing the evidence of dreams for the conservation of forgotten experiences I spoke of one type of dream as a symbolical memory. I may now add it is more than this; it is a fabrication. The original experience or thought may appear in the dream after being worked over into a fantasy, allegory, symbolism, or other product of imagination. Such a dream is not a recurrent phase of consciousness, but a _newly fabricated phase_. Further, analytical and experimental researches go to show that the fabrication is performed by the original phase without the latter recurring in the content of the personal consciousness. The original phase must therefore have been conserved in some form capable of such independent and specific functioning, i.e., fabrication below the threshold of consciousness. For instance:

The subject dreamed that she was standing where two roads separated. One was broad and bright and beautiful, and many people she knew were going that way. The other road was the rocky path, quite dark, and no one was going that way, but she had to go. And she said, “Oh, why must I go this way? Will no one go with me?” And a voice replied, “I will go with you.” She looked around, and there were some tall black figures; they all had names across their foreheads in bright letters, and the one who spoke was Disappointment; and all the others said, “We will go with you,” and they were Sorrow, Loss, Pain, Fear, and Loneliness, and she fell down on her face in anguish.

Now an analysis of the antecedent thought of this subject and a knowledge of her circumstances and mental life, though we cannot go into them here, make it perfectly clear that as a fact, whether there was any causal connection or not, this dream _was_ a symbolic expression of those thoughts. The rocky path has been shown to be symbolic of her conception of her own life entertained through years—the other road symbolic of the life longed for and imagined as granted to others. Likewise the rest of the dream symbolized, in a way which any one can easily recognize, the lot which she had in her disappointment actually fancied was hers. The thoughts thus symbolized had been constantly recurring thoughts and therefore had been conserved. They were reproduced in the dream, not in their original form, but translated into symbols and an allegory. Something must, therefore, have effected the translation. In other words, the dream is not a recurrent phase of consciousness but _an allegorical fabrication_ which expresses these thoughts, not literally as they originally occurred, but in the form of an imaginative story. Now the similarity of the allegorical dream thoughts to the original thoughts can be explained only in two ways: either as pure chance coincidence, or through a relation of cause and effect. In the latter case the dream might have been determined either by the specific antecedent thoughts in question—those revealed as memories in the analysis, or both series might have been determined by a third, as yet unrevealed, series. For the purposes of the present problem it is immaterial which so long as the dream was determined by some antecedent thought. The very great frequency, not to say universality, with which this same similarity or a logical relation with antecedent thoughts is found in dreams after analysis renders chance coincidence very improbable. We must believe, therefore, that the dream was determined by antecedent experiences. It is beyond my purpose to enter here into an exposition of the theory of the mechanism of dreams, although I shall touch upon it later in some detail in connection with subconscious processes. We need here only concern ourselves with this mechanism so far as it bears upon the principle of conservation. Suffice it to say that analytical observations (Freud) have, it seems to me, conclusively shown that conserved experiences may be not only the determining factors in dreams, but that _while in a state of conservation they are capable of undergoing elaborate fabrication and afterwards appearing so thoroughly transformed in consciousness as not to be superficially recognizable_. I have also been able to reach the same conclusions by the method of experimental production of dreams.

The only question is, in what form can a thought be so conserved that it can, _while still in a state of conservation_, without itself rising into consciousness, fabricate a symbolism, allegory, or other work requiring imagination and reasoning? The only logical and intelligible inference is that the antecedent conscious experience has been either itself specifically conserved as such outside of the personal consciousness, or has left some neural residuum or disposition capable of functioning and constructing the conscious dream fabrication.

=Residual processes underlying physiological bodily disturbances.=—Before proceeding further I would invite your attention to another class of facts as these facts must be taken into consideration in any theory of conservation. These facts show that the residua can, by subconscious functioning, induce _physiological bodily manifestations_ without reproducing the original mental experience as conscious memory. In certain abnormal conditions of the nervous system, i.e., in certain psychoneuroses, we meet with certain involuntary actions of the limbs or muscles known as spasms and contractures; also with certain impairment of functions such as blindness, deafness, loss of sensation (anesthesia), paralysis, etc. These disturbances are purely functional, meaning that they are not due to any organic disease. Now the evidence seems to be conclusive that these physiological disturbances are caused sometimes by ideas after they have passed out of consciousness and become, as ideas, dormant, i.e., while they are in a state of conservation and have ceased to be ideas—or, at least, ideas of which the subject is aware. A moment’s consideration will convince you that this means that ideas, or, at least, experiences in a state of conservation, and without being reproduced as conscious memory, can so function as to affect the body in one or other of the ways I have mentioned. To do this they must exist in some specific form that is independent of the personal consciousness of the moment. To take, for example, an actual case which I have elsewhere described:

B. C. A., in a dream, had a visual hallucination of a flash of light which revealed a scene in a cave and which was followed by blindness such as would physiologically follow a tremendous flash. In the dream she is warned that if she looks into the cave, she will be blinded. She looks; there is a blinding flash and loss of vision follows; after waking she was still partially blind, but she continued from time to time to see momentary flashes of light revealing certain of the objects seen in the dream in the cave, and these flashes would be succeeded temporarily by absolute blindness as in the dream. She had no memory of the dream. Now psychological analysis disclosed the meaning of the dream; it was a symbolical representation of certain conserved (subconscious) previous thoughts—thoughts apprehensive of the future into which she dared not look, thinking she would be overwhelmed. _While in a state of conservation_ the residua of _these_ antecedent thoughts had translated themselves into the symbolical hallucination of the dream and the loss of vision. Similarly after waking, although she had no memory of the dream, the conserved residua of the same thoughts continued to translate themselves into visual hallucinations and to induce blindness.[49] It would take too long for me to enter here into the details of the analysis which forces this conclusion.[50]

Similarly, as is well known, convulsions resembling epilepsy, paralysis, spasms, tics, contractures, etc., may be caused directly or indirectly by ideas, after they have passed out of consciousness and ceased to take part in the conscious processes of thought. At least that is the interpretation which the facts elicited by the various methods of investigation seem to require.

There is an analogous class of phenomena which ought to be mentioned among the possible data bearing upon the theory of memory, although too much weight cannot be placed upon them as their interpretation is not wholly clear. I will discuss them in detail later in connection with the phenomena of the emotions. They are certain _emotional phenomena_ which are attributed by some writers to ideas in a state of conservation. It has been demonstrated that ideas to which strong feeling tones are attached are accompanied by such physiological effects as disturbance of respiration, of the heart’s action, of the vaso-motor system, of the secretions, etc., and also by certain _galvanic phenomena_ which are due to the diminution of the electrical resistance of the body, probably caused by increased secretion of sweat.[51]

Now the point is that such phenomena are sometimes experimentally obtained in connection with certain test words[52] spoken to the subject experimented upon, although he has no recollection of any incident in his life which could have given an emotional tone to the word and, therefore, can give no explanation of the physical reaction. By various technical methods, however, memories of a forgotten emotional experience in which the idea (represented by the word) plays a part and through which it derived its emotional tone are resurrected. I have been able to obtain such reactions from test words which investigation showed referred to the incidents of terrifying dreams which were _completely forgotten_ in the waking state. When the test word was given, the subject might, for instance, exhibit a respiratory disturbance—a sudden gasp—without conscious knowledge of its significance, and the galvanometer, with which the subject was in circuit, would show a wide deflection. Recovery of the dream in hypnosis would explain the meaning of the emotional disturbance excited by the word. The interpretation which has been put upon such phenomena is that the residua of the forgotten experience are “struck” by the test word. As the forgotten experience originally included the emotion and its physiological reaction, so the residua are linked by association to the emotional mechanism and when stimulated function as a subconscious process and excite the reaction. If this interpretation, strongly held by some, be correct, the phenomena are important for the support they give to the theory of conservation. They would indicate that conscious experiences must be conserved in a very specific subconscious form, one that is capable, without becoming conscious memory, of exciting the physiological apparatus of the emotions in a manner identical with that of conscious emotional ideas. They are open, however, to a simpler explanation, whether more probable or not: namely, that it is not the residua of the forgotten experience which unconsciously excite the physiological reaction, but the auditory symbol, the test word itself. The symbol having been once associated with the emotional reaction, it afterwards of itself, through a short circuit so to speak, suffices to induce the reaction, though the origin of the association has been forgotten and, therefore, the subject is in entire ignorance of the reason for the strong feeling manifestation. On the other hand, in some instances test words associated with emotional experiences which _originally_ were entirely coconscious and _had never entered conscious awareness at all_ give the reactions in question.[53] As coconscious memories of such experiences can be demonstrated it would seem at first sight as if under such conditions the word-reactions must come from a true subconscious process—the subconscious memory. And yet even here it is difficult to eliminate absolutely the possibility of the second interpretation. There are, however, a large number of emotional phenomena occurring in pathological conditions which can only be intelligibly interpreted as being due to the residua of previously conscious experiences functioning as a subconscious process. These phenomena we shall have occasion to review in succeeding lectures. They are too complex to enter upon at this stage.

Aside, then, from these word-reactions we have a sufficient number of other phenomena, such as I have cited, which indicate that conscious experiences when conserved must persist in a form capable of exciting purely physiological reactions without the experiences themselves rising into consciousness again as memory. The form must also be one which permits of their functioning as intelligent processes although not within the conscious field of awareness of the moment.

As a final summing up of the experiments and observations of the kind which I have thus far cited, dealing with forgotten experiences, we may say that they lead us to the following conclusions:

1. That conservation is something very different from reproduction.

2. A given experience is conserved through the medium of some kind of residuum of that experience. This residuum must have a specific existence independent of consciousness, in that it is capable of specific and independent functioning, coincidentally with and outside of the consciousness of any given moment. Its nature must be such that it can incite through specific processes the following phenomena in none of which the conscious processes of the moment take part as factors:

(a) Specific memory for the given experience expressed through the established physiological mechanisms of external expression (speech, writing, gestures) after the manner of a mnesic process.

(b) A mnesic hallucination which is a representation of the antecedent perceptual experience but after having undergone translation into terms of another sense.

(c) A mnesic hallucination in which the original experience appears synthesized with various other experiences into an elaborate representation of a complex experience, or secondarily elaborated into a symbolism, allegory or other fabrication.

(d) Mnesic phenomena which are a logical continuation of the antecedent conscious experiences and such as ordinarily are produced by conscious processes of thought—reasoning, imagination, volition (mathematical calculations, versification, fabrication, etc.).

(e) Physical phenomena (paralyses contractures, vasomotor disturbances, etc.).

In other words a specific experience while in a state of conservation and without being reproduced in consciousness can incite or induce processes which incite these and similar phenomena.

Footnote 45:

Lecture III, p. 58.

Footnote 46:

For specific instances, see Lecture VII.

Footnote 47:

Morton Prince: Experimental Evidence for Coconscious Ideation, _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April-May, 1908.

Footnote 48:

For further details, see Lecture VI, p. 169.

Footnote 49:

Prince: Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, _Jour. of Abn. Psych._, October-November, 1910.

Footnote 50:

If, lacking this knowledge of the data, any one chooses to insist that it was not the conserved residua of previous thoughts, but of the dream itself (the only alternative entertainable explanation) which induced, _after waking_, the hallucinatory phenomena and blindness, we still fall back upon the same principle, namely, that of the subconscious functioning of conserved residua of a conscious experience producing a physiological (and psychological) effect.

Footnote 51:

According to recent researches of Sidis in conjunction with Kalmus, and later with Nelson (The Nature and Causation of the Galvanic Phenomenon, Psychological Review, March, 1910) similar galvanic phenomena under similar conditions may be caused by the _generation_ of an electric current within the body.

Footnote 52:

The test word (e. g., boat, stone, hat, etc.) of course represents an idea which may have various associations in the mind of the subject.

Footnote 53:

Morton Prince and Frederick Peterson: Experiments in Psycho-Galvanic Reactions from Coconscious (Subconscious) Ideas in a Case of Multiple Personality, _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April-May, 1908.

LECTURE V NEUROGRAMS

We have got as far as showing that the phenomena of memory to be intelligible require that ideas which have passed out of mind must be conserved through some sort of residuum left by the original experience. But this as a theory of memory is incomplete; the question remains, _How_, and in what form, manner, or way, are they conserved? In other words, What is the nature of the residuum? Is it psychical or physical?[54] As we have seen, from the fact that something outside of the personal consciousness can manifest memory of a given experience at the very same moment when the personal consciousness has amnesia for that experience, we are compelled to infer that conservation must be by a medium, psychological or physiological, capable of being excited as a specific secondary process. Now this medium must be either an undifferentiated “Psyche” or specific differentiated residua. In the former case we postulate a concept of a transcendental something beyond experience and of which, like the soul after death, we have and can have no knowledge. To this concept of an undifferentiated Psyche we shall return presently.

If the second alternative—specific differentiated residua—be the medium by which experiences are conserved, then the residua must be either specific psychological states, i.e., the original psychological experience itself as such; or neural residua (or dispositions) such as when excited are ordinarily correlated with a conscious memory. In either case the medium would be such as to permit of the experiences manifesting themselves, while so conserved outside of the personal consciousness, as a very specific secondary process, not only reproducing the original experience as memory, but elaborating the same and exhibiting imagination, reasoning, volition, feeling, etc. Unless the doctrine of the undifferentiated Psyche be accepted it is difficult to conceive of any other mode in which conservation can be effected so as to permit of the phenomena of memory outside of consciousness.

=Conservation considered as psychological residua.=—It is hypothetically possible that our thoughts and other mental experiences after they have passed out of mind, out of our awareness of the moment, may continue their psychological existence as such although we are not aware of them. Such an hypothesis derives support from the fact that researches of recent years in abnormal psychology have given convincing evidence that an idea, under certain conditions, after it has passed out of our awareness may still from time to time take on another sort of existence, _one in which it still remains an idea, although our personal consciousness of the moment is not aware of it_. A coconscious idea, it may be called. More than this, in absent-mindedness, in states of abstraction, in artificial conditions as typified in automatic writing, and particularly in pathological conditions (hysteria), it has been fairly demonstrated, as I think we are entitled to assert, that coconscious ideas in the form of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, even large systems of ideas, may function and pursue autonomous and contemporaneous activity outside of the various systems of ideas which make up the personal consciousness. It usually is not possible for the individual to bring such ideas within the focus of his awareness. Therefore, there necessarily results a doubling of consciousness,—two consciousnesses, one of which is the personal consciousness and the other a coconsciousness. These phenomena need to be studied by themselves. We shall consider them here only so far as they bear on the problem of conscious memory. Observation has shown that among ideas of this kind it often happens that many are memories, reproductions of ideas that once belonged to the personal consciousness. Hence, on first thought, it seems plausible that conservation might be effected by the content of any moment’s consciousness becoming _coconscious_ after the ideas have passed out of awareness. According to such an hypothesis all the conscious experiences of our lives, that are conserved, would form a great coconscious field where they would continue their existence in specific form as ideas, and whence they could be drawn upon for use at any future time.

Various difficulties are raised by this hypothesis. In the first place, there is no evidence that coconscious ideas have a continuous existence. The technical methods of investigation which give evidence of such ideas functioning outside of the awareness of the personal consciousness do not show that at any given moment they are any more extensive than are those which fill the field of the personal consciousness. Indeed, usually, the coconscious field is of very limited extent. There remains an enormous field of conserved experiences to be accounted for. So far then as coconscious ideas can be discovered by our methods of investigation they are _inadequate to account for the whole of the conservation of life’s experiences_.